So the other day, one of my co-workers and I were discussing our childhoods.  Of course, there was the required teenage angst but I realized that we all had our epic battles with bullies. 

I never had a problem with kids at school, middle school to be precise.  They were all pretty nice to me.  I had good friends and the word “bully” never even entered my thoughts.   Actually, I was the only Asian kid in my town for a while.  Funny fact: when the second Asian kid came along, everyone asked if we were related.  We weren’t.  Okay…getting off-subject.

Anyway, I grew up going to this one church in San Francisco.  All the kids knew each other, the parents knew each other…we all went to the same summer camps, blah blah blah.  My best friends were Donna, Christina and Esther.  We swore that we’d be in each other’s weddings and be best friends forever.   It was good until Tina came rolling into our church.  She of the teased bangs and striped jeans (this was the 80’s, yanno), she brazenly smoked behind the church (gasp) and told of these adventures she had that would keep all the good church kids mesmerized for hours.   She was the cool 15yr old who had shaken up our naive little group.  For one reason or another, all the kids flocked to her…except me.  So she chose me to be the object of her hate and anger.  

She was merciless in her decimation of my 12yr old self.  She’d whisper stories as to the real reason my father had died (although she had arrived on the scene 2 yrs after)…saying he killed himself because I was such a horrible and ugly child (he passed away after a long battle with cancer).  Her many lies of my supposed promiscuity (I WAS 12!!), my drug addiction, my penchant for shoplifting were eaten up by my friends…because of course, Tina was too cool to lie about any of this.  Of course it had to be true.   The best shot at me had to be the slambook (once again, it was the 80’s) that was conveniently left so I could stumble across it.   She had turned my friends against me.  They had become lemmings.  Everything in the book that was negative had my name scrawled all over the pages.    It broke my heart.  That day, I stopped going to church.   It was the only time I ever wished any harm on anyone. 

Years later, I heard that she was arrested for solicitation and both her brothers were in jail for random crimes.   Donna?  Christina?  Esther?   I could care less now but back then, Tina’s incessant tormenting of me and my friends’ betrayal felt like the world’s end.   It’s weird.   I hadn’t thought of her in ages…but I guess you never forget your #1 bully.