Roads, Veins, Wrinkles

I told him the truth. I think that’s the problem. If I had lied to him, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now, but I was only a child, and I believed that telling him what had really happened was much more virtuous than spouting lies to make him think I was strong.1

It honestly wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t done anything to warrant the relentless teasing of my fellow classmates. I’ve always been small for my age, coming in at about ten pounds less than the second-skinniest kid in my first grade class. I guess this was justification enough for them to push me and prod me and take the dessert out of my lunch when I wasn’t looking. I came home crying that day, because Jason had taken my favorite Power Rangers lunchbox and had thrown it up into a tree about two blocks away from my house. And you know what my dad said?2

“What’s wrong with you?”3

What’s wrong with me. Not Jason, but me. And I knew the answer from the way he looked at me: I was small and weak and I couldn’t fight a battle without dissolving into a messy puddle of tears and running away, which meant that I was a failure. And he went on to tell me that if I couldn’t learn to fight back, then I would never stop being bullied. Then he gave me a look that I’d seen a thousand times already in my six years of existence and would see many more times: a look that said, “I wish you were the son I’d wanted instead of the daughter I’m stuck with.” And as soon as he left the room, I started crying twice as hard as I had been before. I hated it when my dad gave me that look, because I knew that I could never be the person he wanted me to be. He wanted a Jason, and what he got was Emery. And Emery wasn’t good enough.4

Jason was great, though—big for his age, and perfectly capable of using his size to intimidate others. And he was smart enough to only torture me outside of school so he never got in trouble. The lunchbox incident—or some variation of it—happened thrice more that year. Once, it was my soccer ball on Jason’s roof. The second time it was my lunch box into the dumpster.5

And then it was my backpack.6

That day, Jason and his best friend Ollie decided that it would be fun to take my backpack and put it on top of the monkey bars, which I was still too short to climb. As they wrestled it out of my hand, I started to cry, and they began laughing the way they always did when I cried. But something inside me snapped. Suddenly I wasn’t sad or scared or anything I usually felt when I was around them; I was furious. I yanked my backpack away from them and screamed and kicked and punched, and I tackled one of them—I can’t quite remember whom—to the ground.7

They didn’t know what hit them.8

And yes, my dad got a call from Jason’s and Ollie’s mothers, but when he hung up the phone I could tell by the gleam in his eyes that I had finally lived up to his expectations. He put up an “I’m Disappointed in You” façade for the phone conversation, but he was proud of me. I knew it. And when he took me to get ice cream that night instead of grounding me, I had no doubt.9

This was who I had to be.10

It wasn’t like all of a sudden I turned into a total tomboy or anything. My changes were gradual, starting with wearing sneakers for more than just gym and actually defending myself once in a while. Then I traded in my dresses and skirts for shorts and tees. Then I started wearing my hair back every day and hanging out with the guys. It was actually kind of ironic; the people who’d bullied me in first grade had become my sole companions by fourth grade. And it was funny, too; you’d see a group of hyperactive boys, and in the midst of them was a scrawny girl with long hair and chicken legs that, when provoked, would turn into a bulging green superhuman and devour anyone that stood in her way.11

But no matter how strong I became, I was never good enough for my dad. I’d beat Jason in arm-wrestling and my dad would say, “But you still haven’t beaten me yet, have you?” And I was a smart girl, getting A’s on everything, but if I brought home a 95 my dad would say, “Next time, score five points higher.” And if I brought home a hundred, he wouldn’t put it on the fridge like any normal parent. Nope, not at all. Instead, he’d say, “You’d better get another one next time, too,” and I would go into my room and cry and wonder why I couldn’t just be perfect for once.12

By the time I entered middle school in seventh grade, I had perfected myself to the best of my abilities. I had a flawless GPA, I only ever got detention for starting fights, and I could spit farther than anybody I knew, including my father. He loved to brag about me to his buddies down at the construction site.13

