13 April 2012
The cold air bit my face, and i wrapped my mercifully thick coat even tighter around my imperfect body, not sure if i was trying to block out the cold or the world around me. I refused to even look up until i had escaped the place i have been 'oh so proud' to call my home for my whole life. Place where i had supposedly been accepted by the whole community, because it is horrible to single someone out just because they are different. Especially if they dont have the good fortune to be born into a perfect body, or are not able to buy themselves in or out of absolutely anything they please, because they arn't beautiful, and dont hve millionare bankers for parents.
But people have been nice to me my whole life, because it is mean to single people out just because they are different. So while I have never been invited to any parties, or put on any teams, or elected for anything at all, nobody has ever said anything mean to me- or anything at all. I was always the odd one out. And i knew it. And accepted it. And i hated it.
As i had finally reached the outskirts of my perfect little neighbourhood, i looked up, and found great comfortin the run-down shops and the dirty pavements, with normal people waiting at the vandalised bus stop. I knew thatI would have to go back home eventually, but until then, i could hang out in the park like a normal tennager, and kid myself that i had friends who knew my middle name, and saw my for who i was on the inside, who i could be me around.
But while that was the life i wanted, it ws not the life i had. It had taken a while to get here, and it would take just as long getting back, so i hopped off the swings as a little girl came along, and prepared myself for the walk back home. But as i reached the edge of the playground, i saw the boy who was pushing his little sister on the swing, the one i myself had sat on just a minuate ago, look up from under his thik eyelashes and fair hair, smile at me, the first person ever to do so.
Always the odd one out • Opuss № I