"You will suffer," she said.

I was a child who always kept her nose in a book, a pen in her hand and her eyes cast firmly downward. I didn't have many friends at the tender age of thirteen, and I knew that. I rarely bothered to style my hair the way my peers did, and I never wore make up because I wasn't quite sure how to put it on. I wore sweatshirts in the Florida heat to hide the scars and the open lacerations on my arms.

The woman who taught my ninth grade religion class was a strange one indeed. She had wide, protuberant eyes that seemed too big for her small face, somewhat greasy skin which she tried to cover with different shades of light brown foundation, and a painfully thin body which reaked of anorexia. She had a small daughter who she occasionally brought to class with her, and her classes were each started with a prayer. She created a safe haven for me in that school where I did not fit in quite yet, and I loved her for that.

She would frequently keep me after class, and we would talk about the lesson, her religion and my life. After a rather depressing class on the lives of the prophets of her Lord, I had walked over to her desk in the corner and asked why it was that those given gifts by God were so tortured. She looked up at me, and those large eyes were so sad when she took my hand and said, "Yes, I'm sorry. You will suffer."