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I ran home from school that afternoon. In tears, as usual.

It had been just another day as the single most teased and ridiculed student in the school, and probably one of the most ridiculed in the world. You'd think that by the time your sophomore year rolled around, people would have grown tired enough of making fun of classmates for social ineptitude and such that all the poking and prodding you've been subjected to since third grade would start to fade away. Truth is, all time has done to these other guys is given them the opportunity to come up with new, more humiliating ways to destroy your psyche.

Once again, it was the assholes in 6th period PE that was the cause of this day's troubles: the gym locker I'm supposed to use to store my street clothes during class is missing its door, so I end up having to share the locker of the guy who dresses next to me - when he lets me. This time, I finally decided, screw it - I'll just throw my stuff in the open locker and hope for the best. Bad idea. No sooner did I make my way towards the gym than I heard a commotion in the adjoining men's bathroom. Someone apparently snagged my shirt and stuffed it in the toilet. Of course, the gym teacher was utterly unsympathetic about this, merely dumping the shirt in a plastic bag and very tepidly offering to investigate who was responsible for the theft and vandalism.

As anyone who lacks the athletic skills necessary to be useful in a physical competition can tell you, class itself was the same nightmare I've come to expect. Always last picked, always given the least opportunity to play, and always blamed for the losses. I was fortunate enough to even be on the court during the day's game of basketball - I'm usually standing on the sideline as a substitute that never gets used - and the players on the other team took every chance to elbow, slap, trip, or shove me. One of them had a thing for running at me full speed, whether he had the ball or not.

"What's the matter, Nicky?" one of the other kids asked. I hate being called Nicky, they know, and that's why they do it. "Can't play a little defense?"

On another possession, someone miraculously passed me the ball, if for no other reason than nobody bothers to guard me, thinking I can't make a shot. Figuring that this is my chance to prove them wrong, I heaved up a 15-footer... and watched as it sailed over the basket entirely.

"Nice shot, dumbass," another "teammate" prodded. "Can't even hit the fucking rim."

Back on defense, the same guy who's been treating me like some sort of crash mat bowled me over yet again, and I tumbled onto the blacktop, skinning my knee. It feels like someone just took a sheet of sandpaper to it, and I yelp in pain. Someone from the other team noticed and called everyone else over. "Look! Nicky got a boo-boo!" he shouts, mockingly. "Are you going to cry now, Nicky?"

I already feel the tears coalescing under my eyes, but I fight it. Not this time. Just this once, I'm not going to cry.

But the other players already smell blood - literally - and as I try to get back up, they shove me back down. "Where're you going, Nicky?" they ask. "You think you're going to play with us?"

"Get off me!" I whine.

"You're such a fuck-up, Nicky. I heard you still pick your nose and eat it."

Everyone groaned in false disgust. It wasn't true - I never did anything of the sort - but everyone immediately believed it. After all, every dirty, horrible, defaming statement anyone could think about me had to be true.

"Really, Nicky?" Mr. Raging Bull asked. "I knew you were a nerd, but that's just gross."

"I don't pick my nose!" I screamed, as if anyone cared what I thought.

"I should've pissed on your shirt when I still had the chance," he continued.

It wasn't long until the bell finally rang, excusing us back to the locker room. I managed not to shed any tears in front of them, but it didn't matter. They knew they'd done it again, make me feel utterly humiliated and worthless, and have no power to stop them.

This is the way my life had been practically since I was nine years old.

I had nobody I could call a friend. I used to have a few kids that I shared interests with, but only two people I truly considered friends at any point in time. One of them, Joey, got turned on to that death metal garbage, and we pretty much grew apart by the time I was in 7th grade. Another kid, Phillip, moved out of state last year. Most of my time was spent either playing video games or watching TV - two solitary activities, perfect for someone who can't find anyone to do anything with him.

Most people, though, thought that I'm the biggest dork to grace their presence. It's like every stereotype of every nerd on every TV sitcom was presented to them in one convenient little package, for the sole purpose of bullying and belittling. I was the perfect specimen: glasses, crooked teeth, skinny as a rail, kinda smart but not in stuff anyone really cares about, poor social graces, and thoroughly uncoordinated and unathletic. Bill Gates without the money. Steve Urkel without the dance moves. Weird Al without the sense of humor.

I finally reached home, about a mile away from school, ran to my room, close the door, and commenced sobbing into the pillow. Every day I've had to endure this. Every single fucking day. I never get a day off - it's always someone, in some class, making sure they meet their nastiness quota for the day. I tried telling my parents about it, and even got a school psychologist involved, but they just kept giving me the same old "ignore them and they'll stop" bullshit I've heard since I was nine, as if they have any idea how impossible it is to ignore it when at least a quarter of the student body has it out for me. They surround me like a fucking army, and they aren't satisfied until I break in front of them again. Who knows what they do while I'm not around - probably high-five each other for a job well done, then meet in secret to work on other ways to make my life miserable.

I was sick of it. For seven years now, I've been their punching bag, and I've had enough.

There were days when I contemplated just ending it, slashing my wrist, downing a bottle of pills, throwing myself off a building - something to release me from this seemingly endless torment. But I was such a goddamn coward that I'd never go through with it. I'd always start to think how crushed my parents would be to find out that their only son commited suicide. I didn't want them to experience regret or suffering for not being able to help. That, and I figured everyone else would throw a victory party. Hooray, Nicky's dead. Pass the Doritos.

That night, though, as I inattentively watched yet another stupid sitcom in my bedroom, I thought that maybe if I played dead - ran away for a few days or something, just long enough to scare the shit out of everyone - I might just come back to find people pay a little more respect to me, and get them to realize that just because I'm not popular like them, I still have a right to be treated like a human being.

I was going to show them what life would be like without their little punching bag.