One, two, three, step after step, I move. In a perfect square, I go around and around the playground. My steps are conscious, meticulous, chosen. I must not veer from the path laid by my previous steps, the very first ones, the ones that made me feel safe in the chaos. I have no friends. I am looking at my feet, oblivious to all, oblivious to everything when darkness swallows all. I am six years old. When I open my eyes, faces are looking down at me, there is shouting and uncomfortable looks as I am lying there still. I do not remember the noise my skull made when it hit the concrete, nor do I remember falling.

I was used to being slapped and pushed and pinched. The adults knew, but I was supposed to defend myself, they said. “Why is this child so passive, so unreactive? She is not very bright at all, is she?!”

The other kids in the playground, well, they know that I am strange. Are they trying to understand what kind of strangeness? Are they looking for a reaction? No one is supposed to let others push them around without the slightest show of emotion, right?! Because when someone crushes an ant or a snail in front of me, I am inconsolable, I scream, I cry, I plead. No one is like me, I think, what am I?

I am six years old, lying on my back on the concrete floor. I open my eyes and everyone is staring. All I remember is two boys running and yelling, but I did not move away from the path that used to make me feel safe. They tackle me down, my body smashes against the floor, I hurt. It is nearly home time anyway. I did not tell my mother, and nor did they. Unaware of what has happened to me during the day, at night she wonders why I have a bump on my head and scratches on my body. But kids fall, it happens.

The next day, as I retreat further into my inner world, two older girls approach me gently. They are identical and even wear the same multicoloured puffer jacket. They are not trying to figure me out, they are just there, open and kind. They teach me how to write the word “Fromage” with my finger on the wall. They stand guard so no one will hurt me again, and I am thinking, maybe I want to be part of their playground after all.

Nadège Delavois-Campbell