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Dr. Celia Banting

Copyright © 2006 by Dr. Celia BantingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, in-cluding photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address: Wighita PressP.O. Box 30399Little Rock, Arkansas, 72260-0399www.wighitapress.comThis is a work of ction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used ctitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataBanting, CeliaI Only Said “Yes” So That They’d Like Me/Dr. Celia Banting – 1st Editionp. cm. ISBN 0-9786648-1-7 (paperback)1. Therapeutic novel 2. Suicide prevention 3. Bullying4. Self-esteemLibrary of Congress Control Number: 2006928585Layout by Michelle VanGeestCover production by Luke JohnsonPrinted by Dickinson Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

Issues addressed in this book:Suicide preventionSocial masksStereotypingIn-groups and out-groupsBody Dysmorphic Disorder Negative family dynamicsThe role of marijuana upon behaviourCoping with bullyingThe emotional consequences of casual sexLosing and regaining self-respectDeveloping and maintaining friendshipsTeamworkIdentifying talents and perceiving self-worthExploring attitudes and personal Frame of ReferenceSelf-esteem and afrmationsGuided imagery techniquesDiscerning human attractiveness

Also by Dr. Celia Banting…I Only Said I Had No ChoiceI Only Said I Couldn’t CopeI Only Said I Didn’t Want You Because I Was TerriedI Only Said I Was Telling the Truth• • • •Available after April 2007…I Only Said I Wanted To Kill Myself; I Didn’t Really Mean ItI Only Said I Wasn’t HungryI Only Said It Didn’t HurtI Only Said I Could Handle It, But I Was WrongI Only Said Leave Me Out of It

Dedicated to Erica Elsie, and all those who suffer at the hands of bullies

AcknowledgmentsMy grateful thanks go to my proofreader and typesetter, Michelle VanGeest, who frees me from my dyslexic brain, and replaces my mother’s voice. Thanks to Bev, my stray-word spotter, too. I thank my dear brother, Steve, for his computer expertise, and my wonderful husband, Des, for the inspiration and support he gives me. Thank you to Luke and Sam for their faith, inspiration and talent. Thank you to my dear friend Vicki for her guiding sense of style.Thank you to all my psychotherapy tutors and colleagues at the Metanoia Institute, London, for teaching me about human na-ture, psychopathology, growth and recovery. I thank the good Lord for giving me a lively imagination, and I also thank my parents for moving to the Isle of Wight, “the land that bobs in and out of view, depending upon the sea mist.”

11É Ñ Chapter One I hate Mondays and I hate school. I pull the covers over my head and try to ignore Mom shouting at me to get up. “Melody, will you please get up, you’re going to make me late for work.” She yanks the covers off me and I feel a blast of cold air hit my body, which is curled up trying to keep warm. I snatch them back over me and cuss under my breath, hoping she doesn’t hear me. “Okay, okay,” I say, trying to contain the irritation I feel, but as Buster, my black Labrador, jumps onto my bed and starts to lick my face, I can’t stay mad for long. I hug him as he washes my face to the point where I feel that I don’t need a shower anymore. I don’t know how I’d cope without him. Living in this house is like being alone in a crowd. There’s Mom and Dad

12É Ñwho bark at each other, if they can be bothered to speak at all, and there’s my twin brother, Danny, who is so wrapped up in his skateboard that he doesn’t do anything but grunt at everyone. The only one I get any attention from is Buster, so as he licks me and I smell his doggy breath, I hold on to him tightly and tell him I love him. “Hurry up,” Mom shouts, as she passes my door again, “Get up, or you’ll have to walk to school.” I don’t care, in fact I’d rather walk to school so that the kids don’t see the car she drives and rip me to pieces all day about how poor we are. Danny beats me to the shower and so I try to snuggle back down into my bed with Buster, pulling the covers over us, but he struggles to be free and cold air surrounds me, forcing me to get up and put some clothes on. It’s no good being the last one in the shower because the water’s cold by then, so I forget it, spray deodorant on myself and get dressed without washing. Finally Danny comes out of the bathroom and I can get in there to clean my teeth. I stare into the mirror. I hate it that I look so much like my mom. I think my mom is the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen, even though she spends hours trying to hide her hooked nose, sunken, piggy eyes and thin lips with loads of makeup; it doesn’t make any dif-ference as far as I can see. I put toothpaste on my toothbrush and start scrubbing, staring into the mirror, hating my own

