I did something shitty. I did a lot of shitty things as a kid, but this one is nagging me at the moment. We were on the bus home and I was cruel this poor girl in the seat in front of me. She did nothing to deserve it and I got away with it. She told the bus driver and he questioned the kids near me. She was a loner and I had a few friends near by who vouched for my story. No one believed her.
I got away with it in the narrow sense.
Truthfully, I haven't thought about it in a decade or more. But tonight it haunts me both in guilt and fear. Guilt for the wanton betrayal of another kid. It's hard enough to be a kid. Fuck knows I've seen my share of being bullied and harassed. Fear for the world that let me get away with it. There's little difference between that bus and a legal system. Her word against ours.
Why wasn't I caught and punished? She never got an apology. She never will.
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