As a Nurse, I Was Assigned to Treat the Woman Who Made My Teenage Years a Living Hell – When She Recovered, She Told Me, ‘You Should Resign Immediately’

Back then, she had been polished, popular, untouchable. I was the quiet girl in thrift-store sweaters, the one with free lunch, the one who learned to keep her eyes down.

People like Margaret forget people like me.

People like me remember everything.

She used to hide my things, mock my clothes, and make comments small enough to deny but sharp enough to leave marks.

“Did you buy that shirt in the dark?”

“You’re so quiet. It’s creepy.”

“Can somebody tell Lena not to stand so close? She smells like an old library.”

After a while, people stopped sitting near me.

I started eating lunch in the bathroom.