"Are you coming later on today?" She's turned towards by her friend, someone she values but expects so much more from than she ever receives. Her friend shakes her arm, pulling her out of her stupor and she looks over at her, eyebrow raised.
"What for, sorry? I'm afraid that I completely missed all that."
"We're watching a movie today! You coming?"
She shakes her head regretfully, "I need to get home tonight. I've got a ton of work to do." Yet her words seem insincere, and if you really peer into her meaning, you can tell something else is bothering her. Something else is niggling at her brain, something that prevents her going out to these outings, and then go green with envy later on. Is it her school life, which is extremely demanding upon her especially with her tendencies to procrastinate?
We don't know. We probably never will. Honestly, we doubt that she'll ever fully realise her reasons either.
Other excuses normally include, "I don't have a way to get home tonight," or even sometimes "My parents wouldn't be pleased, especially not today, I don't think."
And each week, on that Friday, she goes home and sits on her bed, never accomplishing anything of particular. She checks her social media; for her one friend who can always cheer her up but is never present, for her best friend who has been drifting from her, but she realises that they've got their own lives. She starts to feel like she's constantly intruding, laying out her problems; her petty idiotic problems that make her so uncomfortable towards them. If she's not careful, they'll get sick of her, and if she lost them, there'd be no one to support her, no one to urge her to want to live. So she retracts, she stops talking to them, in hopes that maybe they'll start the conversation this time, so she's not the one clinging to them for once.
And all the while, her heart sinks, because that is not how the world works, and if you ever want to talk to someone, you have to approach them directly. Some days then, are extremely good - she manages to pull through those days with an enormous smile on her face, but some days are wicked; whipping her raw with their brutality, making her eyes water as she laughs off the latest joke; as she wards off the next outing. And there's one person who'd understand her exactly if she opened up to him, but this one person has a life, he's almost ten years older then her. He's not even in the time-zone, and she wants to keep him interested. She doesn't want to come off as the whiny teenager, with the typical issues of her generation. She's terrified that she will lose him because before she met him, she was depressed. There was no one who could always cheer up; and that's the one thing that he always managed to do, whatever sexist shit he'd manage to spew out, he'd get her to giggle, to argue with him, the typical sixteen year old doting on a twenty four year old; something that would never happen. Ever. She doesn't even know his name, or his face, but she knows what sort of person he is. And he is so crude, and he's called her beautiful which caused her to burst out into tears, because it was a compliment that she had never expected, but recently he hasn't been there. And she can't blame him, but one moment, she'll hopelessly be checking his page, seeing whether he is online, and if he is - why isn't he speaking to her? And sometimes she'll alternate between despair, and happiness and anger. Sometimes, he has the capability to make her so giddy, her entire day is able to be brightened.
She knows how dangerous it is; to be so emotionally attached to someone who can up and leave without a word otherwise. She wishes it would never have happened, because if he leaves, and she's paranoid he will, she'll be in a worse condition. She thinks about him almost all the time, and curses herself out for caring so much, because she doubts that his mature self would even think about her twice outside their conversation. Little things in daily life remind her of him, and she reports back eagerly, and increasingly so, his reactions get more disappointing.
No matter. She'll struggle through this; she's gone through more emotional things that have made her want to curl up in a ball and die at times, and one day it'll just be another story, another reminiscing of a life that could have been. But for once, she's enormously terrified of losing him - he makes her days, he makes her nights. She hasn't even met him. He's the last person she'd ever want to lose, ever in her lifetime of emotional losses.
Abandonment, constant abandonment. Never good for anyone, never acknowledged, and always put into the worst positions. Is it because she resembles a pushover? God, she hopes not. She just wants to know what other people think of her, she tries to be a good person, but she feels as if she's not always successful. In fact, the other night, she went to a dinner, an important dinner with important members of the government involved, and an inspirational speaker, a woman who shocked tears into her unwilling eyes. And yet when she spoke to them all, she felt inadequate, she felt like she was constantly being looked down upon. She feels like she forces herself on people, and everywhere she is, that paranoia follows her, overshadowing her, murmuring cruelly into her ears as she begs for it to stop, she does belong, she does belong. She might not be blessed with the most beautiful face or body, or the most intelligent brain, but she's got a heart, and she's got emotions and people should care about that... right? And yet wherever she walks, she feels as if people go out of their ways to avoid her, they could care less what could happen to her, mentally or physically. Even her friends, how does she know that they don't secretly hate her, that they don't disapprove of all the endeavors that she decides to pursue. Why isn't she liked, what has she done wrong, what sin has she committed in this life or her previous, or the one before that?
Why does this feeling plague her? In photos, she's the person who never manages to look as attractive as the rest of the party, her shoulders are always slightly tense, her smile slightly forces, her back slumped in anxiety. She's always the one who has the wild, untameable hair.
Is that why she tries to pull away? So she never gets the opportunity to ever get emotionally attached, because that's her problem and she knows it? Because she fears that secretly, everyone is disdainful of her, of her capabilities. Maybe she's simply not funny enough; she tends to always feel like a second-choice, never looked at the same way, or not even respected.
It's gotten worse, she's starting to feel the same way with her family. Her paranoia with her friends is increasing as well, jokes are taken too seriously, and everyone she interacts with, she feels, only do so because they're forced to.
The thing is, she's not looking for pity. She's not looking for a random person to pop up, and tell her how special she is because she's different in an other way; she wants the truth.
Is what she thinks facts? Honestly? Is that what other people think of her, and is that how she is represented in this society? Not even that she is the outcast, but she is simply incapable for advocating for other people, and even more interacting with others she normally doesn't?
If we wanted this to end happily, she would have been able to put this all past her, and found the right person, and suddenly she'd have a broad range of friends. But this doesn't end happily, these thoughts will forever plague her brain, tearing it to pieces, and really making a person feel they're living in a personal hell.
