I TRIED TO stand, and actually managed to get up on my knees. But I had to bend forward and rest on my right elbow to keep from passing out. Slowly, I straightened up. My vision swam.
I took a couple of deep breaths until it cleared. “Maybe I’ll just stay here for a bit.” I leaned back against the wall and slid down on my butt, my knees bent.
I shut my eyes.
A door slammed overhead. An engine started. Tires crunching gravel.
I opened my eyes. Had Mrs. Dixon left again? Seriously?
I hoped she took her demon child with her.
The floor above my head creaked.
I froze.
Flute Girl was still in the house.
I exhaled. “I hope to hell your mother put the fear of God into you.” I didn’t know what I’d do if she tried anything. There had been only one EpiPen in my purse. So if Flute Girl decided to try the let’s-see-what-happens-when-the-allergic-girl-gets-stung game again, I’d be toast.
Steps on the stairs. Quiet, like she was trying to be sneaky, but she sucked at that part. Flute Girl was more skilled at confronting people with a stick in her hand.
“Get the hell out of here!” I yelled. “Just leave me alone.”
No response.
I wished I could get up and go bang on the door, but I was still working on breathing. Then a sound started. A low note on her flute. Then another. A song. She was playing a freaking song.
Nuh nah, nuh nah nuh nah na naa naa, nah nuh nah nuh naa naa …
Was that…?
“Holy crap.”
Lady Gaga.
Flute Girl nailed it. If I didn’t hate her guts, I might have been impressed.
Hopefully, Mrs. Dixon had hidden the key to the padlock, maybe even taken it with her. So Flute Girl had been forced to shift from killing me with bees to serenading me with a pop music medley.
She moved on to “All the Single Ladies,” then some old Maroon 5. I said nothing as she played and gave no indication that I even heard her. But as song segued into song segued into song, I began to wonder if she was still trying to kill me, only in a different way.
I got to my feet and slowly made my way over to the bed. I went the long way to avoid the shards of china and spaghetti mess on the floor and collapsed on the bed, wincing as the bounce jarred my bad shoulder and my throbbing hand. I awkwardly scooted up and laid my head on the pillow, then pulled the blanket over my head. It drowned out a bit of the music, but not entirely.
I groaned and patted the blanket closer in around my ears. But then it was too close to my face. After my brush with never breathing again, I couldn’t take it and pushed it away.
The ceiling was made up of white tiles. Clean, though, no mold.
The demonic flutist’s repertoire moved on to what could have been either Rihanna or an abysmal rendition of a Coldplay hit. Unsure, I tried to think of something to get my mind off the noise.
Unintentionally, my mind went back to fifth grade, to that day.
* * *
Christine ran out of the room. I sat there, not laughing with everyone else, feeling remorse for what I’d done. For what Cecille had made me do. Sure, I had a choice. But did I really?
What if I had said no? Cecille and her group would have barred me for good. But by completing the task, I had a shot at being embraced by her group. Because I had always been someone who looked at the big picture.
After about half an hour, Christine came back into the room wearing some baggy gray sweatpants, balled-up white jeans in one hand. I stared down at my math book as she neared me.
I was anxious for afternoon recess. I wanted to talk to Cecille and the others. I’d done what they said, which made me part of them now.
But Mrs. Klein was furious at the disruption and put us on lockdown until the end of the day. No recess. No talking. And after school, my mom was waiting outside, so I couldn’t do anything more than go straight to the car.
At school the next day, I took my seat. I tried to get Cecille’s attention, but her back was to me as she talked to a girl across the aisle. I turned and glanced sideways at Christine, whose gaze was trained out the window. She had on black leggings and a cream-colored sweater. No chance of repeating the humiliation of the day before with dark pants, I supposed.
Art was the first class of the day. But instead, Mrs. Klein said, “I’ve informed Mr. Millis that you’ll be a little late to art today.” Someone groaned. Mrs. Klein glared and crossed her arms. “I have a little story for you all.”
“Once upon a time, there were five buffaloes. They decided they wanted to go roller skating. Now four of the buffaloes took off, leaving the other buffalo behind. She wasn’t very good at roller skating, so they laughed at her and left her behind because she was so slow.”
Someone coughed.
Mrs. Klein continued. “The buffalo sat there, alone. And she began to cry because the other buffaloes were mean to her.”
I slipped down a little in my seat. Where was she going with that? Because it seemed to me like, more often than not, I was the buffalo left alone. Was she finally going to address the bullying in the room?
“Finally, one of the buffaloes noticed the other one, crying all by herself, and went back to help her up. She joined the other buffaloes, and they all roller-skated together after that.”
Um, what? I scratched my head.
Mrs. Klein uncrossed her arms and shook a finger at us. “It has come to my attention that there has been some bad behavior in this room. We have a new girl, and I will not tolerate anyone treating her any way but the way we should treat others. Nicely.”
My face began to burn. Seriously? I get treated like crap for years, and now the new girl gets picked on one day and gets a protective lecture from the teacher?
Mrs. Klein scowled. “Mostly, I’m incredibly disappointed that the one person who knows what it’s like to be picked on, the one person who should know better—” Her gaze turned to me. As did several heads of others in the room.
I slunk further down in my seat, and my face got even hotter.
“—was involved in this. So this behavior will stop. You will all get along with one another from now on. Do I make myself clear?”
I nodded, and everyone I could see also nodded. They wanted the lecture to be over. She dismissed us for art class, and we walked, single file, out in the hallway.
