The Bug on the Sole of Your Shoe

“I’ve gotten tired of your face, so don’t talk to me anymore.”

“Huh?”

“Bye.”

Leaving me standing outside the parted school-gates, Myko walked off with her hands shoved in her pockets, her shoulders huddled up to her ears due to the rain. I stood immobilised in the stream of students pouring out from the school, past me, doing little to avoid their trajectory. My hair quickly got soaked from the downpour. Its curls drooped dejectedly and some covered my eyes. My face. Something having to do with my face. Having watched the last outliers hurry past me, eager to seek shelter from the rain, I, too, set my feet into motion. I think we’re having lasagna today…

I scrub the stubborn pieces of melted cheese and meat off the plate with the dishwashing brush, watching them get turned to a yellowish slush in the sink. From the living room, I can hear mom watching TV, chuckling to herself ever so often. That woman’s amused by the most mundane things. I often laugh at jokes I don’t understand, but that’s not really the same thing. Often, I laugh at things that aren’t meant to be taken as jokes. Like with Myko. Maybe I should have laughed earlier today, but then again, maybe she’d have scolded me for not taking her seriously. Either way, I wasn’t given much time to react. Maybe she’ll have changed her opinion about my face tomorrow?

Chapter 1

She hadn’t. She’d walked straight past me when I greeted her, straight past me during lunch, and straight past me at the end of the day. Always a few girls in tow, not sparing me a glance. It was that bad, huh? It appears that simultaneously, everybody in class seems to have gotten tired of my face. I asked one of the boys for the time and he mumbled something in shame. To be entirely honest, I don’t know any of their names. Only Myko’s. I’d clung to her like a parasite on the first day, entrusting my introduction to her, my fate to her. She’d spoken kindly, if a bit apologetically, of me. When gazes landed on me, they saw a peculiar animal. It’d be cruel to mistreat such a dumb little thing, that doesn’t know any better. And to take away its keeper, no, that wouldn’t do… Myko bothered to learn the names of her new classmates even while restricted to the company of me, growing quite well-liked as she always manages to do. This was a nice class, according to my internal criteria. Flat-chested girls were just as popular as well-endowed ones. The boys had not formed a mafia. Though grouping was present, everybody got along fine. One voice was not louder than the rest. What upstanding young teenagers, I’d thought, peeking over Myko’s shoulder. It would take them one year to lose their patience. Another three months for them to revoke their “no mistreatment” clause. That the same went for Myko, I failed to anticipate.

It started with a gob of spit. Not at me, but at my feet. When I raised my eyes, Myko’s expression was one of disgust, as if I was as unsightly as the gob, and it physically pained her to acknowledge my existence. And everyone else, too, started looking at me with the same disgust in their eyes. A sigh of annoyance, a roll of the eyes, slowly but surely, the teenagers were breathing life into my invisible existence again, even if against their will. Because truly, it had become invisible. Over a couple of months, I was knocked into, always without apology, my feet carelessly stepped onto, my view obstructed by taller heads. Seas of students that parted for Myko in the hallways, closed up for me. And always ending up the lone party when instructed to form groups. Had the teachers stopped seeing me too? I began to think so.

“Hey mom, I still have a face, right?”

I’d asked candidly.

Easily amused, mom chuckled and shook her head at my silliness. Drawing a brush through my long hair, she spoke slyly while looking at the me in the mirror;

“If you didn’t have a face, what is it I’m looking at right now?”

I stared back at myself in response. The glass of the mirror seemed to be ever so slightly foggy over my own face. But maybe from where mom was standing, it didn’t show.

“Perhaps I still have a face,” I pondered aloud as she continued to braid my hair, her hands brushing against my neck, “But is it possible it’s… changed?”

“Oh hun…” Mom tutted, a smile still on her red lips, “You’re worried about having gained weight, aren’t you?”

I raise my eyebrows.

“Ah…? Ha-Have I?”

She makes a dismissive sound between a scoff and a snort.

“More to love, sweetie.”

I crinkled my eyebrows, deep in thought. That’s not something a teacher would care about, or even notice, though. What’s-her-face had forgotten to call my name during roll call, the one with the big glasses. Not only today, but yesterday as well. I’m pretty sure it qualifies as a trend if it happens a third time. I’d hesitated to correct her in fear of being ignored, but as mother dearest can confirm, I am still in possession of a face — and a voice for that matter.

“There, all done,” mom affirmed with a proud nod, putting her hands on her hips and looking down at her work. I slid the braid over my shoulder, looking at it in the mirror with a hand on it.

“It’s getting really long, isn’t it? I don’t mind braiding it for you, but you’ll have to learn how to do it on your own eventually, you know.”