13É Ñsunken piggy eyes and hooked nose. I have my dad’s lips and for that I’m grateful. I scrub and scrub with a venom that reects my anger that Danny, a boy at that, doesn’t look anything like Mom; he’s got beau-tiful eyes with lashes to die for, blonde hair, Dad’s chiselled nose and full lips. If there’s a God, why did He do this to me? Doesn’t He know how hard it is to be a girl and not be pretty? Why did He give Danny what He should have given me? I spit into the sink with all the venom I can mus-ter, rinse, and then stare at my teeth, which are crooked; Danny’s are straight. Dad and Mom say they can’t afford to send me to a dentist. I try not to cry, but not even Buster’s devotion to me as he sits at my feet takes away the dread of facing the kids at school again today, and every day. Mom’s gone, cussing at me as she left, telling me I take too long and she can’t wait any longer…good! Danny’s gone with her. His friends don’t seem to no-tice the age of our car and I think they’re too busy trying to keep in with him to tease him about it. Why don’t parents realize that what they do or don’t do makes it so hard for us kids at school, where the rich-est, prettiest, handsomest, ttest and most popular kids rule, leaving the rest of us to suffer the humili-ation of being left out at best, and at worst, bullied for being a nerd. Being an ugly nerd is the worst thing in the world. I brush my hair and clip it back behind my ears. I’ve

14É Ñasked Mom if she’ll let me have it styled but she says I’m too young. I’m fourteen; all the girls in my class have their hair styled, why can’t I. Money I guess. She gets her dressmaking scissors and hacks my hair off in a line around my neck, which looks as if she’s put a bowl on my head and trimmed around it. I’m sick of it. When I grow up I’m going to get a good job that pays lots, and then I’ll be able to have my hair styled the way I want it. I kiss Buster goodbye and walk the four blocks to school. No one walks with me, even though I see some girls who are in the same classes I take; they ignore me as they walk past and I try to pretend that it doesn’t matter to me, but it does. A gang of boys pushes past me and one laughs in my face. “Parrot nose,” he sneers, and his friends laugh. I put my head down and follow them without looking where I’m going; I just follow their jeering up the steps and into the building, and although I know there are many more kids that will poke fun of me in there, it feels a little safer because at least some grown-ups are around. I take my place in the front of the class, knowing that I’m excluded from the back rows of desks where the popular kids are. It’s an unwritten rule; Dad tells me that he and his friends all sat in the back row and the nerds sat in the front, with the “wannabe” kids in the middle. Although Danny’s the same age as me, he’s in another class, and every night he tells

15É Ñme about what he and the other kids get up to in the back row; he makes me sick. Can’t he just shut up about it for one moment? The problem with sitting in the front row with the nerds is that none of the nerds wants to be as-sociated with you in case you’re more nerdy than they are. It’s a lonely place and is made worse by the constant snickering, which you just know is about you and not about the nerd you’re sitting next to. I have bruises on my body from the other nerds and the wannabe boys who all push past me when the bell goes for the next class as we hurry through the door and down the corridor to get to the next class-room. The back row boys don’t seem to bruise me and I guess that’s because I don’t exist, for they’re too busy making out with the pretty girls with straight teeth, long hair and perfect noses. As we pile into the next classroom the same un-written rule tells us where to sit, and this time I’m next to a guy with long, black, curly hair and spots that are about to explode nasty yellow pus all over his paper. I know the look on my face is telling him that I think he’s more nerdy than I am, yet I don’t seem able to stop myself from feeling disgusted. My pencil drops to the oor and rolls under his desk. He picks it up and hands it to me without say-ing anything but there’s something in his eyes, which aren’t as piggy as mine, in fact they’re a brilliant, vibrant blue. It’s something that says, “I’m here on

