Shock And Awe

I remember as a little boy having this little girl a year or so older than me picking on me on the bus on the way to school. I remember she would always make fun of my stuttering (I had a bad stuttering problem, poor me right?). My mother was not all for me fighting, but had always taught me that if there was not another way out and the abuse would not stop, than I needed to finish it, and finish strong, giving the world the "Shock and awe" view of me and my enormous power. This little girl was relentless. She seemed to have so much fun in making other kids laugh at me. She was an ugly little girl, brown hair with dark brown freckles and wrecked teeth, a foul odor. She was like that bully from The Christmas Story, except she was a girl, a little detail I chose to leave out when asking mom's permission to "Shock and awe" her. She told me to go for it, but be careful, so instead of waiting for the next day, when it would have been defense and me sticking up for myself, I went that night to her house on my bike. I sat on that bike and rode around in circles in her driveway so she could see me like a cowboy on his horse waiting for a shoot-out. She eventually came outside and when she did, I hopped off of my bike and approached her. It is funny what happens to a bully when you get them out of their element, away from the people they are showing off for, they become nice all of the sudden, sometimes. This time, this girl became nice to me as if she had not caused horror on the bus for me all year long. For a moment, I reconsidered my actions and wondered if we might become friends instead, but that thought quickly fled from me as I clinched my fist and rammed it into her stomach. I remember the burst of air that came rushing from her lungs past her mouth and into my face. I remember the feeling of her ribs giving way under my fist, I remember the look of shock in her ugly eyes. I stepped back and watched her lurch around clutching her stomach and shrieking in pain. She ran inside screaming for mom and I did the, "You won't see where I live because I am hopping the backyard fences all the way home" thing. Turns out, she knew where I lived, maybe she had a crush on me and noticed, all the ugly girls did growing up, but she found me, with her mom, really pissed. I was hiding in the garage when my mother came out and found me, a fugitive. I received the proper punishment for hitting a girl and any guy that has done this knows what that is. But do I regret what I did that day? NO