Member-only story
For Ayesha
A childhood story about bullies, breasts, and back walkovers
She had a head of curls, cut just above her shoulders, forming a dark halo around her head. Full-figured and heavy-set, her large bosom and thick, clear-framed glasses made her look matronly, of all things.
She was in sixth grade.
New to our class, she looked so different from any of us. The most developed girls in our grade almost lost the right to wear their newly-acquired bras when she arrived. Her breasts were enormous—gargantuan, to use the trendiest word that year—and in a room full of just-budding adolescents, it was equivalent to the one thing you should never be in elementary school:
Weird.
The identities of the cooler kids in our class were implicitly understood by all, but I don’t think I ever noticed any real bullying toward the lesser peons. The cool crowd played sports, or were childhood friends who all hung out together at recess. I wasn’t one of them. But I didn’t care; my most pressing concerns of the time were my beloved gymnastics classes (thrice-weekly), the books I wanted to check out from the library (always too many), and when my younger brother was going to annoy me next (always too soon). If people ever made fun of me or others, it must not have been bad enough for me to remember.
