Was there someone like this in your class?
He sat in the back row and always had a smell about him. Nobody wanted to sit with him, and nobody remembered his birthday. He ate alone, went home alone, and stared blankly out the window by himself.
We all thought he was used to it.
Then one day, he said something that silenced the entire class.
“No one ever taught me.”
There were plenty of other people in our class.
The boy who always ranked first but never spoke had a letter in his schoolbag that he had written three years ago and never sent.
The girl who was always smiling and brought breakfast for everyone got up at four every morning to knead dough. Her hands were covered in burn scars.
The athlete who fought the hardest and had the shortest temper ran around the track until he threw up, just because he didn’t want to go home.
The girl who talked too much and fussed over everything cried all night because she scored two points lower than her stepsister.
The rich kid who wore AJ sneakers and spoke with a barbed edge didn’t have a single friend to eat with.
The boy so quiet he seemed invisible wrote four words in his yearbook: “Thanks for remembering me.”
It took us a whole three years to go from getting on each other’s nerves to having one another’s backs.
Later, I traveled far and met many people.
Only then did I realize that we, awkward as we were, were the best of us all.
This isn’t a story about a top student making a comeback, nor is it a passionate romance.
It’s the story of seven awkward teenagers stumbling their way into adulthood.
Open this book, and you’ll remember that classroom, the squeaky fan, and the person you haven’t been in touch with for a long time.
“How are you doing now?”
