Member-only story

This Little Trigger Cried All the Way Home

Rebecca Sturgeon
3 min readFeb 21, 2022
Photo by Girl with red hat on Unsplash

One rainy afternoon, when I was in grade school, Sister Mary Mary* decided to have an impromptu spelling bee. This was absolute music to my ears. In every social measure for preteens of the time, I was lacking. Fat. Awkward. Weird haircut. (Maybe you were that kid too?)

But — spelling? I could spell the HECK out of any word they threw at me. Bring on the spelling bee! Maybe I would get followed and tease on the walk home (again), but before that I could wipe the floor with those boys in a spelling bee.

It started out exactly how I expected. Finally, we were done to the last four people — me, a couple of the popular boys, and one other girl. The word I got: “synchronize.”

“Synchronize,” I said, “S-Y-N-C-H-R-O-N-I-Z-E. Synchronize.”

I smiled at Sister Mary Mary. She frowned at the card and shook her head. She pointed to the chairs — the loser area — indicating I should sit down.

Wait — what? I looked at the boy next to me. He looked as confused as I felt. All the final four did. I looked at each of them — was anyone going to say anything? I looked at Sister Mary Mary. “But — ,” I started.

She glared at me and pointed again to the chairs. With rage and frustration burning in my heart, I sat down. She gave the word to the next boy. He repeated…

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Rebecca Sturgeon
Rebecca Sturgeon

Written by Rebecca Sturgeon

I’m just here to love on people until they realize how much they’re worth. Follow my newsletter, Our Daily Breath: https://ourdailybreath.beehiiv.com/

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