Once upon a time, there was a little girl.
This girl loved loved books. She lived for books. She lived to live in books, to come alive and become a princess or a magical warrior or something. She lived for those words that could make her come alive and become the super secret badass that she really believed she was.
This little girl loved books because they were her home when nobody else was. She knew the lives of the characters more than she knew the lives of the bare acquaintances she had, and she knew the stories of their lives better than she understood the dynamics of her peers. She lived in books because she couldn't live among her peers, as one.
This girl had lots of problems, and she grew up to be one of those brave girls that does whatever she pleases. She learned to disregard suffering and pain, and she learned to ignore the glares and, too often, sheer turns of faces when seen in her direction.
One day, she got sick of this.
One day, she threw a revolution over herself. She was going to change. She was going to be the type of girl everyone loved and wanted to be friends with.
She started wearing lipstick at a age too young, and put dye in her hair so it seemed shinier, better, even though she was fourteen. She learned how to flirt and wink and make suggestive comments because what else did boys want? They didn't want an awkward, stumbling girl who hung around books.
She became the sort of girl other girls hated and envied, the sort of envious bitch who others swarmed around for attention. She knew they wanted her attention, and she refused it, blessing it only to a few people to keep her power.
This doesn't mean she still didn't live in her books and find solace in fiction. It just meant that, for her, the type of good, earnest lives those characters lived ultimately weren't for her. Because she wasn't like them.
She got used to this idea. She fought back against every stereotype and insult hurled at her, every "whore" and "bitch" that got slapped at her, because she built up walls nobody could tear down, walls made up of words.
Her attachments got her in the end.
She got attached even though she swore to herself too many years ago she never would. She got attached the simplicity of being something she was not, of being a warrior made out of snide words and easy glares that she could never really aspire too. Her mask had become her weapon, but even now that mask was failing her.
She was alone.
Alone.
Always alone.
The girl put on another swatch of Russian Red lipstick and went to her Freshman P.E class feeling like crap. Nobody would notice though, not if you kept your smile wide enough and your jokes open. Not if you kept your battle suit on.
Except she forgot.
A boy walked up to her. She smirked, an easy touch of the lips that meant that she was prepared, ready to take you on.
He said, "Your friends are complete bitches, you know that-"
She kept the smirk on. He must have been referring to when she snidely told some seniors that he'd been the one who scratched their shiny new BMWS, and the one that told the principal they were smoking pot behind the drama room in the school every Tuesday. She'd been expecting something like this. So she smiled.
"So? Not my business if you screw around-" She turned around to see him, and paused.
He had a purple bruise on his cheek.
She froze.
This usually didn't happen. Usually her victims knew to cry in the refuge of their homes, and to hide their battle scars from public notice.
He wasn't.
And she knew, she knew she did this. One way or another.
She froze, unfroze, and continued.
Things were different now.
She thought that when she got home and put her purse on the kitchen counter. She set it down and stared off into space for a minute, staring at the white kitchen cabinet five feet away from the kitchen table she was leaning on. It was grey, bespeckled, and marble. She felt like she was going to collapse against it, but she didn't want to faint either. She just wanted to sag.
She did not read a book that night.
She went into her room, closed the door, and wept. Wept for not being what she used to be, wept for not being the little girl she wanted to be, wept for not being "me" anymore.
She cried for awhile.
And then, she wiped away her tears, and sent an email.
Typically, the girl wasn't the type to apologize or make pity letters. But she did send this.
"I'm sorry. I screwed up. You shouldn't have done that to my friends though. But still, yeah, you didn't deserve that."
She left it vague because when and if the principal got a copy of that message, she would have nothing against her. Not really.
Just an apology.
--
I wrote this in half an hour with no edits. Someone forgive me.
And no, this not based off real life. I just got this idea and it swirled into me typing non stop and publishing it.
So yeah. Hoped you liked it.
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