People Never Change

[excerpt]

I’d been a normal person. A high school student, studying nonstop to get good grades, working on projects into late nights to meet deadlines. Of course, it wasn’t all bad, but the few good times never overcame the bad ones. My dad cheated on my mother, but kept coming back every time, apologizing, until they finally divorced. That was when the idea that people never change first made its home in my mind. There was also the bullying. It played out exactly as in the books I read. I was never the target of it, but I can’t say I jumped in to stop it either. Every time, the few same people would target the same others, scuffles that would end in broken glasses, scattered papers, pools of tears. It was horrible and yet, I was too scared to do anything about it. Or maybe not scared. Looking back, maybe I just couldn’t be bothered. Jumping in would cause a problem for me, and that was the last thing I needed. So every time I got home, and my mom asked me how my day was, I would say, “Fine, Mom.” And she never questioned it, because she knew I was a quiet kid, and because she trusted me.

Occasionally, she would hear the news of the incidents, complaining about how kids could be so ruthless, and how teachers could be so blind, asking me if I ran into one of the scuffles. After the first time I said yes, she gave me a lecture about always telling a teacher or any adult about it. I did, once, and it only resulted in my essay being torn up. It was humiliating to see kids the same age, maybe younger, stand over me as I stared down at the pieces of my hard work. People never changed.To be pushed into a wall called things I never thought I would hear. Snickering coming from all angles, and when I stared up, my head was pushed back down. Maybe it wasn’t as dramatic as I made it seem in reality, but it felt that way. Usually, a protagonist helps people in these situations, especially if they had experienced it themselves. But I wasn’t the protagonist. I was just a side character, and the real one had yet to show up. I wasn’t going to try to do something I knew couldn’t be done, because people never change.

[continue reading in the magazine]