We sat where we wanted in the art room, on long benches at cafeteria-style tables. Cecille sat down, and I headed for that table. But when I got there, she set a hand on the bench beside her. “You’re not sitting here, Skunky.”
I froze. My heart began to pound. My hands trembled at my sides. Was she messing with me? I had done what she asked! Risked getting in trouble for it. She had to be joking.
But the girls around her sported smug looks and shook their heads. One pinched her nose. Cecille looked behind me and called out, “Christine, come sit with us.”
I turned and almost bumped into Christine. The new girl glared at me. “Cecille told me what you did. What did I ever do to you, Skunky?” She sat down next to Cecille, in the spot that was supposed to be mine.
Cecille grinned at me. “Go sit somewhere else.”
Blinking back sudden stinging tears, I quickly went to a table at the other side of the room. There, I slid in beside a couple of girls who wouldn’t care if I was there or not. They would ignore me, like everyone else did, but at least they wouldn’t say anything mean to me.
I stared down at the table, trying to keep the tears from progressing. And I reached up to the back of my neck and rubbed. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
My fingers got tangled in the hair at the back of my neck, and I yanked. The resulting sting made me jump. But the shock also, momentarily, took away the urge to cry. I reached up again and snapped out another hair. Slowly, after a few more, I was calm. I wasn’t going to cry. I had control.
What’s the saying? You spend your entire adulthood trying to recover from your childhood?
I didn’t know if that was true, but some days it seemed like it made sense.
The hair pulling began that day in fifth grade and got worse over the summer. By fall I had a bald patch on the back right side of my head. I could disguise it because my hair was long, so I wore a side braid every day of sixth grade. Seventh grade I changed it to a braid going back into a ponytail, and eighth grade I gave up and wore a thick headband. At least I could change the colors to match my outfits.
One summer day right after eighth grade ended, my mom and I were shopping. I was in the dressing room at American Eagle, trying to fit into a pair of size six shorts, which I knew was never going to happen. Along with the hair pulling, I’d also taken to snacking away my stress and loneliness.
“Olivia, are they on yet?”
“Just a sec.” I held my breath, squeezed in my gut, and buttoned the shorts. Then I pulled off my tank top to try on a shirt. But my headband got caught in the strap, and I yanked it off. Just then, my mom reached the end of her patience and pushed open the door.
“Sweetie, I’d like to get home by…” She trailed off as her mouth fell open. Then her eyes narrowed and she touched the side of my head. “What happened? My God, you’ve got a bald patch!”
“Get out!” I shoved her away, trying to close the door on her. “Get out! Please, get out!”
But she pushed her way back in and shut the door behind her. We were inches away. Clutching the tank top to my chest with one hand, I tried to fix my hair with the other.
“Have you been doing that to yourself?”
My chin wobbled and my eyes filled with tears. I shut them, hoping to avert the flow. I nodded.
“But why? Why would you do that? Is something wrong?”
After years of hiding, years of keeping secret that I continued to be the most reviled kid in my class, I opened my eyes and the tears spilled out.
Mom pulled me to her. She stroked my hair, long and slow. Her words were soft. “Tell me. You can tell me.”
My mouth was mashed into the shoulder of her white T-shirt, so my words were rather mumbled. “Kids pick on me.”
“What?” She stopped stroking for a moment, and then began again. “Why? Why would they do that?”
Oh God. How many times had I asked myself that?
I swallowed and took a shuddery breath. Then I lifted my head over her shoulder and stared at myself in the mirror on the door. My eyes were red, my face was blotchy, hair everywhere. And I told her the truth, starting with the first day of kindergarten.
Her shoulders slumped. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Why didn’t you ever notice?”
Her face crumpled, and she set a hand over her eyes and began to cry.
Instantly, I regretted my words.
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” She dropped her hand. Her mascara was running as she put her hands on either side of my face. “It’s my work. I’m quitting tomorrow.”
“No, Mom, come on.” I set a hand on her shoulder. “You love being a lawyer.”
She shook her head. “I was too busy with my career to notice my child was being bullied to the point of…” She trailed off. Then she leaned forward and kissed my bald patch. “I’m done. I’m quitting.”
“You don’t have to quit. But please don’t make me go back there.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you kidding me? You’re never stepping foot in that school again.”
Later, when we needed to explain home school for my official book biography, we chalked it up to my busy writing schedule. And after I had stated it so many times in interviews, that pragmatic falsehood became in my mind the real reason for spending my high school years in the comfort of my own home.
But that was a load of crap.
My official bio also left out my therapy. Turns out my behavior had a name. Trichotillomania. It took a few months of pills and sessions, but I stopped. Journaling about the years of bullying was part of my therapy. And when I finally broke down and spilled everything to Rory, I felt like a load had been lifted. Because he knew everything and still wanted to be with me.
Success had been the best revenge. I was out on book tour, staying in five-star hotels and having strangers stand for hours in line to see me, while Cecille and her posse were sitting in stupid school. And yeah, I did some stalking online. I had a book deal and would be going to a huge university. Cecille was going to community college to be a dental assistant.
One day maybe she’d clean my teeth.
So I was over those years, pretty much. But I didn’t quit writing about them in my journal, in the trunk of my car. The one I did not want Flute Girl’s mother to get her hands on. Because in those hands, as long as I was her prisoner in that basement, my journal had the potential to be just as destructive to me as a box full of bees.