Sixth Grade | St. Adrian’s Grade School
Sixth grade was supposed to be a fresh start.
The taunts and teasing that once filled every hallway whisper had mostly faded. Kids had new targets now, newer rumors to chew on. Stella thought maybe—just maybe—she’d earned some peace.
But peace didn’t come.
The silence from her classmates was replaced by something colder. Something she couldn’t name at first.
Then came the day she realized it had a face.
Mrs. Ramirez.
Their homeroom and English teacher. A woman with a hard mouth and tighter bun. The kind of adult who claimed to “treat all students equally” but only ever made eye contact with the loudest boys in class.
From day one, Stella felt it—that invisible line she wasn’t supposed to cross. Every time she raised her hand, Mrs. Ramirez either ignored her or called on someone else.
And when she didn’t raise her hand?
“Well, Miss Tuazon,” Mrs. Ramirez said one afternoon, snapping her fingers in the middle of reading time, “you’ve gone quiet. Cat got your tongue, or just nothing useful to say?”
The class laughed, unsure if it was okay to laugh, and Stella swallowed whatever answer she had prepared.
It wasn’t just that day.
It was the constant undermining. The essays Stella spent hours polishing only to get vague comments like “too abstract” or “you’re not as clever as you think.”
It was the group projects where Stella did most of the work and still got marked down because “you don’t seem like a team player.”
It was the time she excused herself to the nurse after a sudden panic spell, and came back to a note taped to her desk: “Be more responsible. The world won’t cater to your moods.”
She started walking to school slower.
Started biting her nails again.
Started watching herself in class like she was playing a version of herself—one with a smaller voice and shorter sentences.
“I feel like I’m being punished for existing,” she told Vince once, quietly, after he noticed her skipping lunch to sit alone by the library window.
He didn’t have words then. He just sat beside her, not asking questions.
But the final straw came one rainy morning in late February.
They were reading poems that week. Stella had brought in one she wrote herself. She didn’t plan to share it, not really, but Mrs. Ramirez spotted the folded paper on her desk.
“Is that poetry, Miss Tuazon?” she asked, arching a brow. “Let’s hear it, then.”
Stella hesitated. “It’s not finished—”
“Then don’t be ashamed,” the teacher said, loud enough for half the class to turn. “It’s not like your work’s ever been perfect before.”
Stella stood anyway.
The poem was about growing up feeling like a cracked window—still letting in light, but never sealed. Her voice trembled on the second stanza.
Mrs. Ramirez cut her off before the last line.
“That’ll do,” she said flatly. “You can sit. Everyone, note how dramatizing your feelings doesn’t make a poem good. Clarity and structure matter.”
The class was silent. Even the usual smirkers didn’t laugh.
Stella didn’t sit.
Her hands were shaking.
Something inside her—some pressure that had been mounting for months—finally broke the surface.
“You never liked me,” she said suddenly, not even meaning to speak.
Mrs. Ramirez blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve never liked me,” Stella said again, louder this time. “No matter what I do, it’s never good enough. I get called emotional or abstract or difficult—and it’s not fair.”
Her chest was tight. Her palms sweaty.
“You tell us to be creative, then you punish anyone who actually is. I’m tired of being quiet just so you’ll stop picking on me.”
Gasps fluttered across the classroom.
Mrs. Ramirez looked stunned, then furious.
“Office. Now.”
Stella didn’t cry.
She walked to the principal’s office in silence, heart pounding so hard it echoed in her ears. She didn’t remember what she said in that meeting—just that she stared at the floor while the adults talked around her like she was an unstable fuse.
Her mother picked her up early. Said nothing until they got home. Then, while Stella sat on the couch with her arms wrapped around her knees, she finally asked the question:
“Do you feel like you’re falling apart?”
Stella nodded.
That summer, she started therapy.
It wasn’t a magic fix.
Sometimes she cried and didn’t know why. Sometimes she sat in the office staring at the rug for thirty minutes straight. But slowly, words came back. Slowly, she stopped blaming herself for being sensitive. Or quiet. Or angry.
She learned that sometimes, adults were the ones who broke you most. Because you expected better from them.
She learned that survival wasn’t just about escaping cruelty from classmates—it was learning how to heal from the people who were supposed to protect you.
By the time seventh grade rolled around, Stella walked a little straighter again.
Still cautious. But no longer silent.
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