It was my least favorite part of the day. Gym. I didn’t mind the activity, it was the changing in and out of the required tee and shorts that made me nervous.
While all of the other eighth grade girls had bodies that were showing signs of having been introduced to puberty, my body was still all wiry arms and legs. The boys were quick to remind me that I was shapeless. Not that I cared what they thought. I just hated to be reminded of how different I was.
It was odd because it was my goal to be different. That’s why I chose to loc my hair instead of wearing a perm or the silky straight weaves like many of my classmates. I wore big lens-less glasses with thick frames. My usual accessories were made of beads, shells or hemp. My mom called me a throwback to the seventies. Her soulful nerd, she called me.
Thoughts of my off the wall mom comforted me as my book bag thudded to the tile floor of the locker room. I could hear a group of girls huddled together, loudly whispering someone else’s secrets.
I opened my locker to retrieve the dreaded uniform. When I looked back up, all of the girls were in various stages of undress. I looked down as I started to peel away clothes. I saw the jeans of the girl next to me hit the floor. I concentrated on her orange nail polish, as I pulled up my shorts. She dropped hers. She bent down to pick them up and I noticed blue hand shaped bruises covering her upper thigh.
It was either the horror on my face or my low gasp that caught her attention. I found myself staring directly into her brown eyes. She fumbled, almost falling over, as she quickly donned the shorts.
“What is wrong with you?” One girl remarked of the clumsiness of the brown eyed girl. The brown eyes darted back to me.
“The dyke is watching…” Everyone in the locker room turned to stare at me.
“Yeah? I caught her staring at me yesterday,” another girl added quickly.
“I’ll teach her to watch where she looks…”A first moved in what seemed like slow motion before connecting with my nose. My head flew back before connecting with something hard. I felt a warm wet gush over spill over the top of my head. Cold tile offered no cushion to my falling body. Everything faded to black.
A love of beautiful things: words, art and women, led Alix B. Golden to create, I Bleed Ink. Read her blog or contact her on twitter.
