They called him Slim—the overused paradoxical nickname reserved only for people who were nothing but slim. He sat hunched over in his desk in the corner, or at least as hunched over as he could get considering he barely fit between the thin plywood desktop and the cheap plastic back. He’d always hated those desks and their constant reminders of his size. His head was disproportionately small for his body, so Slim wore his hair as long as he could get away with to make up for the size. And from under its greasy strands he watched the other students in his class slowly file in. It was the last class of the first day of school, and all of them wore one of two expressions—joy of almost being done, or exhaustion from the other six classes they’d been forced to sit through—at least they fit in the desks, he thought.
A young girl sat down next to Slim and turned to him smiling. He peered at her slyly from under his hair, and came to the conclusion that she was opposite him in every possible way. This girl actually was slim and her long brown hair sat perfectly arranged on her normal-sized head, complete with one of those ribbons tied around it that Slim always thought were cute.
“I’m Victoria,” she offered, speaking to him for some reason he didn’t understand. He could never tell if someone spoke to him to make fun of his size or to pity his loneliness—from experience he’d determined that normally it was a combination of both.
Slim,” he replied, nodding, but keeping his gaze towards the front of the room. If he appeared interested she’d continue the conversation, and he wasn’t any good at conversations.
“Slim. Awful strange nickname for you, isn’t it?” she asked, with a smirk on her face.
Her candor jolted Slim to reality and for the first time he met her stare. He couldn’t tell if this conversation was going to turn into one of the jarring bouts of taunts he often endured, but something about this girl made him think it wouldn’t. He opened his mouth to reply but before he could formulate the words—some clever response that would show he didn’t care what she thought — the bell rang and his math teacher shuffled into the room.