PART ONE: The Past & My Mistakes

One

I’d known Jaxon Barlow since I was six. We’d grown up together in Gosnells, a big town and a three hour drive from the large bustling city of Winthrop. We went to the same underfunded school, lived in the same projects, and played with the same kids. However, true friendship would not have occurred if he hadn’t done what he did. It was the one event that sat up there in my most vivid memories, and I coveted it fiercely.

The opportunity for friendship was made possible by one person, and her name was Jade Smith. Jade was a red haired stout looking girl two years older than my eight year old self, and she absolutely loved to make my life a living hell. As if my life wasn’t hard enough living with raging parents who drank their sorrows away on unemployment benefits, I had to deal with the giant ten year old troll that tackled me down whenever the opportunity presented itself.

That was every single day.

Jade was unusually big for her age, and my tiny gaunt frame was no match to her Godzilla-like exterior. I swear I could hear her stomp down the hallways and, nine times out of ten, I shut my eyes and waited for my tiny abashed self to get shoved head first into my small blue locker by her sweaty fat hands.

“Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara,” she’d sing with her lisp broadcasted to the world of Gosnells Elementary school. “Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara…”

Those words made me tremble.

Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara… I could feel the tears form in my eyes, and I quickly wiped them in fear of her noticing. She saw them once and that had resulted in a two hour ordeal where she’d managed to successfully persuade five other ten year olds to stand in front of me and sing the soul crushing tune: Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara.

Kids can be cruel. I was known as “Ugly Sara” very soon after that horrid duet with her friends.

“Do you want to play with us, Ugly Sara?”

“Good morning, Ugly Sara.”

“Why are you ugly, Ugly Sara?”

It was a relentless torment, and every morning I woke up feeling like my day was a double ended sword. If I stayed home, I’d have to face the wrath of my alcoholic parents. If went to school, I had to listen to the name calling and pretend it was normal.

It was never normal. It was painful.

I was, for the most part, not a very pretty little girl: skin and bones and easy to pick on. My hair was short as a boy’s, my light brown eyes were dark with bags under them thanks to parents whose arguments kept me up most nights, and most of the time my lips were chapped, my palms were rough, and I was wearing the same knackered clothes day in, day out. I’d only had three outfits for school every week, and my growing bony body had to roll my socks up to hide the bare skin between the end of my pants and ankles, thus making me look even more ridiculous.

The girls didn’t accept me at school. I was laughed at, pointed at, even pushed on several occasions when I got too close to them. I found the only place I could turn to were the boys who were far easier to put up with. The boys did pick on me every now and then: questioning my gender, asking me why my hair was short like theirs, why my clothes were too small, why I didn’t smell “right” and so on. But after the first few introductory recesses of answering their brutal questions, they were quick to stop and move on, no longer caring for small chat.

Even though I was playing with them every recess, that didn’t stop heffer Jade Smith from coming around to push me to the ground -- it was practically a ritual. Which brings me to Jaxon again, who witnessed her brutally shoving me into a puddle of mud on a rainy autumn morning. He was also ten, like her, and instead of laughing like all the other boys, the sandy haired Jaxon Barlow did not.

She stood there singing while I rested my muddy face between my muddy knees, waiting for her to stop and move on. This day she was remarkably persistent and the torment lasted a very long time.

“Sara, Sara, Ugly Sara,” Jade repeatedly sang around me with her frizzy red hair bopping around her head and her big fat tongue stuck out at me, “Sara, Sara, Ugly–”

I heard a scream and looked up to find Jaxon’s hand wrapped around a chunk of her hair. She screamed like a wailing banshee as he shoved her into a deeper puddle of mud nearby. Face first she went into it, splashing with the same force as a whale in the ocean.

“Look at Jade now,” he laughed loudly.

The girls who witnessed the shove started crowding around us to gasp and point at Jade Smith.

“Jade, Jade, ugly Jade,” Jaxon suddenly sang out, motioning for the boys to do the same.

“Jade, Jade, Ugly Jade,” they all sang out.

With wide eyes, I looked at them all, and my heart fluttered at the realization that my name was not in the painful tune that had been sung to me every day. Even the girls joined in, laughing up a storm. Jade Smith didn’t move for a long while and stared in horror at all the kids pointing at her. Her eyes welled up in tears and she got up and stormed off, and all you could hear from Jade Smith as she ran down the field that morning was the squish, squish of the water in her boots.

Jaxon was satisfied with this. I was too scared to thank him in fear of him turning the attention back to me. I didn’t know what he was like yet. But the next day at school while I waited for the painful moment of being pushed into my locker, it was Jade Smith who was shoved into hers by Jaxon.

“Jade, Jade, Ugly Jade,” he’d sing, and his friends would follow.

For the first time in all my days at school, I was left alone. In fact, the rest of the week he resumed this torment on Jade, and I was still left alone. When I finally realized he wasn’t going to pick on me, I approached him one recess while he was standing against the wall of the school (a form of punishment from the recess supervisor) and hugged him.

“Whoa,” he said, stumbling back with his arms in the air. “Not cool!”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling widely up at him. “Thank you for saving me from Jade.”

He shrugged as nonchalantly as he could – he was, after all, the coolest ten year old around – and said, “Don’t worry about it, little boy. I got your back.”

“I’m a girl, and my name is Sara,” I said heartily.

“Alright, Sara, I got your back.”

He did. He never let Jade Smith bully me again, or anyone else for that matter. The double edged sword became… well, just a sword. I woke up every day feeling blissfully content that I would never have to face her bullying again, and it was all thanks to Jaxon Barlow.