To think, that just when I was on the brink of deletion, you looked at me, Myko. You hadn’t looked at me for three months. It felt like I was going to die when you stopped, and when everyone else did too, it really did feel as if my existence had been wiped from the face of the earth. But just like that, after nearly deleting me, you looked at me. I was visible, and alive again. Myko saved me. And not only had I not disappeared, I became useful. A dumb little thing worth mistreating became my role, and soon almost everybody took part in doing so. My hair became a nest of crumpled paper and my name an unlucky charm. I think it made Myko feel good to humiliate me in front of the others. I couldn’t help laughing at her scornful tone sometimes (knowing she’s just faking it), and that’d earn me a kick in the gut, or a whack on the head if she were holding something, a bottle. In a way, I made her smile, and she made me smile, just like before, even if I still made her angry sometimes.

“That’s why, I wanted to thank you.”

“What?”

“Thank you, for always treating me cruelly,” I grinned widely.

Myko’s mask of contempt changed into that of a disturbed one. This was no laughing matter, I remind myself. Like the pieces of leftover cheese and meat on a plate served lasagna, she’d have to scrape a bit harder to get me off her.

Chapter 2

I always knew Myko would end up a bully. It runs in the family, and she was not shy about showing it early. Constant misdemeanour notices, calls home, bad grades. She started cleaning up her act a bit in fifth grade, but she was already behind, and had already lost every adult she’d interacted with’s faith. On one hand I was the “only one who understood her”, and on the other, I was accused of being an enabler. Whether it’s possible for a child to be an “enabler” or not I’m not quite sure about, but they were right in the sense that I did not try to change Myko for the better. I said it, didn’t I? It runs in the family. The only thing she’d do differently from her dad is to not have a kid, because she doesn’t like boys. Besides, I loved the Myko that was pretending to be good just as much as the Myko that would get a suspension for punching a kid in the nose.

It cracked against her bloody knuckles. After my humble display of gratitude, Myko’s acts of cruelty toward me grew even more extreme, and my time in school in general, far more violent. I’d get tripped on the daily in the cafeteria so I’d drop my tray of food, and the lunch ladies would squawk angrily at me after the fifth time it happened. Myko looked displeased whenever I’d meet her gaze, but the girls around her table sneered, giggling amongst themselves. You’d think the same stunt would get boring after a while, but apparently the “STUPID look on my FACE!” kept them entertained. Everyone but Myko… I really do think she enjoyed it at first, but now, it seems to also pain her. It’s our second rough patch in a short period of time now, who knows how our relationship will end? If neither of us are smiling, what’s the point of all of these soiled clothes and bruised knees? Despite my all the more frequent trips to the infirmary, the school nurse makes sure to remain unalarmed.

“I’ll have to start charging you at this point,” she commented, and I was once again unsure whether I was meant to laugh or not.

It’s not as fun anymore, my hair smelling like milk and having to hunt for my shoes.

The braid mom had made came loose as a hand yanked it hard from behind. The skin of my scalp strained to hold onto my hair, and I flinched in discomfort. When I turned around to look at these unmemorable identities, not knowing who’s who and who’s done what to me, seeing their leering eyes that look the same and the grinning mouths that speak the same, I felt sick not seeing Myko among them. They are already speaking to me when I ask the question, cutting them off;
“Where is Myko?”

They all stared incredulously at me, baffled by my insolence. I’m acutely reminded of the fact that my hair is still in their possessive grasp as I feel another sharp tug, white pain crackling through my skull and ears.

“What did we JUST say?” The boy who had grabbed my braid snaps back through gritted teeth.

Suddenly, the situation wasn’t funny to them anymore, and the grins shifted into cold masks of animosity, the many eyes filled with judgement.

“…Sorry, I didn’t hear,” I murmur simply, my eyes flicking back and forth between the many targets and landing on a mole by the boy’s lips.

Finally letting go of my hair, the same boy speaks up again in a voice loud but flat;

“Myko had to go home, but she asked us to deliver you a message.”

My ears perk up. Myko did? A message for me personally? Noticing my excitement, the cruel smirks return to the teens’ faces.

“Yeah,” the boy stifles a chuckle, some of the girls covering their mouths behind him, and he continues in a friendlier tone, “She was wondering if you’d stop coming to school.”

“…”

The boy manages to keep a fairly decent poker face, but the students behind him are cackling at this point. With a faint but visible smile on his lips, making his words- or rather MYKO’S words, sound even more mocking, he speaks again, not minding the blank look on my face;

“We’ve all made it very clear we don’t want you here, so it’s beyond any of us why you’re still coming.”

“…”

“Well, she was hoping you would get the message without anyone having to outright tell you, but… that’s not really how you operate, is it?”

That comment brought forth wild barks of laughter from his peers, tears forming in their eyes from how hard they were guffawing. I just stare mutely at them, at a loss for words. I didn’t feel like laughing, even if it’d have been socially acceptable, this once. The boy looked proud of his effect, now also having given into laughter. The mole moved up and down, up and down.