16É Ñthe nerdy front row too, and I know what it feels like; yes, I’ve got spots but I’ve got nice eyes if only someone would bother to look.” I take the pencil and look at him; one of his front teeth is black. One of his spots is oozing. I’m grossed out, and I can’t help it showing on my face. “Pay attention!” the teacher shouts and I look forward, snapped out of my thoughts. “Today we have a guest speaker, Miss Tina, who works with teenagers, and she’s going to be teaching a class and starting a group during lunch break that any of you can go to if you want to.” A lady stands in front of us and I wonder if the back row is going to start the “game” they play when we have new speakers in class. I remember the day when a pastor came in to tell us about the work he did in his church, but he left half way through the lesson as the back row and the wannabes—and there was even one or two nerds that joined in—jeered and ridiculed him. I’d been embarrassed and had wanted to stand up and tell them all to shut up, but I couldn’t because I knew that they’d rip me to pieces if I had, so I sat there feeling the man’s pain, and my own shame. Miss Tina stands in front of us and I wait, not scared, but weary. She looks like a nice lady and my anger is simmering, anticipating their game of “let’s run you off,” but I know that I won’t be able to do anything about it if they start because I don’t want to draw attention to myself.

17É Ñ “Hi, my name’s Miss Tina and I work at Beach Haven. I don’t know whether you know where it is, or what it is. I’m here to tell you that it’s a place where we work to help teenagers be the best they can be, to grow into the nest people they’re able to be, and to learn how to respect themselves and others. It’s a place where teenagers recover from the traumatic things that have happened to them—they rest and grow. It’s on the coast and is built right by the beach. How many of you have spent time on the beach?” I dare to turn around. Turning around is not allowed by nerds, it’s an unwritten rule, but I do it anyway and turn back quickly when Tessa icks her blond hair over her shoulders and sticks her tongue out at me. There aren’t very many hands up. It’s fty miles to the nearest beach; Mom and Dad tell us that the car won’t make it and so I’ve never been. Miss Tina asks everyone in turn why they haven’t been to the beach and the kids say that their parents are too busy, it’s dirty, full of sewage, food is too ex-pensive, it’s too crowded and they can’t stand sand getting in the carpet at home. She looks sad. “Well, you know, I grew up on an island so there were beaches everywhere. I’ve been on quiet beaches, busy beaches, dirty beaches and those that just take you to a place where you forget that life can be tough.”

18É Ñ She has my attention; my life is tough. I want to go to a place where it isn’t tough and if sand gets in my carpet I don’t care. “Do you know that on a beach you can nd all manner of life, all striving to stay alive despite it be-ing really hard, for at any moment some creature is likely to eat you up. Sounds tough, doesn’t it? And I wonder if that’s how it feels for some of you, too.” The class has become quiet; straight teeth and long hair don’t seem to matter anymore. “I remember being taken to the beach as a child, and my sister and brothers would climb among the rocks when the tide was out. It was only then that the rocks were visible, for when the tide was in there was no beach and no rocks, they were all under water, but at low tide there was a whole new world waiting to be seen…with all its secrets.” I rest my elbows on my desk and lean my head in my hands, listening to her. “I wonder about that. Imagine standing on the cliff above a beach when the tide is in. You can only see what’s on the surface, as beautiful as it is, but what about what’s underneath the waves, what about what’s really there? You know that just because the tide’s in and you can’t see all the life beneath the waves, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. You just have to hang around long enough to wait for the tide to go out, for the water to recede, to see another beauty, one that’s hidden beneath the high tide.”

19É Ñ I can hear some of the kids dgeting and whisper-ing. “Do you have something to say?” she asks, and they’re silenced; I feel a grin spread across my face. “Looking at people is a bit like looking at a beach; they look one way at rst glance but if you wait a while you’ll see what’s really underneath. Sometimes the surface can be rough and full of turbulence, like a stormy sea, and you’d never know that what lies beneath is beautiful and captivating. “What I’d like you all to do is to write a sentence about what you think people see when they rst see you, and another sentence to describe what’s under the surface.” “Do we have to?” Tessa says, “This is stupid.” This is how they behaved when the pastor came to talk to us; she’s starting to try and run Miss Tina off, but it doesn’t happen because she answers in a way that stops Tessa from saying anything else. “Are you nding it difcult to describe how others would see you, my dear? Or is it that you don’t know what lies beneath the surface?” Tessa sighs loudly but starts to write and no one else says anything. My stomach has turned over and my hands are sweating with the thought of having to nd some-thing to write, something that I can read aloud in class that won’t humiliate me.

