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Now I feel sick every day.
The swing creaks under my weight, the chains on either side of me brushing against my arms as I color in the leaves on the tree I drew. I don’t always get to sit on the swings before school starts, because most days they’re already taken, and I’ll go sit against the chain fence in the corner of the schoolyard to draw instead.
No one’s tried talking to me today so far, and I’m glad. Makes my stomach feel a little less tight and crampy. The first week of school was awful. I don’t know why the only kids who seem to wanna bother with me are Clay and his friends. They’re in first grade along with my sister and Waylon, so we only have lunch and gym together now—not all his friends, only him and Ethan, and they’re the worst.
I wish they put Izzy, Waylon, and me in the same lunch and gym period. But they didn’t. I guess Clay and Ethan have special classes or something, so they weren’t able to be with the others in their grade. Instead they’re with my transition class and the kindergarteners for those two blocks.
Hopefully they’ve finally gotten sick of bugging me and have moved on to someone else.
The sky is bright blue today, with clouds in the distance. It’s the middle of September, the second week of school, and already cold enough I have to wear a jacket. Shoving up the sleeve for the bazillionth time, I switch out my pine green crayon for just plain green, so I can brighten some of the leaves.
And that’s when it happens.
“Look, Ethan, bet she’s colorin’ a picture for you.” Clay snickers, and someone else makes kissy sounds.
“Gross,” Ethan says angrily.
I freeze, my fingers turning white, except for where red floods my nailbeds.
The crayon snaps in half.
So much for leavin’ me alone…
They start saying more mean things, but I can’t hear them under the angry roaring rush in my ears. My fingers tremble, and I watch with horror as my drawing pad slides off my lap, landing in the mulch.
Clay dives forward, grabbing it.
“Don’t,” I say, my voice lost to the invisible waves crashing in on my head from all sides, pushing me under water.
My whole body shakes as I try to stand up, but Mikey gets to me first—he’s the biggest of them all—even bigger than he was last year—and he shoves me hard in the chest, making me tumble backward off the swing. I fall on my back in the mulch.
They’re laughing.
Clay’s saying something.
I roll onto my knees, blond hair falling all around my face—too long, it’s too long, I should’ve let them cut it, why didn’t I let them cut it?
In the corner of my eye, Mikey flips over my red backpack, shaking everything out of it.
My shoulders bunch up by my ears, and hot tears bubble up over my eyes.
“Aww, you made her cry.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for them to kick me. They don’t normally. But they also don’t normally shove me. Usually they just make fun of me, and call me names.
My stomach rolls, gurgling, and I shake my head, wishing for this all to go away.
To be a bad dream.
I wanna go home. I just wanna go home.
Something’s squeezing my neck—my chest—squeezing so tight I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe, let me go! Let me go!
But when I reach up to claw at the hand choking me…
There’s nothing there.
I sense footsteps drawing near, and brace myself?—
