High school, 80s. Me? Poor white trash but smart as a whip, in gifted class, AP classes, low GPA, high test scores, geek and nerd-adjacent. Them? Mid-tier jocks, average intellects, irritated by the fact that I always knew the answer. Yup, I was that irritating kid who always had his hand up, lol. They harassed and teased me a lot, and I admit, I made it easy for them to not like me. I made fun of them right back.

One day, after a couple years of minor but consistent bullying, the two of them confronted me outside of geography class in the hallway, and before I knew it a crowd had circled up around us and they started shoving me back and forth between them. This was especially humiliating because I was bigger than both of them - one was my height but thinner and the other was much shorter and smaller than me. Kids were laughing at me, no one was helping...finally, I snapped.

As the shorter one shoved me towards the taller one, I put all my energy and strength into charging at him and I clothes-lined him with everything I had. He took the full brunt of my hit across the top of his chest and immediately flew backwards several feet.

Unfortunately, we happened to be at the top of a flight of stairs, and I had just knocked him down those stairs. He tumbled over and over, for what, to me, seemed like a lifetime, until he finally landed in a crumpled pile at the bottom.

Teachers and principals came, and police were called, and I thought for sure I was done for. But, to my surprise, though they sent me home for the day, I was allowed back the next day. The two boys who were shoving me? Suspended.

Turns out, a lot of the kids in the crowd came to my defense and told staff and police that the two boys had been bullying me for a long time.

A couple decades later, one of them messaged me on Facebook and apologized.