20É Ñ “If you can’t think of a sentence, a word will do, just a word, and don’t worry—we’re not going to be reading them aloud in class. So you can be honest and say what you really think, because only you and I will see what you’ve written.” That feels better, well, it does until I think about what to write that’s honest. Others see me as an ugly nerd and what’s beneath my ugly, nerdy surface is pain, terrible pain. I can’t write that. I don’t want myself to see it—let alone anyone else, even if she does seems a nice lady—yet it is what I write because it’s the truth. She tells us to put our names on the top of the paper and fold it into quarters, and then she walks around the class with a bowl, and we each drop our paper into it. “Thank you for doing that,” she says. “The whole purpose of that exercise is to help you to be aware that every human being presents himself to the world with a kind of mask on—a social persona, a social mask, how they want others to see them.” “How stupid,” I think; I don’t want others to see me as ugly, I just am ugly. I’d give anything to have a different face. “No matter what kind of social mask you have it is sure to hide what’s underneath, what is the real you. You know, sometimes we can get so hung up on what we look like, or what other people think of us, that we forget what’s really inside us. And while we’re so

21É Ñconcerned with what we present to the world, our social selves, other people are trying to work out who we are, and the main clue they have to make assumptions about us is our social mask.” Everyone’s quiet. “Look at me. Write down what you think I like doing in my spare time.” I write the word, “sewing.” “Okay, shout out what you think it is.” “Flower arranging.” “Knitting.” “Crocheting.” “Cooking.” “Babysitting.” “Sewing,” I say. “Singing in church.” “Gardening.” “Swimming.” “Walking.” “Playing cards.” She’s laughing as everyone shouts out and shaking her head. She holds up her hands to silence us, and grins. “You’re all wrong. I like riding Harley Davidson motorcycles.” I can hear some kids gasp and I turn around to see some of the boys staring at her in awe. “My dad’s got a Harley Davidson; it’s cool.” “Can you see that you all made assumptions about

22É Ñme just by looking at me, by my age, the clothes I’m wearing, my hair, and the fact that I’m a grown-up coming to teach one of your classes. Making assump-tions like that is called stereotyping. Don’t feel bad, we all do it, but it’s only when we look deeper that we nd out what someone is really like. “Now, making assumptions like that is normally pretty harmless but sometimes it can be damaging to our self-esteem. What happens if someone has a birth mark on their face or a feature that makes them feel self conscious?” My face is so red and hot that I feel faint. The class is silent. She pulls her chair from behind her table and sits among us. “I want to tell you something. When I was a lit-tle girl I had to wear glasses and everyone called me “four eyes.” It hurt my feelings, but something worse happened while I was a teenager, when it mattered a lot to me about whether the other kids liked me or not. I developed a really big mole on my top lip.” We’re really quiet. “It sat there on my lip getting bigger and bigger and my mother said that it had roots growing all over my face under the skin, so I knew that I could never get rid of it. I grew up knowing that no one would ever want to kiss me, and that no matter how hard I tried to make my social mask look nice, that ugly old mole sat there making people stare at me, and I could see disgust on their faces.

23É Ñ “Now, if someone had asked me to write down what people thought when they rst saw me and a word to describe what was under my surface, I’d have written that they would have seen me as ‘ugly’ and what was beneath my surface was ‘pain.’” My face is so red that it’s burning and I want to cry. This lady knows how I’m feeling; those are the two words I wrote. “What happened to it?” the guy sitting next to me asks. “I lived with it until I was grown-up and went to nursing school, and then one day while I was in the operating room, a kind surgeon cut it out for me. You know, I cried a lot, for had I known that it didn’t have roots all over my face, I’d have had it removed years ago.” She looks sad. “You know, people can be cruel. They stereotype, and they can be mean if they think you’re different, and it can be just a small dif-ference, nothing big, just a silly mole.” She starts to giggle. “You should have seen me. With my stitches in a row above my top lip I looked just like Adolph Hitler. Would you like to see the scar?” She walks around the room and peers into every-one’s face showing us a tiny scar that’s barely notice-able to show us that her story is true and not made up. Finally she sits back down. “D’you know what hurt me the most? Nobody ex-cept my family bothered to look beneath my surface

