I was sickly since young, and my condition lasted until I was nine years old. I was always absent from school because of it. When I finally attended class, my classmates have already formed groups, and I was at the corner left on my own.
It was lonely at first, but as time went its usual course, I had grown accustomed to it. Not long after, I fell in love with serenity and solitude.
Because of my weak attitude and probably because of my meek appearance, I was bullied by my peers. At first, I looked at my fellow students with pleading eyes, but never did they glance in my direction. When my eyes pleaded to the teacher, the teacher would pretend that nothing was happening and continued to gossip with other teachers during class hours.
I remembered once, during fourth grade, a pop quiz about spelling –– my classmate who was sitting next to me, a girl. I called her 'SpellingBEE' because she always aces the spelling quiz.
The teacher asked me to write on the board the word 'flower.'
I secretly cursed the teacher. When it came to picking students to wrote the answers on the board, she always forgot that I was invincible in her eyes.
Anyway, I wrote the word 'flawer' and quickly sat down on my seat.
The teacher gave a 'tsk' sound and stared at me as if I had done a heinous crime. My classmates all snickered and threw me mocking glances.
SpellingBEE had a condescending look on her face. "What an idiot," she said. "You can't even spell a simple flower."
Her voice was mocking, and she didn't even bother to hide it while her eyes locked on the board as if she wasn't talking to me. This surprised me. I don't remember what I had done to warrant her animosity. This was the first time that we were seatmates, and these were her first words to me. How friendly.
Maybe because that was the first time that someone called me an idiot, not even my family called me an idiot, that I somehow developed inferiority when it came to spelling.
There was also a time when we changed seats. The teacher, who apparently hated me for unknown reasons, ordered me to take the chair next to a boy who always bullied me.
I called the boy 'PigFace' not because he was fat, but because his nose was big and his nostrils were large like a pig (*smirked).
PigFace tortured me every day at school. He poked me with his pen, play with my hair, talked bad about me, and shout at my face.
I hated going to school, and often, I made excuses or cut classes altogether. It was a miracle that I graduated from grade school.
I didn't say anything about life at school with my parents. I didn't want them to worry about me. They already have their hands full in managing our family's business.
Luckily, I have many hobbies to comfort me. Drawing, reading, and playing with the twins were some of the things that I love to do every day.
Thinking back, because of these events, I developed a sense of aversion towards people who were not my family. Independent, indifferent, reserved, and aloof were some of my titles ever since.