I wasn’t out long. I felt arms grabbing me and pulling me up. I could make out a familiar face. One I hadn’t seen in years. Billy was bigger than me. He towered over me and picked me up like I weighed nothing. I felt myself laughing at myself. How did I ever bully this guy? I could still see him holding his mother’s hand at the bus stop.
“You’ve grown,” was all I could whisper.
“Shut up, man!” Billy carried me carefully to my apartment building. “You got a good beating.” I could barely hear him whisper, “I’m sure you deserved it.”
“Billy!” I could hear a woman’s voice. It must have been his mother. “No one deserves a beating.”
I heard Billy grunt, “Whatever.” He shifted my weight and I groaned. I suddenly puked. I heard Billy cuss, but he didn’t drop me.
“Sorry,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t help.
Once we reached my door, I heard my mother cry as they carried me into my room. She was running around getting wet towels to clean me up. Billy’s mom helped.
Billy stood in my room and stared at me for a minute. I didn’t care. Then his eyes looked at something sitting on my window sill. “Nice Barbie!” He was laughing. I didn’t care.
I turned to look at the plastic doll. She was still wearing her golden dress and was smiling at me. “She reminds me of where I want to be.”
“Dressed like a girl?” Billy was teasing.
He made me smile. “Yeah, right!” I joked back. “No, a special little girl gave it to me and it reminds me that one day I will get out of here.”
There was a long pause. Billy turned to go, and then he looked back at me. “You’ve changed.”
I smiled at him. “I hope so.”