The Turning Point

I used to count my steps as I walked down the school halls, maybe out of habit or out of self-defense. One, two, three, four…. anything to keep my eyes low and my thoughts quieter than the voices that always seemed louder than they needed to be.

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People say it’s better to be unseen than to be noticed for the wrong things, but I don’t know about that. Being noticed -mocked, laughed at and belittled- still reminded me that I existed, that at least, I was there and not invisible. But I was just the short girl.

“Shortie” they would call me, like an insult and like being small meant I wasn’t meant to take up space at all. I laughed at first, but the jokes kept coming, and I begin to think if maybe they’re right, if maybe I was just some tiny, unforgettable dot in their big, perfect world. I hated being invisible, except of course, when I wasn’t. Like when a random group of seniors decided to rest their elbows on my head in the cafeteria or when someone dropped a book on the top shelf and said “Oh wait, let me call the borrowed keychain to reach it”. Cue the laughter.

I was just the short girl who had to ask the librarian to reach the top shelf, who stood on tiptoe in group photos and still disappeared behind someone’s shoulder, and the one they thought it was funny to rest their elbows on in the hallway, like I was a desk. A joke. Tonia made sure I never forget it.

Tonia, I used to think her name was beautiful and soft on the tongue, but when she said mine, it always came out like an insult “Shortie”.

Tonia was tall, and pretty. Pretty in a sharp-edged way, the kind of pretty that people were always envious of, her voice could cut grass, it was cold, smooth and just loud enough for everyone to hear when she said “Shortie, don’t get stepped on” or when she sighed loudly in line and said “Can someone get her a growth hormone shot already”.

It wasn’t even creative, but it didn’t have to be. Cruelty rarely needs poetry when everyone else is laughing. She said it always with a fake pout and it was never just teasing. There was venom in the way she said it, she knew what she was doing

And I did what I always did, I smiled like it didn’t sting, and acted like I was used to it to care, but it stung. Every single time. And sometime it was just the little things, like sliding her foot out just enough so I’d stumble as I passed by, pretending she didn’t see me. Once, she dropped her drink “by accident” and it splashed all over my sketchbook. I didn’t report her, people like Tonia didn’t get in trouble, but people like me did.

I’m not going to lie, I started shrinking myself, I avoided eye contact, I hugged my books tighter, I smiled less and I wore darker clothes, pulling my hoodie strings tight. And it wasn’t just the bullying. It was the not mattering, it was sitting in class while people passed notes and whispered and laughed and never looked my way, and it was crushing hard on a guy who walked right past me like I was oxygen.

I had a dumb crush on Chris, handsome with his smile and the way he ran his fingers through his hair. I don’t even know why I liked him, perhaps because he always seemed to know where he was going. He looked like he belonged. I used to think about what it would be like to talk to me, for him to notice me. He was kind, not to me though -he barely noticed me. But he helped the lunch lady carry heavy trays without being asked, he once offered his hoodie to a girl who cried in the hallway, I saw that.

I don’t know when it started. The crush, I mean. I wanted him to say hi, just once. Not even my name, just hi.

Once, Tonia caught me looking at him. Just a glance but a second too long. She rolled her eyes, hissed and walked away. Then I went home and looked at my reflection in the mirror, and wondering what exactly is wrong with me.

It was exhausting. I didn’t cry at school anymore, I learned early on that tears only made it worse, but at home, when I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling fan, I often asked the darkness one question “why can’t I find my place”.

But then, one after, it changed.
I was walking the long way to avoid the busy hall and getting bullied, and that’s when I saw her, kicking a vending machine like it had personally offended her, she muttered something under her breath, kicked it again and finally, a bag of trail mix and a stick of gum dropped with a loud clatter. She noticed me watching “Want the gum?” she asked. I blinked “What?”.

“The gum. I hate mint” She didn’t look away, didn’t sneer and she wasn’t laughing. I nodded, unsure why. She plopped down on the floor right there in the hallway and opened the gum, tossing the trail into her bag “You can sit, you know. I don’t bite, unless you’re Tonia”. That made me laugh, a real one, and the first in a while.

Her name was Mia. She was my height, wore oversized hoodies, her shoelaces were mismatched and her hair was a wild mess of defiance. She was just like me -small, overlooked and underestimated but she was everything I was scared to be. She wasn’t angry about how she is, not like I was, she even joked about it. She said “We are not short, we’re just condensed awesome”. I laughed real hard when she said that.

We sat there chewing gum and making fun of vending machines and teachers and Tonia. It felt nice. When I stood up to leave, she looked at me and said “We should do this again. It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t try to talk over me”.

I smiled the entire walk home. I now have a friend. That was the fork in the road, not the vending machine and not even the gum, but her, Mia. I didn’t get it yet but that moment split me cleanly down the middle -into the girl I had been and the girl I was about to become.

We started sitting together at lunch, and drawing together. She was the first person I shared my sketchbook with. We started walking the halls together but not much changed. The bullies still snickered, and the popular girls still stared past us like we were wallpaper. Tonia still rolled her eyes when we passed and mutters “losers” under her breath but the word didn’t dig as deep anymore.

Then I told Mia about Chris, even though I swore I wouldn’t. she didn’t laugh, she just said “You have taste, but that let that crush crush you”.

We didn’t suddenly popular, this isn’t a fairytale. And my crush? Still didn’t know I had a face but it didn’t matter as much anymore because now I wasn’t walking alone and I no longer needed to be chosen to feel seen. I had chosen myself the day I met Mia. Still, change comes at a cost. I lost something when I stopped shrinking. I lost the comfort of being invisible, and staying quiet. Sometimes I do think back to those days. I miss it a bit. It feels like an old, worn blanket. Ugly but warm.

But what I gained? A friend and a part of myself I didn’t know I could have. I left the girl behind who looked down and hid her dreams. In return, I found someone who walked beside me and never once made my height a joke.

I left behind the girl her eyes down and was eager to please those who bully her. And that changed everything

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