Different

There is a fracture on my memory, one that covers everything between my birth and my twelfth birthday. I cannot remember anything, the part of my mind in charge of keeping memories somehow being extremely damaged. It is not a clean break. From time to time, a memory will slip from the barriers in my mind and, like a hurricane, destroy everything and leave enough casualties inside my head to make me want to curl into a ball and cry until the pain fades away. At times like does, the only good thing to do is sit down and…

                                                          ….Remember…

            Kids never liked me. They never accepted me into their groups; neither did they talk to me unless it was absolutely necessary. I was just an annoying pest; only worth talking to if they wanted the answers to the homework. Not that I will give them to them, mind you.

In perspective, it makes sense. I was a horrible thorn on the side for most of my classmates. I never shut up, never answered wrong, never was I lectured or punished by the teacher. Even worse, I was what many may call the ‘Teacher’s pet’. But that was not what made them dislike me so strongly, thought it had something to do with their strong hatred for my person. My worst sin was not my intelligence or my weirdness or my silliness. It was my attitude, the non-caring attitude that humans cannot stand.

I literally did not care about what anyone would think of me. I said what I wanted, I did what I wanted, I felt what I wanted. I did not need to fit in. I had a freedom that maybe only newborns have. I was free from the expectations of the world, free from the emotional needs that come with being human. I was not a child, nor a girl or a daughter or any other silly label. I just…was.

One day, as I was playing by myself on the basketball courts of my old Elementary, I noticed a girl staring at me from across the courts. It was hard not to notice, in all honesty, considering I was the only one in the place. Dark eyes and dark hair, the girl was much too shy to come closer to me. I stopped and stared at her, waiting for her to say the first thing. Her face went crimson red, and she tried to hide, but it was already too late for that.

                                  “Why where you staring at me?”

 “I was not!”

                                    “I don’t have money, nor do I have the answers to the homework.”

“I don’t want money,” She screeched. “Neither do I want the answers”

                                    “Then?”

“My friends” She looked down, her bangs covering her face “They… don’t want to hang out with me”

                                      “Oh”

I looked around, at the empty courts, at the full and green trees around me. Then I looked at the girl, with red around her eyes and sadness on her stance. ‘Friends’ I thought ‘are complicated things’

 I moved to the side showing her the line I was walking on.

                                        “Misery loves company”

“What?”

                                         “What is your name?”

“Diana”

                                          “Melissa. Wanna join?”

She smiled.

   “Of course”