QUACK

The Bully is the Victim

“I don’t know why I’m scared

I’ve been here before

Every feeling

Every word

I’ve imagined it all.

You’ll never know

If you’ll never try

To forgive your past

And simply be mine.”

Adele, “One and Only”

THIS CHAPTER IS FROM JEM'S POINT OF VIEW

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If I tell you that I never noticed Sasha before high school, you probably wouldn’t believe me. But it’s true.

Well. Almost true.

The day I first noticed her was during our middle school graduation. If you can even call it that, actually. We eighth graders were all in the gym, some with our parents or grandparents. We were all dressed like we were going to church: the guys were made to wear button-downs with ties, and the girls were asked to wear dresses that had ruffles and shit. We all felt ridiculous, really, but it was a day to celebrate us finally getting outta middle school and into high school, you know. It felt nice to feel important for a change.

Not that I wasn’t important already, mind you. Not to brag, though I am kind-of, but I was a big jock already, even in middle school. It was one of the reasons why I got into all the teams I got into for high school. That, and the fact that I was the coach’s kid. And also the star varsity basketball player’s little brother.

I was in line to get the awards I’d be receiving. A bunch of medals and shit, nothing we didn’t already have a lot of in our house. The tie I had on was staring to bug me already, but Mom made me wear it. It was one of very few times Mom was well enough to get out of bed for. And even if she weren’t, she’d sworn that she wasn’t going to miss it for the world.

Not even to grow a new pair of tits and be cancer-free, she had said. It grossed me out, but made me want to cry. So I toughened up and said, yeah, sure, whatever. Had I known she wouldn’t make it past the following weekend, I’d have said something nicer.

But I didn’t.

From the side of the stage, I craned my neck to find her in the audience. She was up at the very front row with my Dad and with Nana Tinsley. They were with my older brother Luke, and on his lap was our little sister Penny. She was trying to wriggle free and she was ruining her dress, a pink ruffled thing she refused to take off when we bought it.

“What the fuck is taking so long?” Greg said.

Greg Adams, he’s my best friend. He’d just discovered how awesome it was to say fuck and bastard and shit and cock-sucker. I had no idea where he got them, but I knew that if Mom ever heard me say those words, she’d put soap in my mouth.

“I don’t know, man,” I told him. I turned back to the stage and the principal, Mrs. Courtly, was introducing the girl who was going to sing for the intermission number.

It was a redhead girl from another class, whom, up until that point, I’d figured was a year lower than me. She wasn’t the kind of girl you’d notice. She was quiet and whenever I saw her in the hallway or in the cafeteria, she’d always been by herself. She wasn’t pretty in the way Piper Lowell and Madison Thatcher and Taylor Andrews were pretty. All she had going on for her was the tangle of red hair she had on her head, and if other girls like Piper had boobs and butts, nice red hair won’t cut the cake.