While I was walking to my locker to put my binder up, even though the hallway was crowded, I felt a breath on my neck.
As soon as I turned, it was Taylen. Taylen bullied me but not always. He'd just take my binder or backpack. Or he'd throw me against the lockers and kick me until I cried.
He said some stuff like usually that caused some people around in the hallway to laugh at me but oh well. I mean it wasn't the worst right? You gotta at least be positive but me being positive equaled delulu.
I internally shrugged but then I realized I shrugged my shoulders in reality instead of my internal self.. that was an interesting thing to now think about forever, by how embarrassing that was.. Taylen gave me judgemental wtf.. Even I didn't know how to respond to myself.
We just stared at each other before he decided to just walk off as if he was logging off the internet because he was done for the day..
I clutched my binder before walking to my locker which wasn't that far away actually. I moved to this town in 2nd grade from Chicago, to me and my mom, Chicago was everything, the big start and where we had everything.
When I first started at this town, everything was different. It was smaller, less city like. Everyone knows everyone here too so it was a big change for us. I remember some of my neighbors helped us unpack but it wasn't like Chicago. I remember I lived in an apartment building with my mom for a bit after the incident before we had to move because of him.
When we moved to a house then apartment building I remember that there were kids sitting on the cement stairs in front, there were even kids playing with chalk on the sidewalk. As soon as we walked in and went up to our floor, some of the adults helped us unpack. Still today, I prefer the city life more, I remember that the adults helping my mom dismissed me off to the other kids. As soon as I walked outside as far as I could remember, they welcomed me as soon as they saw me.
This one girl came running up to me after playing with chalk, she looked around my age, around that time it was a year before we moved to this small town. I was in first grade and she immediately pointed at me and said "he's dark skinnned too!"
I remember feeling weird as she pointed to me and said that, it was so sudden and out of the blue. As I looked around at the other kids, their weren't many dark skinned kids. Yet even the kids who weren't, seemed to not care about how I looked even though I was different from them. Another reason we moved here was because in Chicago where I went, most of the white kids would call me names like, monkey or.. they'd make fun of my skin telling me that I wasn't normal because I wasn't light skinned like them.
My mom always told me I was her beautiful boy and when she heard them calling me that she got upset by how they treated me.
I mean it was 1987 and many people did treat black people like that, even though it was the cruelest thing.
We couldn't control what we looked like so why make fun of us? It was hard for my mom since many people gave us judgemental looks when we went out. But as soon as we moved into that building, I felt at peace, no judgment, no name calling, and people who don't discriminate for being who I am.
We lived there for a year and I went to a different school closer to the building because of the bullying and the distance away from the where we lived at the time.
I quickly made friends with the other kids in my building even the adults, I got taught things I didn't know. For example this lady on my floor at the time, baked cookies and I helped with it. I used to go up to the lowest floor to go say hi to Mr. Williams one of the older white men in my building. He would bring me juice boxes and tell me stories about him and his wife who died years ago. He never had any children so the kids and I in my building were like his own.
Practically everyone in my building was like second family to everyone. I remember the night before we had to move from Chicago was because he came.. I remember him walking up the stairs in the front where he gripped my shirt.
I shivered as I shook my head out of the past. I really need to stop thinking about that.. I mumbled to myself.
I walked towards the lunchroom to grab my lunch at the same time.. everyday.. I looked around, usually I saw Taylen with his friends at the popular table or something, But he wasn't there. I thought maybe he was with his friends or got lunch detention but.. his friends were here in the lunchroom, and when I walked by the detention room, he wasn't in there.
The feeling of being watched though, wasn't there anymore. Which was weird since it was always here during lunch.. it was suspicious and I couldn't tell why.