Sitting on the worn wood plank separating playground from playfield, I wrapped my arms around my legs and held them close to my chest. Needing a hug, six-year-old me had to embrace myself. It didn’t keep me from crying.
My head bowed as I squeezed myself tighter. Smaller. There was less for the world to hurt if there was less of me to hit.
I wanted to run away. To disappear. To be anything, anyone, but me.
In the distance, the other kids on my team were off running and kicking and playing, the soccer coach yipping instructions. Similar to the instruction for me to leave. To sit alone. To be alone.
Other children were laughing on the playground. Playing. Having fun. I sat with my back to them. I didn’t want them to see me. Because they’d probably laugh at me. Tease me. Belittle me. The crying child was always an easy target.
Parents watching over their children didn’t approach me. They kept their distance. Maybe I really didn’t exist. Would that have been so bad?
Cold autumn air nipped at the tears. My thin skin couldn’t defend against the stinging remarks of teammates and coaches, what chance did it have against the weather?
Curling arms tighter around skinny legs, I searched my body for warmth. It had left with my confidence. Something I failed to develop at such a young age. Once upon a time, I had it, but the world had made quick work of my stunted supply. In class, another student brought in a funny-sounding fruit. I laughed. The teacher sent me to the office. Another time the teacher cheered for a college team. I booed, because it wasn’t the team of my father. She sent me to the office. Down to the office. Down to the office. Always down to the office. I learned in the first grade to never express myself. Never talk. Never raise my hand. Because the quieter I remained, the less attention the teacher would pay to me.
Until the kids came around to pick on me. The quiet kid. While the teacher quieted me the children chastised me because of the silence. A stone at the intersection of two rivers, each eroding me down. Stripping me of confidence. I would cry because of it. And that only made things worse.
The eroding rivers of adults and children washed away my ability to speak up. To speak out. Teachers and coaches would grind me down. As would the bullying and snickering laughter of peers. And the subsequent tears deteriorated me further. The tears that fell from my chilled cheeks as I sat on the worn wood plank and the edge of the world between playfield and playground.
“Are you okay?”
I snuffed back tears and snot, wiping whatever moisture remained on the back of my arm as I looked up. There stood a girl, maybe ten, maybe twelve. Dark hair in a swooshing ponytail hung behind her slender neck. I hadn’t seen her before. Not that I spent much time looking at girls in school.
I tried to speak, but it only coaxed more tears, so instead, I offered a nod.
“Are you sure?”
Another nod, this time without trying to speak.
“Can I sit next to you?”
Looking at the girl, my arms loosened their grip on my legs. “Okay.”
The girl sat beside me. It felt nice to have someone there.
“Why are you crying?”
Just hearing the word made me tear up, as if she had spoken it into existence.
“No, no, it’s okay.” Her small hand touched the top of my knee, where skin emerged from oversized shin guards.
“I don’t know,” I said, wiping more emotional debris from my face.
“You don’t know why you’re crying?”
“They pick on me.”
“Who?”
I motioned toward the soccer field. “All of them.”
“The payers?”
“Players. Coaches. All of them.”
“That doesn’t sound very nice.”
I shook my head but didn’t take my eyes from the ground. My cleats. Her shoes. The small Converse Chuck Taylors with white laces and socks poking between the edge of sneakers and light wash denim jeans.
“Can I tell you something? A secret.”
My eyes drifted from her shoes to her face. She looked nice. Pretty. As pretty as a first-grade boy could ever find a third or fourth-grade girl. I nodded.
“I think you’re pretty great.”
It took me a deep breath and a chilled breeze to register what she said. For her words to warm past the cold skin and hurt feelings.
“You do?”
“Yes! And I want you to remember something. Whenever those other kids or the adults pick on you, just remember that I think you’re pretty great. And that other people think you’re pretty great too.”
“Really?”
“Yup. And no matter what anyone else ever says or does to you, you can always think of me.”
“Okay.”
The girl patted my exposed knee, then stood up. “You should go back to practice. You’ll be just fine.”
I stood, no longer feeling cold. She smiled, then she ran off. Away from me. Away from my life. I never learned her name. I never saw her again. But thirty years later, I still think of her.
I’d never be able to pick her out of a lineup, even if someone showed me a photo of what she looked like then, or what she’s become now.
But what I do know, what I’ve always known, is she’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever met.