Hey…uh…Vic- Grace,
You see, I have decided I will refer to you by your name. Victim seems dense. It sounds as if I am a criminal. Although, according to you – I am a criminal. Still.
Somedays, I dream of you. I dream of your carefree face the day, I first saw you but it soon morphs into the dull and lifeless one, you have now. I feel responsible and I feel helpless. But that doesn’t make me stop. Neither does it make me better than the rest. Because we continue to hurt you and to make fun of you.
Remember, we were twelve. My mother slapped me when she heard that I made fun of you for your clothes and hair. I was angry. You know why? Because I couldn’t accept the fact that I was wrong. and some part of me knew that I was wrong. Which made me even more frustrated. I was too stubborn. Too proud. So, I chopped off your hair.
Your silky long brown hair. It’s still engraved in my memory. How I held you against the wall and chopped them off. If I close my eyes and focus, I can still hear your trembling voice, begging me to stop. Asking me what your fault was. You were stuttering apologies after apologies. What were you apologizing for?
You cried and shivered and begged but I was deaf to you. I can still recall them falling off to the ground. I remember feeling a sudden loss. Not going to lie, your hair were beautiful. Even I couldn’t get myself to hate them. Maybe that’s why I chopped them off. You didn’t deserve beautiful. Or atleast that’s what twelve year old me thought.
You pale face looked beyond shocked, your eyes looked like hollows of pitch black lifelessness. You sat there for hours holding those strands close to your chest and sobbing. I know it because I also stood behind the wall, peeking at your sobbing-self. I felt really bad. It felt way more painful than any of my mother’s slaps.
You slapped yourself on your right cheek. hard. You were scolding yourself. You slapped yourself again, blaming that it was your fault I chopped your hair. You slapped your cheeks again and again and again. Until they were red and swollen, just like your eyes. I could take it no more. I ran home.
Your hair- that reminded me of the beautiful mornings followed by stormy nights. The hair that sumbolized the sky during sun-sets and the winds that blew away misery. I chopped them. They were gone. What was wrong with me?
You know I had nightmares that night?In my dreams, you laid next to me on my bed. The wind was blowing the curtains in my window and it was raining outside. I would look at you, to find you already staring back. Your eyes were filled with sorrow. And you would mutter without stuttering ,
“What was my fault?”
Your fault, you want to know? Well, I don’t know.
Because it isn’t. your fault.
Because you didn’t do anything. You did nothing accept smiling a smile that could light up the skies and skipping along puddles every time it rained.
Twelve year old me thought others were right. If they were bullying you. Being mean to you. Than you probably deserved it. Right?I mean why else would everyone be against you. You MUST have done something, atleast.
What I didn’t know back then, was that you were being punished, for being you. You were being slapped because you were poor. Too poor, to even afford proper cloths. You were being insulted because you had no mother. No mother to tidy your hair and pack you, your lunchbox.
Because you had no family. Because your father loved your late mother too much, to marry again. Because he wanted to be loyal to your other, unlike most father’s nowadays. Unlike mine anyway. Because you were nice. Because you didn’t hit us back when we shoved you aside.
Maybe, just maybe. You were being punished for being better than us.
You were being punished because we needed a reason to make you feel inferior to us.
You were being punished because we were too broken to let you be anything otherwise.
You were being punished. Because. We. Are. Heartless.
We still are.
Love,
Your Bully (Will).
EUREKA 