It was lonely at first, but I had gradually grown accustomed to it. Not long after, I fell in love with serenity and solitude.

I was also often bullied by my peers because of my weak att.i.tude. At first, I would look at my fellow students with pleading eyes, but they wouldn't even glance at my direction. When my eyes pleaded to the teacher, the teacher would pretend nothing was happening and would continue to gossip with other teachers during cla.s.s hours.

I remembered once, during fourth grade, a pop quiz about spelling. My cla.s.smate sitting next to me, a girl. I called her 'SpellingBEE' because she always aces the spelling quiz.

The teacher asked me to wrote on the board the word

'flower'.

I secretly cursed the teacher. When it came to picking students to wrote the answer on the board, she would always forget that I was invincible.

I wrote the word 'flawer' and quickly sat down on my seat.

The teacher gave a 'tsk' sound and looked at me as if I had done a heinous crime. My cla.s.smates all snickered and gave me mocking glances.

SpellingBEE had a condescending and arrogant look on her face. "What an idiot. You can't even spell a simple flower," she mockingly said while her eyes pretended to focus on the board.

Maybe because that was the first time that someone had called me an idiot, not even my family called me an idiot, that I somehow developed inferiority when it came to spelling.

There was also a time when we changed seats. The teacher, who apparently hated me for unknown reasons, ordered me to take the chair next to a boy who always bullied me.

I called the boy 'PigFace' not because he was fat, but because his nose was big while his nostrils were large like a pig (smirked).

PigFace would torture me every day at school. He would poke me, play with my hair, talk bad about me and shout at my face.

I hated going to school, and often, I would make excuses or cut cla.s.ses altogether. It was a miracle that I graduated from grade school.

I didn't say anything about life at school to my parents. I didn't want them to worry about me anymore. They already have their hands full in managing our family's business.

Luckily, I have many hobbies to comfort me like drawing, reading and playing with the twins.

Thinking back, because of those events, I had grown to distrust people who were not my family. I became independent, indifferent, reserved and aloof.