Project Nerd

Chapter Two - Fractured

"People who love themselves don't hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer." - Dan Pearce

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Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at the world through a piece of fractured glass. Like when I'm looking in one direction I can see perfectly clear, but when I turn my head, that clarity is replaced by fragments of what's really in front of me. As if somehow my vision is clouded by the what-ifs, could haves, should haves, and maybes, all morphing with reality.

I've never been a fan of reality. Even as a kid, I preferred to pretend the world was a better place than it actually was, one where nobody ever let you down and everybody treated each other with kindness. I was always a hopeful kid.

But that hope only faded as I grew older, as I realized just how cruel the world can truly be. Scratch that, as I realized just how cruel people can truly be.

This world rejects anything that is different, just because it doesn't understand it. It doesn't want to understand it, this world doesn't want to understand me. People are threatened by things that are different, they scare them. Perhaps it is caused by some ancient survival instinct or maybe it's born out of pure stubbornness, trying to avoid change.

Regardless of the cause, people's natural instinct is to tear down the things that are different from them, to demolish those differences before they have the chance to strike them first.

I got my first taste of that desire to harm what's different in the seventh grade.

By that point, Project Nerd had already commenced. While I had been expecting some bad reactions to my disguise, I had no idea what I was in for. The bullying started so much quicker than I had expected it to.

Merely two weeks into the school year, kids started to turn on me. It happened quickly. One day there were only a few disgusted faces thrown in my direction and people avoiding me, and the next that disgust had turned into hatred.

I was in the library during lunch period, trying to find the books I needed for my classes. I was in the back corner, searching for the math workbook I needed to check out.

Four boys in my grade were sitting at the table nearest the aisle I was browsing. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them looking at me occasionally, before whispering to each other and laughing. The bits I could hear made it clear they were mocking me.

"He's such a fucking dweeb!"

"He is literally dressed like my grandpa,"

"It's no wonder he has no friends,"

I kept a mental note of their comments to write down later, otherwise paying them no attention. The first comment did however make me want to laugh, because of how foreign the cuss sounded coming out of the boy's mouth.

It was clear that he had to force it into his vocabulary, and it certainly didn't flow naturally. Swear words rarely do for twelve-year-olds.

His name was Jason, and he seemed the type to crave attention. He wanted the other kids to think he was cool, but he was trying too hard. I wondered if they could see through his act as easily as I could. If they did, they didn't comment.

Having found the book I needed, I turned around to walk back to the front to check it out. Unfortunately for me, I had been looking down at the books in my hands and didn't notice the foot stuck out in front of me until it was too late.

I gasped in shock as I lost my balance as my foot caught theirs, effectively tripping me. The boys all laughed as the momentum of the fall caused me to simultaneously drop the books I was holding onto my feet and propel my face forward into the table they were seated at.

My face smashed right into the hard edge of the table, driving my glasses further into my face. The glass in the frames cracked at the same time the plastic piece over my nose did, and the jagged edge sliced into my skin. The impact made my nose start bleeding instantly.

As I lifted my face, the boys all snickered.

"Oops, didn't see you there. You should really watch where you're going," The one who had tripped me smirked.

"Damn four-eyes, looks like those hideous glasses aren't good for much," Another one laughed, reaching his hand forward to flick the cracked glass in front of my right eye.

The impact made me flinch and made the glasses shift on my nose, the cracked plastic slicing into my skin once again.

"Ow! What's your problem?" I winced, sliding my glasses off my nose. I used my other hand to help myself to my feet, before pinching my nose to try and stop the bleeding. I slipped the broken glasses into the pocket of my trousers.

Jason, who seemed as if he was the leader of their little group, sneered at me with more disdain than should be capable of a twelve-year-old boy.

"Don't you get it? You're my problem. Nobody wants you here, freak."

"What did I ever do to you?" I asked, gathering my books from the ground with my free hand as I tried my best not to get my blood on them.

"You didn't have to do anything. Having to look at you every day is bad enough."

"Yeah, freak. You're so ugly!" One of the other boys that hadn't spoken yet chimed in.

"I bet you went blind from looking in the mirror!" The last one nearly yelled, and I was about to reply but Jason beat me to it.

"Shut up, Chad," He rolled his eyes, before returning his gaze to me.

"Stay out of my way, freak."

And with that he got up from the table, hitting his shoulder into mine as he walked away. The other three boys hurried to do the same, scuttling after him out of the library.

When I had been preparing for the project, I always knew there was a chance I would get bullied. It was almost guaranteed with the dynamic of our opinionated, small town. But on some level, I had expected it to be strictly verbal, I'd never imagined that I would get hurt physically, and not so quickly at that.

The damage was minor but was still damage nonetheless. My face had hit the table harder than I thought, and the added impact of my glasses caused the bridge of my nose to fracture. There was a cut over the fracture where the plastic had broken and cut into my skin, and my entire nose turned purple with bruises.

I had to wear a bandage over my nose for several weeks, which only drew more attention to me than my disguise already attracted. It didn't help that the bruises on my nose had spread to one of my eyes, basically making it look like I had a black eye as well.

When people heard about what had happened, nobody seemed concerned other than my family. The teachers turned a blind eye, believing Jason's story that I had just tripped. The other students in a way began looking up to Jason and those like him, the ones who weren't afraid to bully those that were different.

Nobody cared that my blood stained the carpet in the library, or that I had become the school bullies' primary target.

That day was only the beginning of the bullying that would continue for the next six years, the bullying that would eventually help me to open the people of this town's eyes and change them for the better.

After all, you can't fix something if you don't first know the extent of how broken it is.