I’d turned off the water, dried off and gone back to my room, my rage only slightly simmering. I glanced at the simple Prada black shift dress with laced neckline I’d laid out on my bed but couldn’t find the will to get dressed.
As I waited for my first class to start, I turned to stare blindly out that window, thinking of the boy I’d once known.
That summer in culinary camp, we were eleven... no, twelve years old, two kids who knew so little about the world. I remembered those days so clearly; my passion for haute cuisine, my fear of being so far away from home, but most of all, my growing crush on Kobe... and what I’d come to see as his growing affection for me.
I’d known him from afar in grade school, but camp brought us closer.
I remembered how badly Kobe was bullied by an oversized fourteen-year-old, Chuck... Chuck Rolle. No one liked him and he hated everyone.
“What ya eaten, you scrawny worm?” Chuck had yelled at Kobe that morning. It was only our third day at camp.
Sitting at the next table, I had watched Chuck make his way to Kobe, like a hungry panther with his eyes on a wounded antelope.
“Just cereal,” Kobe said over his bowl of Corn Flakes.
“Cereal?” Chuck spat back as he tapped the bowl just enough to spill some of the milk out. “I thought you were some kind of rich kid. Aren’t you the fancy pants son of some hot shot fancy pants chef? What are you doing eating cereal?”
“I like cereal in the morning,” Kobe said with a tight grin. He hadn’t taken a bite since Chuck had walked up to him and the spoon in his hand trembled slightly.
“I like cereal in the morning,” Chuck mimicked. “What a sap. Look at how scrawny you are. Maybe you should be eating bacon instead of cereal... lots of bacon.”
Kobe said nothing, just looked apprehensively at Chuck.
With a sinister grin on his face, Chuck grabbed two slices of bacon off the plate of another boy as he passed.
“Bacon will put some meat on your bones,” Chuck said as he tried to jam the slices in Kobe’s mouth.
“Stop it,” Kobe said as he squirmed to get away from Chuck.
But Chuck only pressed harder, forcing Kobe to eat the bacon.
Unable to take the injustice of it all, I stood and went up to Chuck. I had no idea what got into me. It wasn’t like me to go looking for trouble. But then again, it wasn’t like me to ignore such a rude bully.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Beat it, kid,” Chuck said. “I’m busy here.”
“I think Kobe is quite capable of deciding for himself what he likes to eat for breakfast.”
He turned to me and for a moment I regretted intervening. His grubby cheeks were red, his eyes dark and angry and the sneer on his lips almost had me wetting myself.
“If he’s capable of deciding what he wants for breakfast, you would think that he was also capable of defending his choice.”
“You’re only picking on him because he’s younger and smaller than you are,” I said, my tiny little fists on my boyish, undeveloped hips. As small as I was, I was still several inches taller than Kobe.
“No,” he spat back. “I pick on him because he’s a stuck up snot who thinks he owns the world. I happen to think he needs to be taken down a notch or two. Did you see yesterday when he...”
“And how many notches should you be taken down, you big oaf?” I quickly cut in. “Please. Just let him eat his cereal in peace.”
“He wants his cereal?” Chuck roared. “Well, he can have it.” He picked up the bowl of cereal and poured it on Kobe’s head, leaving the bowl to make an awkward hat atop his head.
Shocked and more fearful than ever, Kobe pulled the cereal bowl off his head and gently set it back on the table.
“What do you have to say about your little friend now, kid?” Chuck asked as he turned to me.
My fist answered before my mouth could form any words. I punched him with all I had and was surprised to see him stagger back. Just when I thought he’d regained his balance, he staggered another step back, tripped over his own foot and fell back, hitting his head on the edge of the table as he went down, much to the delight of all the kids in the cafeteria that morning.
“Wow,” Kobe said as he stood to look down at Chuck. “You really flattened him out.”