So I was a nerd, nothing special literally nondescript nerd, completely inoffensive. But I had the wild hair and glasses, braces acne, literally just pick a feature that you could make fun of, and I had it. However, I was completely oblivious. I had home room with this giant tank of a teddy bear, the kid who showed up freshman year and had the basketball coach and football coach arguing over who could recruit this dude on size alone.

Anyhow, we always chatted and it turned out we had similar tastes in books and often paired on projects. I mentioned how hard it was to walk in the hallways due to how short I was and always getting knocked into lockers and such. I figured I was clumsy and easy to overlook. After a few months I figured I got better at walking through the halls and avoiding folks, and I stopped having so many bruises.

Was not until senior year that I found out, he has gone to the whole football team and told them I was dense AF and to keep an eye out for me. Turns out I had been targeted for bullying and this one group had been shoving me into lockers trying to hurt me. Football team figured it out and someone always made sure they were on the same route between classes and ran interference. Like him and four or five football bros just took on the job of big brothers. They all decided not to tell me because better to not worry me. I always wondered why our football bros were so nice and always knew my name.