24É Ñto see what was there. They stopped only at the mole on my face. I can remember going out for dinner, and a man who I’d known for years came up to me and told me how beautiful I was and what a difference the surgery had made. I was so mad. I said, ‘I’m the same as I always was,’ but he didn’t get it; he didn’t know how to see anything beyond the social mask we all wear, or beyond the way a person looks.” The bell breaks into our thoughts, for the whole class is quiet, and suddenly we grab our books and head for the door. I look at Miss Tina as I leave and she smiles at me as if she can see something good beneath my surface, my hooked nose, crooked teeth and sunken, piggy eyes; and I hope she can, because I can’t. All I feel is pain. “See you all next week. Be safe and kind to each other,” she calls behind us. Her voice stays with me all day but it obviously doesn’t with the other kids because they’re as mean as ever, bumping into me in the cafeteria, making me drop my lunch, then spilling water into my lap when I nally sit down to eat a bag of chips. I want to cry but don’t. I harden my face to show that they haven’t hurt me and think about the “mask” Miss Tina says we all wear. Why does mine have to be like this, wounded and sullen, when I look around and see the other girls with “masks” that smile and irt with the boys? They’re enjoying themselves. My life’s a misery from the moment I wake up to the moment I

25É Ñgo to sleep; if only God had given me a pretty face, then I’d be able to wear the same “mask” as the pretty girls and have all the boys want me, too. I leave the cafeteria, wet, hungry and humiliated. The afternoon’s no better and I walk home trying my best to ignore the comments the kids shout out as I pass with my head down. I let myself in and the house is silent. Danny must be at baseball practice and Mom must have taken Buster for a walk because he’s not here. That’s odd. She never takes him for a walk. I wander about the house feeling depressed. It’s ages before Danny comes home. “Where’s Mom?” he asks. “I don’t know. Buster’s not here either. Perhaps she’s taking him for a walk.” Danny looks at me as if I’m stupid, and says, “Yeah, really.” He microwaves some pasta that’s left over in the fridge and ops in front of the TV. The car pulls up in the drive and I stand up to look out of the window. It’s Dad. He opens the door and immediately I can see something’s wrong in his face even before he blurts it out. “Your mother’s left us, gone off with another man. She can’t expect me to manage this house, you two and a dog all by myself, so I had no choice but to put the dog down.”

26É Ñ I can’t think straight; my head’s spinning so badly that it takes a few seconds for what he’s just said to sink in. Did he just say that he’s killed my dog? “Where’s Buster?” I demand. “I’ve just told you. Your mother’s run off with another man and I can’t cope with you two and a dog, so the dog had to go. It’s her fault; don’t blame me. It’s not my fault.” I scream so loudly that it feels as if it’s coming from the television and not from me. I’m only vague-ly aware that Danny is staring at me with a look that I hardly ever see in his face—concern—as Dad slaps me hard across the face. “Stop it!” he shouts at me. “It’s only a God-damned dog. You should be crying about your mother leaving us, not over a stupid dog.” My screaming is now not only shock and grief but anger too, and I wish that he’d been “put down,” along with my mother as well. He slaps me again and this time I try to hit him back, over and over, until he slaps me so hard that I fall to the oor, then he walks out of the door. “I hate him,” I sob, and Danny doesn’t know what to do as I haul myself up with my face stinging badly and I run out of the door, not to stop Dad from driving off—I’ll never speak to him again—but to get away from the house; the house that’s empty now without my precious dog. Danny doesn’t try to stop me.

27É Ñ I don’t know where I’m going, I just walk and walk, my eyes blinded with tears. People are calling at me from their cars and I ignore them as I cry. After awhile I get short of breath from trying to walk and cry at the same time. An older boy I’ve seen at school starts walking with me and I ignore him but he keeps asking me, “What’s the matter?” And since I’ve got a pain in my side from walking so fast, I stop. “You look like you’re in trouble, girl,” he says. “Smoke?” I shake my head. No, I don’t smoke. I can’t even afford to buy another school dinner when some kid makes me drop mine. “Here, you look like you could do with some help; smoke this.” He pushes a squashed cigarette into my mouth that smells funny, and because I hate everyone so bad, particularly my mom and dad, I do as he says and suck on the end of it. It chokes me, but he tells me to do it again and it’ll be easier. It isn’t, but I do it anyhow and cough until I can’t cough anymore. I don’t feel as if I’m here anymore, and suddenly I don’t feel so desperate. “C’mon baby, come with me,” he says. No one has called me “baby” before. I’m an ugly nerd, the one with the other nerds in the front row of class. He slips his hand behind my head and kisses me;

