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Boy's mother sues bullies.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. My guess is that the bullies will get a slap on the wrist and return to the same cruel barbaric actions. As a kid who was picked on mercilessly in middle school, I can completely relate to Billy. Poor kid, I was there once, and I'm surprised I didn't shoot myself. In middle school I was painfully quiet and people made fun of me relentlessly. I don't think I ever spoke two words to anyone, yet they let me have it. Fortunately there was never any physical violence but the verbal abuse they spewed upon me has left scars that eventually turned me into the loud, opinionated firecracker I am today. I used to think that if I was nicer they'd leave me alone and then I realized that being nice doesn't get you anywhere but walked on. To this day, I'll never, ever let anyone take advantage of me.

In 6th grade one kid named Peter started to tease me. He'd tell me I was ugly, tell me I had hairy arms and made prank calls to my house among other things. I was so, so scared of him. It's funny to look back and think about how petrified I was of him. If I noticed him in the hall I'd try and run the other way, just so he wouldn't see me and make a nasty comment. Everyone called me the "fro" because I had curly hair. In fact, in the beginning of the year someone said, "You got the fro in your class" to another person while I was right there, like I didn't exist. At the end of the day there was a certain door I refused to walk out of because I knew all the bad kids stood there and if I dared to make my presence known, they'd let me have it. So I tried my best to find a home in obscurity. I never raised my hand during class, wore any clothes I felt would make me noticeable, and I was nice to everyone so they could see I was a good person on the inside regardless of my looks.

7th grade was no better. More people started to tease me, and each time they called me a name I would feel my face grow hot and wish to be dead. I thought a lot about God and why he was making me suffer so much. I went to church. I loved my mother. Why was he doing this to me? Was there some purpose? Church taught me to love thy neighbor, even those considered enemies, and I tried my best to love the people who made me feel like a pile of feces. One day, a boy named Brian came up to me during lunch and asked if I wanted to dance with him that night at the school dance. I was so excited! Finally, someone liked me, someone wanted me to dance with them. I said yes. Then he replied, "Did you think I actually wanted to dance with you?" and walked away. Brian now has a kid, never went to college and works two jobs. Karma's a bitch, ain't it?

During middle school I rode the bus, which most likely molded me into the take-no-bullshit person I am now. I hated, hated, HATED the bus. All the cool kids sat in the back and everyday I would try and finagle my way back there to be as cool as possible. I had no friends on the bus so in the mornings I had to sit in the front. None of this was a very big deal, but there's once incident that stands out in my mind. I thought a boy named Dan was cute. I didn't love him, I didn't doodle his name on my notebook, I simply thought he was cute and nothing more. I don't know how she found out but one girl did and made it a point to tell him. The whole bus ride, Dan was making noises like he was throwing up. He kept laughing and telling all his friends that someone really gross liked him and then whispered the name into their ear. I had no idea he was talking about me, and only until the end of the bus ride did I begin to piece together the puzzle. After Dan got off the bus I asked someone if he had been talking about me and the person said yes. I felt my heart fall to the ground and disintegrate; obviously I had no feelings. Then it was my turn to get off the bus. I tried very, very hard not to cry and I succeeded. Until I walked through the door of my house. I remember walking down the stairs to find my mother. We needed to go to the craft store for my home economics class. She looked at my pale face and knew something was wrong; I had not planned to tell her and figured I'd just scribble about it later in my diary. But then, through some force I could not control, I started to cry. Hysterically. I cried so hard I couldn't stand up and I explained everything to her on the floor of our family room. How could someone think I was so disgusting? Why did Dan have to tell everyone I liked him as though I was some infectious disease they ought to avoid? My parents would always tell me that in ten years it wouldn't matter. They were right, but I wouldn't realize that till later. And the girl who told Dan I liked him? She works full time at the grocery store.

8th grade was by far the worst. Everyone knew I was ugly and they made sure to tell me about it. By now, many people had joined the bandwagon but there were a few ringleaders. One was named Mike Parachini. He was quite ugly himself. His face was perpetually red and covered with horrible acne. He had small beady eyes that peered out from underneath sand-colored eyebrows placed on a rectangular head. He liked football and Jay-Z, and every day I prayed there would be an announcement over the PA that he had died. Every damn time he saw me, he would call me fro. He would write it all over my homework assignments and would purposely stand behind me in the hallways while he made faces to his friends. He'd prank call my house and once in gym while we were playing soccer he yelled "Good kick, fro!" in front of half the grade. Everyone laughed, of course, because I wasn't a human to them, I was just that ugly quiet girl.

Things got so bad that I went to the guidance counselor and told him that if something wasn't done I was going to go crazy, and the counselor had a meeting with him. After that the teasing stopped but unbeknownst to me Mike had told everyone that I'd tattled on him so then I was the ugly girl who snitched. I wanted very badly to kill Michael myself, which scared me because I wasn't a violent person. I liked my stuffed animals and the Backstreet Boys and ice cream cake; I didn't want to hurt anyone. But him? I seriously contemplated bringing a hammer to school and slamming it into his face. I wanted him to bleed and cry and feel the pain, like the way he made me feel pain. I'm sure he'll never know how I went home and cried myself to sleep, praying I'd be dead before I woke up. And I'm sure he didn't care that while he was teasing me, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer and we didn't think she would live.

In high school, my situation improved immensely. People really let me be. I lost a lot of weight, grew my hair out and a couple of those same boys said I was hot. They can burn in hell. Most of them dropped out of high school because of their drug addictions and nobody cares about them anymore because the real world is about efficacy and not standing outside a certain door in middle school, smoking a cigarette and teasing those different from you. Graduating high school was one of the happiest days of my life. Everyone was crying about how these were the best years of our lives, but everyone in my class can BLOW ME because I don't give a damn about them and I'm so much happier now that I'm in college.