I understand. I had blunt bangs and a bony little body. Nobody took the things I flinched at as threats; I was thirteen.

I'd spent sixth and seventh grade praying for the apocalypse of my carotid artery. I thought I deserved the taunts, the anorexia pamphlets in my locker, every boy in the gifted program nick-naming me Auschwitz after we discussed Anne Frank's, "The Diary of a Young Girl". I even thought I deserved you telling me I was too skinny to be a human being, that stores didn't make skinny jeans skinny enough for me. I knew the improbability of my own elegance completely. Gracelessly slung into the ague of adolescence, my bones became brackets, distributing the pariah's algorithm. I carved at least ten minutes out of each class period to scour the ink from underneath my fingernails and ask God herself for the worst aggressors to be struck with mono in time for them to miss gym class.

I understand. I should not have confessed to a friend that I starved myself without expecting her to screenshot my most deplorable secret and send it to the entire class. I had to tell someone. My mother, my sister, my closest friend, the boy who considered my clavicle the alternate axis of the earth, nobody knew. Sure, people suspected, even asked. But nobody knew. I'm sure it entertained you guys for a few minutes, a confirmation that I was every single thing you'd said; unbeautiful, anorexic, awkward, irritating, and above all, alone. However, as ridiculous it is that these memories are still acute as any crush, I have to ask: did you really feel better, knowing what you laughed at was real? Were you really able to tell yourselves that it was somehow okay to start rumors and finish jokes about some girl in your grade sticking her fingers down her throat just because I talked about Harry Potter too much and wasn't very good at applying under-eye concealer? Of all the things there are in this world to laugh at; sneezing panda videos, puns, celebrities with eyebrows photo-shopped off their faces, why did you pick a geeky girl's eating disorder?

I understand. You told yourselves it wasn't so bad because you didn't put your hands on me, but shame has more than five fingers.

After my acceptance and transfer into the local fine arts high school, most of you probably forgot the errors of my existence. I covered my radius and ulna with bangle bracelets, but the scabs on my knuckles still shimmered rouge as a heat haze over the skin. People stopped laughing at me, but I didn't start eating. I took all of the stirrings inside of me to be embarrassing and worthless. Contributing to class discussions scared me, as did taking off my coat, no matter how warm the room.

The worst part of all this is that I have to hear how much you've all grown up while I stay the same.