My Countless Faces: The Sound of "R"

The following is an excerpt from a short memoir I'm currently working on.  The full memoir will be posted upon completion.  For now, here's a short piece I've been writing this passed week.

I wasn’t different, until someone pointed it out.  Early on, in maybe second or third grade, I was told that my “R’s” were different from my friends “R’s”.  I was told that often, it was even hard to understand what I was trying to say.  I was told, “You need to change, and try sounding like everyone else.”  The soft tone and warm smile of my teacher couldn’t keep her words from feeling cold, leaving me frozen and alone.  Soon, I found myself being asked to leave class in the middle of the day.  I looked in my dark desk trying to find my black notebook with the capital white letters “Speech Therapy” that seemed to scream, “You don’t fit in”.   I reached for my generic pencil and closed my eyes to say a little prayer before I shamefully began making my way out of the room.  This daily terror was just another reminder that I was different.  As I walked, the surrounding silence was swept away with the sounds of kids turning in their colorful desks to stare as I walked down the aisle between them.  This moment always gave me a headache, both from fighting so hard to hold back the tears and from the heat of all the eyes searing a hole in the back of my head.  Once I finally made it out of the room, my muscles relaxed, and I gasped for a long awaited breath.  When I was alone, even if just in my school’s hallway, I fit in..