I'm not special

Hi, my name is Dani Forest. I can say that I have lived a pretty normal life, I've been healthy, have a great older brother, and my parents are still together. This is not your typical sob story when I say how bad I had it cause I really didn't. I go to school, have nice clothes, I even have my own car. Am I saying I've had the worst life, no, am I saying it's been perfect..... couldn't be further from the truth. My life was normal till I hit the age of 8, but I'll tell you the normal stuff about me. I was born in Hampton Virginia and when I was 3 I moved to North Carolina. I went to a daycare and unlike most girls who played with barbies, I played with the boys. I will forever be teased for that. I have an older brother who is 4 years older than me. He was really into sports so I was always around stuff like football, basketball, and baseball. My life as a tomboy began when I turned 5. All I wanted to do was play sports with the guys. Apparently not everyone likes that especially if your name is Peter (not real name). I was in the 3rd grade and I had a best friend named Drew (not real name). We always hung out and he would always include me when the guys, played sports. Peter was new to the area and wanted to hang out with me and Drew. It was fine at first, till Peter started teasing Drew for hanging out with a girl. But I guess in Peter's defense, he didn't start the teasing, the teacher did. I wish I was making this up but the teacher would single me out in front of everyone and make jokes about how much me and Drew hung out. It just made it that much easier for Peter to take away my best friend. I'll never forget it, we wrote letters at the end of our 3rd grade year to the most important people in the class to us. I wanted to write one to Drew but Peter said if I wrote one to him he would stay friends with me, so I wrote 2, one to him the other to Drew. Drew wrote one to me too, saying how happy he was we were friends and how glad he was that I understood when to back off when Peter was around. We leave for recess and I'm talking with Peter and all I hear is these kids chanting "Down with Dani, Down with Dani" , stupid I know but at 8 years old it hurts. I look to my best friend for help but it was too late. Peter had already grabbed him and Drew was chanting along with them. I was so sad and confused, I told Peter that I did what he said but he didn't care, he said it wasn't enough. I started crying. People came to me asking what was wrong and I told them. They took me to Peter and they said "see what you've done". My vision was blurry I didn't see where I was going and I tripped. Peter started to laugh and I said what you think it's funny when I hurt myself, he said "yeah if you did stuff like that more often I'd hangout with you more. So I got an idea, if I hurt myself, I'll have my friend back. I found a stick lying on the ground and started scrapping it rapidly up and down my arm. When one arm hurt too much I'd switch to the other one, I have no idea how long I did this for. In the end the tops of my arms were bleeding and I was in a lot of pain but I was smiling. I walked over to Peter showed him my arms and said there does that make you happy. He just laughed and walked away. I lost my best friend that day and that is also when I became the pushover I am today. Someone who is willing to do anything just to have a friend and someone who will care. Guess that was too much to ask for at age 8. (TBC)