I’m confused. The only thing I remember was he hit me. There’s blood all over. It’s dark. My face is as cold and stale as month old bread. Where am I? I passed out as soon as he hit me with the aluminum baseball bat. It was January when it happened. I had just gotten off the bus. The ground was as hard as marble. I saw him coming after me. I ran as fast as a sprinter in the Olympics. The only problem is he’s the gold medalist. He caught up to me and I felt it. The bat felt like the world fell on me. He hit me right on the head. After that I was out cold. Now I’m awake and in this cold, dark room.

My name is Tony Pentel and I’m scrawny, weak and short. I’ve been bullied since the sixth grade by Ben Lester. It wasn’t always like this though. We used to be friends. In fact we were best friends. That was in elementary school though and now we’re in middle school. That’s when people start to change and hang out with different cliques. That’s what happened to Ben. He wanted to become friends with the jocks. The “rulers of the school,” he called them. I hated my “rulers.” They used to bully Ben and me when we were still best friends. Now Ben wants to be apart of the bullying because he wanted to take revenge. What he didn’t know was that he had to bully me.

A week after the first day of sixth grade the bullying started. He would come up to me with his new friends and that’s when the harassment started. He would shove, punch, and kick me for the rest of middle school. By eighth grade, I was tired of the harassment. By that time I had become very good friends with one of the jocks, Alex. They weren’t all the same. Only some of them harassed other kids. Alex hated the way some of the jocks treated me. That’s how we became friends.

“Hey, Pentel, get over here.” That was my queue to run. Ben always caught up to me and would tackle me. There was something different about that day, though. Alex was riding the bus and saw what Ben was doing to me. Alex ran and tackled Ben.
“What was that for?” Ben said.
“Why’d you tackle Tony?” Alex said.
“He’s a nerd!” they kept going on and on and it turned into a fist fight. Alex was a lot bigger than Ben, though, so Ben was on the ground a minute later. From that day the harassment stopped and I felt more dominant than Ben. He stopped talking with the jocks and I took his place in their clique.

The first day of ninth grade was tomorrow. I was excited and anxious to see my friends again, especially Alex. I was also eager to see Ben again. I was ready to get my revenge on him. That summer, I had grown to be bigger and taller than him. Ever since the fight, Ben lost his reputation and I gained mine. I would do the same things he had done to me in Middle school. Except my harassment would be a lot worst than his. I would inflict more pain than he ever could. I would destroy his life the way he destroyed mine. I was acting in revenge.

“Hey Lester, get over hear.” As soon as I said that, he started to sprint. That summer, I also became faster than Ben. I tackled him to the ground and hit him right in the nose. My friends were right behind me laughing at Ben. He had blood all over his face; it looked like a murder scene. I could smell the blood. To me, it smelled like victory, but to Ben it smelled like death. I hit him over and over again. It felt like you just won a new car, but my prize was not so rewarding.

The last week of our senior year, Ben started to feel the way I did in eighth grade. He wanted revenge like I had wanted. That week Ben had planned to kill me. His Objective was to stab me right in the head, where he had first hit me with the bat. That week, he brought a knife to school. I did my daily routine at the bus stop. “Hey Lester, get over hear.” This time, he did not run. Instead, he faced me and that’s when I saw the knife. It was too late to run. He accomplished his objective. He also didn’t know that he had accomplished something else. My revenge had lead to my life being cut short. Ben’s revenge lead to a life behind bars. The cost of revenge is not very rewarding.