A little story...

Let me regale you with a story- completely true, but from an outsiders point of view.

She stood outside the school with the other kids. Her eyes either scoped the world around her, wide and terrified, or look with stony grimness at the sidewalk beneath her feet. Pushed inside in the frenzy, she finally makes it to her locker. Fighting her way upstream, she gets to the library, to pay her fine and pick up two books. Then she heads to her first period class right before the bell rings. She can loosen slightly there- pretend to ignore the boy next to her, when really, she's getting more embarressed by the second as he insults her books- her world, in her opinion. After that, in second period, the same boy sits in front of her. When he starts tossing bits of paper towel, she can't take it anymore. She stands up, calmly walks over to him, and puts her hand on his shoulder. "You're interrupting our studies. Please stop." She starts to go back, then adds, "You arrogant prat." The next class, she stays silent, thriving by being unseen. The next class is read for fun- she only gets this once a week, and loves it. The silence is beautiful, the concentration is wonderous. She finishes those books from the library and starts again on her big novel, the one she's halfway through. After that she goes to her next class, and nearly falls asleep. She got to sleep late the night before. Next is lunch, where she nearly gives up hope on humanity when she finds that the seat of her chair has broken off. While waiting for the teacher, she trudges up to the lunch line, where she surveys the room with dull eyes. Suddenly, her eyes widen as though seeing a miracle for the thousandth time and she still can't beleive it. She smiles with instant releive as a black haired, black eyed girl comes happily towards her. For once she can relax, and talk with someone she KNOWS won't mock her for real. The others hate her for being so different, and try to mock it out of her. But the black haired girl is different. She protects her. More than the fact that the other girl has friends, the brunette marvels at how it is SHE who gets the black haired girl over at her house for sleepovers, SHE who gets to go trick or treating with her. How lucky, she tells herself, she is. After that comes gym- she tries to avoid getting in the way like yesterday. Today, her failing is much less- she only missed one pass, disregarding the fact that only one pass was aimed at her. After that she tries to get her story in order, tries to ignore the pencil markings that show her mistakes, tries to think of them as encouragement instead of insults. Finally, she gets to last period, and nearly falls asleep again, simply because she has nothing else really to do, as she doesn't get picked (nor WANTS to get picked) for improve games. When the bell rings on this last period, she hurries to her locker, yanks out her bag, and rushes to her safe haven. She wishes she had more time- if this were any other Thursday, she would be curled up either in the beanbags or in the back room, resting humbly with old friends- Piro and Kimiko, Hanajima and Momiji. She'd be rating their performance- 5 of 5, 5 of 5, yes get more. But today is not that day- so instead, she grabs two volumes of MegaTokyo, one of Inuyasha (just to see what it's like), checks them out, and flies out the door. She reaches the High School next door, where her father isn't there, so she waits for half an hour for him to get there, and drive home. Tommorrow, she will start the cycle again- she will still be stressed, still be terrified of the school and other people. She will still be amazed that the black haired girl comes to talk to her, of all people, and she will still relax with Piro and Kimiko, maybe Hanajima and Momiji. She will still be the strong faced girl with the weak willed heart.