Chapter 3

I sat on the park bench for a long time, staring at the sky. If I wasn’t going to school anymore, I had nowhere to be. I watched the clouds float by, not even sure if I was upset or not. Myko asked me not to come to school… so I wasn’t going to come to school. The sun moved from its spot, the air grew darker, the people walking past me on the streets more scarce. A dog ran by me with its owner chasing after it, and that was when I finally decided to get up. I didn’t want to be at home either. I walked around the block, trying to burn off the time, but my footsteps came to a halt in front of a familiar door. As I stood there contemplating whether to knock or not, the door opened on its own, nearly making me scream in fright.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” Myko exclaimed loudly, her hand still on the door handle.

Her sharp features were twisted into a furious grimace, her teeth tightly clenched. Her wild, dark hair practically stood up by itself like an angry storm-cloud around her head. I raised my arms in the air in defence, stuttering out a confused, “Ah, Myko… I- Sorry, I don’t—“ But Myko just continued, her voice rising and her face reddening further;

“You’re stalking me now? Have you gone completely INSANE?!”

“I-I’m sorry!” I finally managed to choke out, shrinking back slightly as if afraid to be struck.

“You should be sorry!” She shouted with a voice gone hoarse, looking like she was debating on whether to hit me or not, but deciding against it.

Myko continued scolding instead, her voice still loud enough to make me cower like a guilty dog;

“Following me home like some creep! I’ve told you countless times to stay away from me, haven’t I?!”

Before I can part my lips to reply, she continues her tirade, a woman possessed;

“Jesus! What part of 'DON'T talk to me anymore' did you fail to understand, Noa?!"

I freeze up. My name. She called me by my name. The air in my lungs stopped, and my wide eyes were firmly locked on her face, not missing a detail. Myko just keeps going, her rant louder and louder;

“How long are you going to be up my ass?! I said, 'leave me alone', didn't I? Are you deaf or just stupid?!”

Her words kept hitting me like whips, but I didn’t even have the power to flinch anymore. I only felt relief as Myko said my name again. After so long, it finally sounded so good to my ears. Even if it was full of malice, as if I was a vermin she wished to crush beneath her heel.

“Are you even listening to me…?” Myko grumbled after my prolonged silence, a sense of hopelessness seeping into her voice.

I shook my head to snap out of my stupor, making a sound of compliance as I looked at her, still trying to process the way hearing my name sounded on her tongue. Noa… Myko put the hand that had been on the door back to her hip, giving me a harsh once-over. Her eyes returned on my face, her eyebrows furrowing. I just stared back at her, unblinking, taking in every detail; The way her bangs framed her face, the sharp point of her nose, the colour of her irises that, in the dark like this, were difficult to make out. Her lips twitched, looking like she was about to call me something foul, and I braced myself for the blow.

“…You still look the same, you know,” Myko muttered under her breath, her tone not nearly as harsh as I had expected it to be. “You didn’t change your hair or anything.”

I shook my head in response, not sure what I was expected to say to that. We just stood there a few feet apart from each other, silence, only broken by the odd car in the distance, neither looking away from the other. Something about Myko seemed different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. She continued to look at me in silence, as if inspecting every crease and pore on my face, no doubt with disgust. Her eyes felt like they were burning holes into me. Myko’s cold voice finally broke the silence, a grumble;

“There’s no point in standing around like this. You’re wasting my time. I have stuff to do.”

“…”

“This is the last time I tell you.”

“…”

She was… sending me away? I thought she was going to yell at me some more, but Myko just wanted me gone as fast as possible?

“But—“ I started to protest, even taking a step closer and trying to look her in the eyes again, but Myko cut in with a glare so sharp I could feel it like a knife;

“No. Get out of here.”

This had to be a trick. Some kind of test to see if I’d give up that easily. I tried again as Myko turned the door handle;

“Wait—“

I grabbed her arm, my own wedging painfully in the doorframe to prevent her from shutting me out, trying to keep her still, but Myko quickly pulls away, the door swinging open and freeing her. She spun around with the same glare on her face that gave me chills.

“Do NOT touch me!” She hissed and took a step closer to me, pointing a finger at my face; “I mean it. Keep your damn hands to yourself!” Shrill, her tough words belied the faint fear in them.

I would notice. I swallow, clenching my fists bitterly.

“You’re still so scared to be touched,” I murmur, a hint of scorn in my voice usually not present in her company.

It takes me less than a second to realise I’m about to get hit when I see the hatred in Myko’s eyes, the curling of her lips, and suddenly the world’s upside down, the sky looping. I couldn’t make out the constellations if I tried, but the stars were breathtakingly beautiful and brighter than ever in that moment.