Webbed walls & corridors unravelled memories long locked away in an unforgiving haze as I journeyed reluctantly through my old Secondary School’s class reunion.

It’s been 20 years since I graduated the juvenile lifestyle & upgraded my life’s pursuit to a journey of attainment rather than mortification. ‘Peers’ who had seemingly forgot the years of torment, deception & discouragement met me today with the coldest warm welcomes fathomable. It was as if all the pain I’d been put through for their humour was for nothing - like it never even happened. Nevertheless it did happen. The scars it gave me never faded, I’d merely covered them over the years in wealth, fruition & my many other accomplishments.

Every hallway we traversed unlocked another repressed memory; maths where I would persevere ignorance to the voices mocking me from behind, the assembly hall where my main bully threw chewing gum into my straw-sticky hair, the PE hall where I’d frequently be emasculated & humiliated for my inability to perform at ‘good enough’ standards, the café where my lonesome adolescent self would indulge in lacklustre school dinners with the only consistent thing on my breaks being the lack of company I was aquatinted with.

As soon as the option to sneak away arose I grabbed it with both feet & slipped off the path that they were leading me down, instead choosing to tread my own passage disdainfully.

After moments of mindless strolling I eventually landed upon the one place that always felt like home. To this day it still does. The otherwise bland walls remained enthralled with poetic scriptures, screaming indulgence. Perfected scriptures & novel covers decorated the class-room in an aesthetically entrancing way. It was just how I remembered if - if not masterfully grander.

I sat for a moments rest. Seated in the very place I once was when I discovered my unrivalled love for literature. The most pivotal spot for my life’s work as a well-appreciated author began here or all places.

In this moment I knew that all the mishaps of my youth were put behind me for a reason. In the end, it was all worth it.

The End.