But I was far from happy. In fact, I was downright miserable. There’s something about always striving to be the best at everything that makes a person incapable of true happiness. I felt like there was something missing in my life. After all, I was smart, strong, and had a good sense of humor that could get me out of tight situations in a flash; even my dad was finally starting to appreciate what I did to make him proud of me.14

So what was missing?15

I found it in the form of a ninth-grader named Isaiah Reynolds.16

He was always there, just a little bit out of my grasp in his room across the hall from Tasha Reynolds, one of my few female friends. He was her older brother. And one day, while Tasha and I were comparing bruises from the flag football game we’d just played with our friends in the park, he appeared on the driveway in a cloud of smoke and glitter and confetti and post-soccer-practice sweat.17

Actually, it was just a lot of sweat, but I swear on my life he was gorgeous enough to make up for it.18

And after cleaning up a bit—he smelled of Drakkar Noir cologne—he came into Tasha’s room and talked to us. Suddenly I was over at Tasha’s house a lot, and Isaiah would always make it a point to stop by and chat.19

A week later, he asked me out.20

When I told my dad, he didn’t seem too excited, but he was rarely excited for anything, so as always I took his flippancy for cleverly hidden elation. Besides, for once in my life I didn’t really care whether my dad approved of it or not. I knew for a fact that I loved Isaiah and he loved me too. And I actually believed that for about two years, up until I found out that he had been cheating on me for three months with some stupid girl that lived in another school district. That was the first time since second grade that I ran home crying. And you know what my dad said?21

“What’s wrong with you?”22

Not Isaiah, but me. Again. It was always me. And like always, the look in his eyes pointed out my every fault: I was emotional and weak and had allowed somebody to see my vulnerable side, therefore making myself susceptible to being hurt.23

I was a failure.24

And with nothing more than a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes, my dad summed up everything he thought of me. Then he took in my crushed, lonely face and said gruffly, “You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone. Not a mother, not a boyfriend, not even me. You’re strong enough to face the world all alone. Now stop blubbering and go finish your homework.”25

And that was the end of that.26

I took those words, like every word my dad said to me, to heart. No more would I allow anybody to win my trust and trample all over my heart like Isaiah had. I took a vow of complete and total independence. Even when I started wearing make-up and nice clothes and got some actual girl friends and became the number-one catch of the school, I did not allow anybody to seduce me. If any boy tried to get too close, I still had the strongest punching arm in the whole female population of our small town. And eventually they learned to stay away. But it lost me friends: guys that couldn’t understand why I would always blow them off and girls that thought I was too prudish or too self-reclusive to deal with. But I didn’t care. If they couldn’t understand me, it was their problem. I didn’t need any of them.27

In tenth grade I started considering colleges. I wanted to pick a place far away, where I could start a new life without a reputation preceding me or familiar faces bringing back memories that I would much rather forget. It was also a chance to prove to my father that no, I really didn’t need anybody. Not even him. I’d gotten a job at a local diner the year before, working extra hours and earning tips on overdrive. By the time I got my acceptance letter from Harvard Law, I’d made enough money for about a year’s tuition. Add that to the money in the bank account my dad had started for me before I’d been born, and I had enough for almost two years.28

But I didn’t tell my dad that I was leaving. He didn’t even know that I’d applied for Harvard, let alone that I’d received a partial scholarship that elongated my two-year budget to almost four years. Sometimes he’d look at me like he wanted to ask me something, but I’d always find a way to escape, running to the diner or to my room and avoiding him at all costs. When the time came for me to leave, I just took a small bag filled with my prized possessions and went to the train station, walking all alone in the quiet of dawn. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t look back. I didn’t even tear up until I got on the train, because I am strong and I don’t need anybody to get me where I need to be.29

And for now, this is where my story ends. I’m watching the train door close through blurry eyes, knowing that I have ostracized myself from the only family I have and am now irrevocably alone. It’s too late to change that, because the choice was made years ago, when I realized that I was not who I had to be. That I wasn’t strong. But now that I have changed, I have to keep moving forward, because going back would be giving up and giving up is failure, and only the weak fail.30

There’s no turning back now.31