4

Sousa

Hey Guys

Well this is actually a story of something that happened to me but I had always wanted to make it NH and then the opportunity came up for me to write the story for English class and my teacher loved it so I changed some names and things and am now making it NH and posting it. It's a short ficlet and it's not much but I just want to DISCLAIMER that in NO way am I saying BJL is chubby or anything of the sort. She's GORGEOUS! And this is AU so please don't think I'm saying anything negative about her because I love her! It's first person and I'd love feedback! It can be positive or negative. Anyways here we go…

Remember Haley's POV oh and forgive the Tim-ness I had to make it him because of the best friend angle…you'll see..

His Words

As a child I was teased. Some people say all children get picked on at some point or another. I don't quite agree with that generalization; I don't think every child gets picked on, at least not in the same ways and not for the same reasons.

I've always been chubby, fat, whatever you want to call it; that's how I've been since the time I was a baby, I mean I weighed nine pounds and six ounces when I was born. Regardless, being chubby makes one a slow runner, and the fact that the only games us "kids on the block" would play were "hide and go seek" and "manhunt" I was always "it" because I could hardly ever catch anyone. I don't know if that was the reason, or if they just had fun doing it, but all the boys on the block teased me. The jokes were nonstop. I tried to ignore it. I mostly hung out with my girlfriends, if you could call them that, all they did was laugh and say things like "Sorry Haley, that's just funny." I knew they were only laughing because they thought the boys were cute and they didn't want the boys to get mad at them for not laughing along. On TV shows the parents tend to say, "laugh along and then they'll stop because it'll take away their power." I tried that, it didn't work, and I tried the reverse, making a sad face so they could see I didn't like it, that didn't help either. Other people may not have kept playing with them but we were all kids then and I thought maybe it was just a kid's thing. Most of the time I was just talking to the girls anyway, the boys weren't there everyday, and it was either that or stay cooped up during the summer in front of the TV because my friends from school didn't live near me. Besides, all kids get teased right?

The first day of summer after sixth grade the whole dysfunctional thing broke apart. We had a sleepover at my house, just us girls, and the next day we all got into a fight, not one of those petty little middle school fights, it was big, the kind that you never talk to them again, and I haven't, and I'm so glad I don't. Needless to say that if I wasn't hanging with the girls then I wasn't playing on the block either, which was ok because we were all past the "hide and go seek" phase anyway. This made me concentrate more on my friendships at school and when eighth grade rolled around, the last grade after nine years of school with the same people, my friends from school and I became really close. It was also the year I first became really close with a boy, yes I had male classmates but this was different. Nathan Scott had transferred to our school in sixth grade but we had just been classmates then and in seventh grade we were in different homerooms, but by some twist of fate in eighth grade we were back in the same class and sitting side by side. It actually wasn't all that awkward, we talked as classmates and as the days went by we got closer and closer until we were practically like best friends, as best friends a guy and girl can be anyway.

One day our teacher told us to work on "Imagine ifs…" which were statements of predicting things for classmates in the future, such as "Imagine if such and such became president of the United States." The best ones would go in the yearbook. It was an individual assignment but naturally we all talked to each other trying to come up with good ones. Tim, Nathan's best friend sat in the row in front of us, one seat over to the left, and as we were all trying to come up with good ones, Tim randomly said "Imagine if Haley was skinny." Smile fade. Heart Numb. Stunned…

"Tim don't say that" I hear Nathan say to my right. Wait, what? He's defending me? That doesn't happen.

"Oh c'mon" Tim laughs. Now I think Nathan's going to laugh, it was a nice try but he's going to laugh.

"Tim c'mon that's wrong." Huh? Wait, his best friend made a joke and he's not laughing along?

"All right, sorry Haley, really, I'm sorry" Tim says actually sincerely apologizing. I still haven't said anything to enthralled by the exchange so finally I manage to say:

"Its fine…but what would change Tim? I would still be the same person…" He doesn't really say anything at this point because a mini smirk is still on his face and finally he just turns around back to his desk to do his work, as do I. Still, looking down at my desk I whisper "thanks" to Nathan and look a bit to my side to see what he says but he doesn't look up from his desk either as he says "nah he just shouldn't have said that." I figure I need some time to take this all in so I go to the bathroom and when I get there and look in the mirror its not Tim's words ringing in my head, but Nathan's. His words are replaying in my head and the fact that no one ever before did that makes me smile. Tim's words haven't even hurt me that much, it really didn't come as a surprise considering he and Nathan drool over the two size zeroes in the class, but Nathan's words do come as a surprise, an incredibly sweet surprise; and I find it amusing that a boy, knowing me for a couple months, could stand up to his best friend in my defense and those girls on the block who knew me for years, all they ever did was laugh.