Freshman year: when the whispers started
It began the way mean things usually do — low and casual, like a joke everyone expects you to accept.
In freshman year, people started muttering things when I walked past.
“Better not talk back… her grandma might spit in your soup.”
Some thought it was hilarious to call me “Lunch Girl” or “PB&J Princess.”
A few kids would go up to the counter just to mimic my grandma’s voice, dragging out her sweet Southern “How are you doin’, honey?” like kindness was a punchline.
Some of them were kids I’d known forever — kids who used to come over for popsicles and run through our backyard.
I remember one day Brittany — the same Brittany who once cried at my eighth birthday party because she didn’t win musical chairs — asked loudly in the hallway:
“So does your grandma still pack your panties with your lunch?”
Everyone laughed.
I didn’t.