I clung to him like white on rice. He was disturbed by my clinginess at first, and ran off whenever I drew near to him, but after many school days of relentless stalking, he succumbed to the realization that I was not going to go. After coming to terms with this, he was fine by it – but only because he saw an advantage to this. I was declared his gofer friend, fetching him what he wanted, waiting hand and foot for his requests, and he never stopped requesting!

“I want a cup of water,” he demanded.

“Where do I get a cup?” I asked.

“Sara,” he started in irritation, “don’t give me questions, give me results!”

I’d pretended to go to the toilet, stole my teacher’s coffee mug from her desk, emptied it and filled it up with water. He was very pleased, although not so much by the faint taste of coffee in his water.

“Go tell Max I hate him,” he said next.

Max, who was not on good terms with Jaxon as of lately due to playground politics, was hiding somewhere remote and I had to track him down. After asking around and running from one side of the school field to the other, I found him sitting beside the fence against the parking lot, alone, digging sticks into the mud.

“Jaxon says he hates you,” I stated breathlessly after a long five minute run.

“I don’t care!” Max screamed, throwing a stick at me.

I ran off to report the news to Jaxon who was unsatisfied. “Guess I have to beat him up,” he muttered. “Go tell Stacey she has a big butt.”

After I delivered the news to Stacy - and after getting shoved to the ground - I returned to Jaxon to carry out more requests.

As time wore on, he grew tired of my services and the requests became less and less. The shine wore off and I was happy he’d stopped. I was frankly sick of having things thrown at me, and for telling many girls horrible things about their behinds.

I still followed him everywhere; I was practically his shadow, and I think he was quick to get used to that because he came knocking on my door one day when I was absent at school after catching the flu.

My parents were passed out in their bedroom and, frightened they’d hear the sounds of his knocking, I tip toed to the door to answer.

“You weren’t at school today!” he hissed at me when I opened the door.

“I’m sick,” I said, shamelessly wiping the snot from my face. I wasn’t the most delicate thing around.

He pushed past me and entered the house. He wore a deep frown on his face, clearly unsatisfied with my answer, and looked about the living room with a weird look. “Why is your house so ugly?”

I followed his gaze to the tiny living room: old stained green couch against one wall, semi cracked glass coffee table riddled with cigarette butts, beer bottles all over the floor – some on their sides oozing out remnants of beer, and a tiny television in the corner on a moving box because we didn’t have a stand for it.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, feeling suddenly ashamed. I’d never had a friend over before.

He looked around some more. “My mom puts pictures up and cleans every day,” he said. “Must be cool that your parents don’t care about being clean.”

No, they didn’t. I looked at our bare and dirty walls. Not one photo was up, and I couldn’t recall the last time my own mother cleaned.

“What does your room look like? Can I see?”

“No,” I quickly replied. If he thought the living room was bad, I didn’t want him to see my room. All I had was a tiny dresser, a mattress on the floor, and two old dolls I’d been given at a charity Christmas event at school a couple years ago. He could see my reluctance and didn’t press me about it.

He tucked his chin length sandy hair behind his ear and said, “It was weird you weren’t at school today. I felt like I didn’t have a shadow.”

“I’ll be at school tomorrow.”

“Good, because I’m going to beat Max up and I’m going to need you there.”

“What for?”

“For support!” he said irritably at my question, as if that was so obvious.

I didn’t want to let him down, so I said, “Okay, I’ll be there.”

“And tell your parents to stop cutting your hair.” He eyed my boy-like do before turning to make his way out. “You look like a boy.”

I nodded. “Okay, Jaxon.” They still cut my hair. It kept the lice away, they said. Only it didn’t. But to their credit it made it easier for me to clean on my own.

Jaxon lived down the street from me, and he was in the same kind of old townhouse as me. He had a cheery mom, but I never saw his father when I went around there. I remember thinking that was very odd. When his mother had seen me waiting for him to come out and play one Saturday afternoon, her eyes had widened in dismay.

“Come here, child.” She beckoned me inside the house.

She had long sandy hair, like Jaxon, and even his blue eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. She didn’t have his nose or the shape of his face, and his height certainly wasn’t from her gene pool judging by her small frame. I remembered thinking she was very pretty, and very young looking. As I entered the house, I looked about it with great fascination. There were photos of Jaxon of all ages on every wall, and when I felt carpet below my feet, I rushed to take my dirty shoes off.

“Don’t worry about that, darlin’,” she told me. “I can just vacuum that up.”

The house, small like mine, felt homely. She had nice furniture. And there were toys everywhere. And her house smelled of chicken roast wafting from the kitchen causing my stomach to grumble.

“Would you like to eat, darlin’?” she asked me after hearing the tiny stomach of mine roar in aching hunger.

I smiled timidly and nodded.

“You’re a shy little thing, aren’t you?”

She led me to the kitchen and had me sitting down on a dining table chair while she opened the oven and removed a large pan of sizzling roast chicken on top. I gazed at her movements – so graceful and calm, not tripping over her feet or slouching when she stood. She was even more perfect than the teachers at school.

“Jax!” she called.

I could tell Jaxon had come out of the shower because his hair was dripping when he walked into the kitchen wearing jeans and a black sweater.

“What do I tell you about drying your hair,” his mom scolded him. She grabbed a nearby tea towel and hauled him to her. “Bend your neck down so I can dry you off!”

“Mom!” he growled in anger.

“Don’t ‘Mom’ me,” she warned.

I watched with even more fascination at her drying his hair. I idly wished my own mother would do the same…

“Not in front of my friend,” he pleaded.

“Your friend is going to join us for dinner, unless she has somewhere to be.” She stopped and looked at me expectantly.

I shook my head. “No, ma’am.”

“’Ma’am?’” She laughed loudly. “I’m not a granny. Call me Lucinda. What might your name be?”

“Sara Nolan,” I said, feeling the heat in my cheeks at her adult eyes on me.