PART ONE: The Past & My Mistakes
One
I’d known Jaxon Barlow since I was six. We’d grown up together in Gosnells, a big town and a three-hour drive from the large bustling city of Winthrop. We went to the same underfunded school, lived in the same projects, and played with the same kids. However, true friendship would not have occurred if he hadn’t done what he did. It was the one event that sat up there in my most vivid memories, and I coveted it fiercely.
The opportunity for friendship was made possible by one person, and her name was Jade Smith. Jade was a red haired stout looking girl two years older than my eight-year-old self, and she absolutely loved to make my life a living hell. As if my life wasn’t hard enough living with raging parents who drank their sorrows away on unemployment benefits, I had to deal with the giant ten-year-old troll that tackled me down whenever the opportunity presented itself.
That was every single day.
Jade was unusually big for her age. She was a Godzilla to my tiny gaunt frame. I swear I could hear her stomp down the hallways and, nine times out of ten, I shut my eyes and waited for my tiny abashed self to get shoved head first into my small blue locker by her sweaty fat hands.
“Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara,” she’d sing with her lisp broadcasted to the world of Gosnells Elementary school. “Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara…”
Those words made me tremble.
Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara… I could feel the tears form in my eyes, and I quickly wiped them in fear of her noticing. She saw them once and that had resulted in a two-hour ordeal where she’d managed to successfully persuade five other ten year olds to stand in front of me and sing the soul crushing tune: Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara.
Kids can be cruel. I was known as “Ugly Sara” very soon after that horrid duet with her friends.
“Do you want to play with us, Ugly Sara?”
“Good morning, Ugly Sara.”
“Why are you ugly, Ugly Sara?”
It was a relentless torment, and every morning I woke up feeling like my day was a double-edged sword. If I stayed home, I’d have to face the wrath of my alcoholic parents. If went to school, I had to listen to the name calling and pretend it was normal.
It was never normal. It was painful.
I was, for the most part, not a very pretty little girl. I was skin and bones and easy to pick on. My hair was short as a boy’s, my light brown eyes were dark with bags under them thanks to parents whose arguments kept me up most nights, and most of the time my lips were chapped, my palms were rough and I was wearing the same knackered clothes day in, day out. I’d only had three outfits for school every week and my growing bony body outgrew them quickly. I had to roll my socks up to hide the bare skin between the end of my pants and ankles, thus making me look even more ridiculous.
The girls didn’t accept me at school. I was laughed at, pointed at, even pushed on several occasions when I got too close to them. I found the only place I could turn to were the boys who were far easier to put up with. The boys did pick on me every now and then: questioning my gender, asking me why my hair was short like theirs, why my clothes were too small, why I didn’t smell “right” and so on. But after the first few introductory recesses of answering their brutal questions, they were quick to stop and move on, no longer caring for small chat.
Even though I was playing with them every recess, that didn’t stop giant Jade Smith from coming around to push me to the ground - it was practically a ritual. Which brings me to Jaxon again, who witnessed her brutally shoving me into a puddle of mud on a rainy autumn morning. He was also ten, like her, and instead of laughing like all the other boys, the sandy-haired Jaxon Barlow did not.
She stood there singing while I rested my muddy face between my muddy knees, waiting for her to stop and move on. This day she was remarkably persistent and the torment lasted a very long time.
“Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara,” Jade repeatedly sang around me, her frizzy red hair bopping around her head and her big fat tongue stuck out at me, “Sara, Sara, Ugly–”
I heard a scream and looked up to find Jaxon’s hand wrapped around a chunk of her hair. She screamed like a wailing banshee as he shoved her into a deeper puddle of mud nearby. She landed face first into it, splashing with the same force as a whale in the ocean.
He laughed loudly. “Look at Jade now!”
The girls who witnessed the shove started crowding around us to gasp and point at Jade Smith.
“Jade, Jade, ugly Jade,” Jaxon suddenly sang out, motioning for the boys to do the same.
“Jade, Jade, Ugly Jade,” they all sang out.
With wide eyes, I looked at them all and my heart fluttered at the realization that my name was not in the painful tune that had been sung to me every day. Even the girls joined in, laughing up a storm at her. Jade Smith didn’t move for a long while and stared in horror at all the kids pointing at her. Her eyes welled up in tears and she got up and stormed off, and all you could hear from Jade Smith as she ran down the field that morning was the squish, squish of the water in her boots.
Jaxon was satisfied with this. I was too scared to thank him in fear of him turning the attention back to me. I didn’t know what he was like yet. But the next day at school while I waited for the painful moment of being pushed into my locker, it was Jade Smith who was shoved into hers by Jaxon.
“Jade, Jade, Ugly Jade,” he’d sing and his friends would follow.
For the first time in all my days at school, I was left alone. In fact, the rest of the week he resumed this torment on Jade and I was still left alone. When I finally realized he wasn’t going to pick on me, I approached him one recess while he was standing against the wall of the school (a form of punishment from the recess supervisor) and hugged him.
“Whoa,” he said, stumbling back with his arms in the air. “Not cool!”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling widely up at him. “Thank you for saving me from Jade.”
He shrugged as nonchalantly as he could – he was, after all, the coolest ten-year-old around – and said, “Don’t worry about it, little boy. I got your back.”
“I’m a girl, and my name is Sara,” I said heartily.
“Alright, Sara, I got your back.”
He did. He never let Jade Smith bully me again or anyone else for that matter. The double-edged sword became… well, just a sword. I woke up every day feeling blissfully content that I would never have to face her bullying again, and it was all thanks to Jaxon Barlow.
I clung to him like white on rice. He was disturbed by my clinginess at first and ran off whenever I drew near to him, but after many school days of relentless stalking, he succumbed to the realization that I was not going to go. After coming to terms with this, he was fine by it – but only because he saw an advantage to this. I was declared his gofer friend, fetching him what he wanted, waiting hand and foot for his requests, and he never stopped requesting!
“I want a cup of water,” he demanded.
“Where do I get a cup?” I asked.
“Sara,” he started in irritation, “don’t give me questions, give me results!”
I’d pretended to go to the toilet, stole my teacher’s coffee mug from her desk, emptied it and filled it up with water. He was very pleased, although not so much by the faint taste of coffee in his water.