If I could change one thing in my life, I would not have stepped foot on that damn bus.
I would not have insisted to my mum that I was old enough to not be picked up anymore and that my 12 year old self was ready to have more freedom. She agreed.
And so I began catching the bus. At first I would sit with an old primary school friend of mine, lets call her Emma, but soon things got kind of cold and distant between us. Awkward. So I sat upfront by myself. That was fine. I could live with that.
Year seven was fine. The bus rides were quiet, and I listened to my music. Nobody bothered me and I did the same. I thought next year would be the same.
I was wrong.
Around the end of term 1, I became friends with a guy, lets call him Seth. I've never had a crush on him, nor will I ever. I don't speak to him anymore.
On my bus, there is this group of four guys in my year. One of them I've never spoken a word to in my life before I started taking the bus. Even then I didn't talk to him until later.
Those four boys made my life hell.
One day, they just started talking about me. They knew I could hear them too. I don't really remember how it all started. It just did. One day I was peacefully sitting in my seat, listening to music and the next, they were making fun of my friendship with Seth. Moaning his name out to make me uncomfortable, to get me agitated, to retaliate. And when I did, they would twist it back on me, making my remarks seems useless and making me feel dumb.
Then, they started about my appearance.
My nose, which is upturned, was mocked. The pushed their noses up to look like a pigs, oinking at me throughout the bus ride. They made fun of other stuff as well. One guy had somehow acquired one of my worst test scores. That really made me feel dumb.
I know this could have been a lot worse. I know others have had worse experiences and that many would look at mine and laugh. But it still hurts.
The 'bullying' (I'm reluctant to call it that), stopped in term 4, and I'm still recovering. A year later, I'm still so insecure about my nose. I want plastic surgery when I'm older. I shouldn't think like that but I do, all because these four boys were bored, and I was an easy target. The anxiety that I had just thinking about the bus was horrible, because I was scared it would turn into something more.
So if I could change one thing, I would change the day I persuaded my mum to let me on that bus, because that minuscule amount of freedom is not worth the amount of insecurities I have now.
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