What the Boy Didn't Know

Yesterday was the last day (until 12th grade starts) of that class that was literally a living torment for me. I was so happy I practically danced as I drove home (don't worry, I was contained until I parked the van!) Starting from the first day, it was like a fresh torture every single time I walked inside that building.
It was so horrible because I didn't have any friends and the attempts I had to make friends ended quite bitterly, the one girl didn't want anything to do with me and the other that would talk to me and made me feel included turned the cold shoulder on me at the end of the quarter when the classes changed and her best friend ever came into the class turning me into 'that other girl.'
I've always been her. =(
Things got so bad, I was tossed and turned on every corner, shamed and taunted as I struggled to keep up. I felt like one among the undead trying to run a race with the living, I was just as shunned, and left lying in the imaginary road dead or at least wishing I was.
After a particularly bad day, I came home sobbing, my thoughts turned suicidal. It scares me now to realize how close I was to doing something really bad, inches from cutting, just ending all the pain. I know that sounds extreme, but you've got to understand that this has been going on my entire life! I'm not exactly a social butterfly, more like a completely reclusive rock. I've always been outside the 'cool' circle and I could never figure out why, I guess because I'm not like them. I'm not into doing my hair, painting my nails or guys. I'm not into fashion, seriously, I wear what I feel cozy in and cannot stand tight jeans, I'd cut myself out after wearing skinny jeans for half an hour, anyway, from grade school, right up into middle school, I feel like I've been the wart on the fine foot of society. The gross thing, the thing that no one wants.
Somehow I survived that very dark night, but the idea of going back made me want to curl up and sob once more, the class was too big and I literally hated everyone in it, it was packed to the gills and every person I had tried to befriend was giving me the cold shoulder. I felt like a leper, I wished I was, so I wouldn't have to go back. I relished everyday that I didn't have to go, Christmas holiday was heavenly.
Finally I reached my snapping point. I was either going to drop out or switch to a different day. Since I really couldn't drop out, I swapped days. I was dreading going back as much as a "death row" prisoner dreads ending up on the gallows.
But this time it was different. I told my teacher I was now in that class, sat down in my seat in the back thinking that I wasn't worthy of sitting in the front with all the sainted students. The moment I had my stuff out a boy came back and sat down in the seat next to mine and introduce himself to me. I was completely taken off guard, I almost did the movie, "Me?" as I pointed at myself.
Steve (as I'm calling him for the sake of his privacy, not his actual name) talked with me for a minute and then as the class started went back up to his seat in the sainted front. I noticed throughout the class that he was looking back at me constantly.
My face was probably as red as a overripe tomato. No boy that I know of has ever had a crush on me. Ever. I don't consider myself a drop dead babe (thank goodness!) I'm pretty in a pixie kind of way, or so my grandmother tells me. I personally went through a phase where I thought that I was so ugly it was a wonder why mirrors didn't crack as I walked by them. I hated the sight of myself in anything, and I was possessed with looking at my own faults, so it was a moment out of the blue when Steve actually spoke to me.
Later I figured he was just being nice. I turned bitter. I didn't want someone to be nice to me (as appreciated as it was) I'm tired of the one time talk and then getting ignored for the rest of eternity. I spent spring break gnashing my teeth and snarling like a wounded animal. It was a wonder, I snarled to myself in my Grinchy way, that Steve had even bothered to look at me. He wouldn't do it again, not when there were prettier girls to talk to.
I was wrong.
Steve not only spoke to me again, but he showed me how to make the wire and stone rings that I asked him to show me how to make on the first day in the new class. I was so startled when he actually showed me how, I nearly fell out of my chair in shock.
And I spent the next few weeks doing that.
Again, I sat in the back feeling unworthy, and useless, but low and behold, here came Steve who planted himself in the seat next to mine and started a conversation with me as I stammered and gaped in amazement. We started talking about dragons (a favorite topic of mine) got shushed by a lot of people, but it was still amazing. Steve chose sitting by his friends in the sainted front rows to come back and sit with me, the riled little devil that I was. I still had claws and they came out nicely when a girl completely rejected my compliments with the "someone taught it to talk?" expression that I get way more than I enjoy.
I walked out on that day grinning like an idiot. Thus was the habit for the next few weeks. Steve was amazing, funny, even though he talked a bit more than he should've. I was worried for the first half every time I walked in that he would've changed his mind and gone back to shunning me like everyone else was.
He never did, and believe it or not, the seating arrangements changed and I ended up in the sainted front row with Steve grinning wickedly in the seat next to mine. He even shared gum with me. Big deal, I know. But it goes back to my primary years where I watched as a pack of gum was passed between every girl in my class except me. I chewed on my tongue and tried not to try as it happened week after week after week. Steve sharing his gum with me brought me back to those young days, and believe it or not, warm gum from a pocket really wasn't such a big deal anymore.
I remember driving home with my mom complaining that I kept grinning like an idiot after the class was finished and she said, "I like it."
I looked at her like she was nuts, "You like it when I grin like an idiot?"
My mom was completely serious, "Better than you coming out grouchy with the world."
Oddly enough, after that, I liked it too.
Steve had a crush on me, my teacher could see it even though I couldn't. It was surprising, I've never crushed anyone (cough, cough, Prince Caspian!) And in doing so, Steve was an answer to my prayer as I begged and begged and BEGGED God with everything I had to let SOMEONE bother to care about me. Steve doesn't know it, but he probably saved me from doing something tragic.
What happened to Steve? Are we like boyfriend girlfriend now? Sorry to disappoint the anxious reader, but we're not. I liked Steve, but he was a little too young, a freshman and I'm a Junior. I believe in not dating until you're sixteen and old enough to handle yourself, I'm not going to allow someone else to compromise that by going out with them before they're sixteen and that would be kind of weird. :)
Actually I was okay with walking away, Steve started flirting with another girl and I thought okay, enough! I wasn't mad, I didn't want to care. I never even learned his last name. It's like he was a phantom, coming into my life when I needed it, and exiting when I was able to stand on my feet again.
Am I looking forward to going back for my senior year?
No, I can honestly say I'm not. I don't know if Steve will be there again, or if he'll even recognize me, I hacked about five inches off my hair because it was driving me crazy. But it still remains, because Steve noticed me, spoke with me and acknowledged me, it kept me alive emotionally. I was turning into a bitter monster, a wraith of my own making, acting like a pit of spikes so people would know if they tried to poke me, they'd walk away more hurt than I did.
My heart was turning black.
My heart was turning cold.
The cruel actions from others led me to snap, I got sad and then I got angry. I wanted to retaliate. I wanted to treat them as viciously as they treated me and let's face it, when I want to be, I can be very cruel myself. I knew that I probably could make them scurry into their dark corners and make them sob with the same amounts of agony they'd poisoned me with.
I was becoming one among the walking dead. My body was alive, but the inside, the part that really matters was dying of a kind of cancer that no doctor could cure. I needed God's care and love.
Steve saved me from falling into my own darkness. Saved me from turning bitter and cold and black. His actions healed my cankered soul and I forgot about being angry, being hurt, being sad, I forgot to think that I was ugly or fat, I forgot. I forgot! I feel alive again because a single person introduced himself to me and complimented me at exactly the time I needed it.
You doubt that a single person can make a difference.
Rethink that please.
You can save a life.
Steve saved me, and I doubt until we're face to face in Heaven that he'll ever know.