was like he was sorry for every bad
thing he’d ever done in his life,
because he didn’t know there could
be a punishment like this.
Looking in that boy’s eyes, I
realized how much he and I had in
common. He was a kid. I was a kid.
He was crying. I was crying. He was
a colored boy in South Africa,
taught how to hate and how to hate
himself. Who had bullied him that
he needed to bully me? He’d made
me feel fear, and to get my revenge
I’d unleashed my own hell on his
world. But I knew I’d done a terrible
thing.
Once the kid apologized, Abel