28É Ña long, slow, lingering kiss that makes me forget all about my mom running off, my dad killing my dog, and every kid in school hating me because I’m ugly. I don’t know what’s happening to me because I can’t feel my feet, and I have no idea which way is up or which way is down. I’m giggling like someone has just told me something really funny but I can’t remember what it is. He takes my hand, and the only thing I can remember is that he’s pulling my arm and I’m following, tripping over and giggling. He says he’s going to take me home. I think I may have said that I don’t want to go home, but he says that he’s going to take me no matter what. He pulls me across the road and I lean against his car while he unlocks the door. I fall into the seat, giggling, and have no idea where he’s driving to. He stops the car and lights up another cigarette and pushes it into my mouth. I think I might be sick, and somewhere deep inside of me I’m glad that I haven’t eaten all day, because to vomit after eating feels really bad—it’s so messy. So as I suck on the cigarette I don’t care if I’m sick, I’ve got nothing to lose. My head’s spinning, my stomach’s warm and I’m giggling; everything that hurts is just beyond my grasp. I don’t know how it happens, but he pushes me down on the back seat of his car and he’s on top of me. He’s saying I’m beautiful as he pulls at my clothes. No one’s ever said I’m beautiful before, no

29É Ñone, not my mom or my dad, no one. He tells me I’m beautiful over and over, and it feels good. For the rst time in my life I feel that someone wants me and that I’m special, so I don’t stop him from touching me. My head is spinning round and round so much that it doesn’t hurt; I’m barely aware of what he’s doing and it’s over really quickly. When I say that I think I’m going to throw up, he opens the door and pulls me out. “Don’t throw up in the car; it’s my dad’s, and he’ll go crazy.” He stands next to me but doesn’t kiss me anymore. Perhaps he thinks I’m going to chuck up over him. “We’d better get going,” he says, and rolls the window down telling me again not to throw up in the car. I don’t remember telling him where I live but he drops me at the end of the road and I stagger up to the front door and hammer on it, having forgotten my key. The door opens. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried out of my mind,” says my mom. I start crying. What’s she doing here? Dad said that she’d gone…he killed my dog because she’d gone. My head is oating somewhere else but I manage to blurt out, “Dad said you’d run off with another man and that you weren’t coming back.” I’m feeling so sick that I want to vomit. There’s

30É Ña funny feeling between my legs. It’s wet and a bit sore, and I want to have a shower. “Dad killed my dog because you’d gone,” I cry, and Mom wrings her hands not knowing what to say. There isn’t anything to say, is there? Nothing can bring him back. “I’ll get you a new one,” she pleads, but I storm off to the bathroom. “I don’t want a new one, I just want Buster.” How can she think that she can just buy a new one and it’ll be all right? He’s not a ripped pair of jeans that can be replaced. As I stand under the jets of water I cry, not caring if she can hear me or not. I stand under the shower for as long as it takes for the water to run cold and my body to stop smarting. I shiver in the chilling water thinking about what my dad’s done, what my mom’s done, and what I’ve done, all in one day. I go to bed weighed down with thoughts. My bed is the cold place it always is, and it seems colder know-ing that there’ll be no warm furry Buster to share it with in the morning, he who gives me unconditional love. I don’t have to be pretty or smart, Buster loves me no matter what, but now he’s gone. Too much has happened today; the day seems too full and too fast. There was me not taking a shower, school with all its bullying, a new lady, Miss Tina, who seemed to know exactly what I was feeling, Dad kill-ing the only friend I have after nothing more than a

31É Ñght with Mom, which happens all the time, and then a nameless boy doing the “thing” to me. It’s the thing that all the girls in the back row in class talk about all the time, which I never thought I’d ever be a part of, being an ugly, hooked nose nerd on the rst row at school. Maybe now I’ll have something in common with them, something I can reach them with, if only they’ll listen. I can be one of them. Someone wanted me that way tonight. That means I must be okay.