As I walk through the unfamiliar hallways of my new school I feel my anxiety rising and my palms sweat as I approach the classroom that I am destined to reside in for the next two and a half months of my fourth grade career.

The friendly office lady opens the door and my teacher is waiting to meet me at the door. As she introduces me to the classroom I meet the gaze of twenty something pairs of curious eyes on me, there is a split second of silence and then the unabashed inquisitiveness of children presents itself in the most humiliating manner.

“What’s wrong with your face?”

I blush beet red up to my ears and mumble something about a bike accident before hurrying to my seat and averting my gaze to the window, fighting back tears of embarrassment and making a mental note to reprimand my mother for assuring me that my first day would be just fine.

Claiming the deformation of my face on a bike accident wasn’t exactly true, not that it was a lie either, it was just easier to explain than what really happened to me not even 24 hours earlier.

It was Sunday afternoon and all of my family was at my aunt’s house. My cousins wanted to play outside and ride their bikes. Just as we were exiting the house my uncle asked my older cousin to walk his dog. She reluctantly agreed and we all went outside. I suppose the urge to ride her bike suddenly became stronger and seeing as I did not have a bicycle to ride my older cousin forced me to walk the dog while she and the rest of her siblings rode their bikes. Because the dog was large and hyper she wound the leash on to my wrist so that I wouldn’t lose him. Leash secure and children ready to go my cousins began to pedal and I prepared myself to watch them have fun while I stayed behind. As my cousins picked up speed my uncle’s dog looked up from sniffing the grass and perked his ears.

The next thing I remember is hitting the ground and being dragged against the hot sidewalk feeling intense pain and desperately trying to free myself from the death grip the leash had on my wrist.

The whole ordeal couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes, but the damage was definitely there. My entire face was covered in bruises and there were a lot of scrapes and bruises and I cried bloody murder for a good hour.

The damage was pretty bad, but now years later I only have one scar on my left shoulder.

Needless to say that kid in my fourth grade class was totally justified in asking that question.