They Couldn’t Talk to Me

In elementary school, I thought all the kids hated me. No one would talk to me or play with me. I thought it was because I was from a different country and looked different from all the other kids. I spent a lot of time bouncing a ball in the corner of the playground. When I went to middle school, I was offered an opportunity to take an esl lesson and I accepted it. I found out that all those kids had actually thought I was pretty cool. They wanted to play with me, but they didn’t know how to talk to me.