Please be aware that this is just the very first chapter of something a little person, and something that is most definitely in the works.
January had been synonymous for it’s incredibly warm weather. Beach weather, where teenagers spent most of their days with their friends, waiting for school to resume so that they could sleep away their days. Summer had changed that year; it was an absolute scorcher. The sun was hot, no matter the time of day and at night, many slept with their windows open, air conditioning blasting and in the skimpiest of pyjamas. I was waiting for June to hit us again, but that was still months away. Being a senior in high school had only made me want to escape faster than ever before. This was going to be a year of change. Or so that’s what my friends and I were living by.
My reflection in the mirror showed nothing but a pale faced girl still afraid to brave the real world. Pale blue eyes shone brightly in the light, but in reality they had become worse, and the more I tried to highlight them, the lighter they looked. Shining dark brown hair hung past my shoulder with a gentle wave that often proved to be more of a hindrance than help. A slightly askew nose changed the shape of my face, though it was said to give character. I couldn’t see any of the character that it was supposedly giving me, but I didn’t dare do anything about it. It was my face; mine. I was the one who was going to have to deal with it, and plastic surgery was out of the question. Hollywood stereotypes had been my life for years when I was younger, but I wasn’t that same girl any longer. I didn’t want to fit in – I wanted to be accepted for who I really was.
Katherine “Katy” Alexandra Peters was my name. The middle name seemed unimportant for all the other years, as did Katherine. I had been called Katy for the entirety of my high school life, and suddenly being called something else just didn’t fit. Sure, every once in a while, my friends would call me Katherine but it wasn’t a serious thing, they only did it to get a reaction which, nine times out of ten they managed to receive. I was someone that barely anyone noticed, so if the teachers suddenly called me Katherine, it was as though someone else had walked into the classroom. Most of them had learned to call me Katy, but a substitute teacher was someone that could always be counted upon to change the way that things worked. It was just what high school was like, and over the years I had adjusted. There were several things that I had become adjusted to.
Being the youngest daughter; the first to graduate from high school, let alone have an actual career in mind often gave me an edge over the rest of my family. It came with resentment from everyone else. Hatred disguised by indifference and blatant ignorance, but I had adjusted to it. My younger brother was the one that got all the attention, and to some it seemed justified. He wasn’t like me; he was special. Sure, he could read and write just like everyone else in his grade, but he couldn’t walk. He had long since been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, and while everyone else treated him as though he was a fragile piece of glass, I treated him exactly the same as everyone else. That was another reason people resented me: they didn’t believe that he deserved to be treated as though he was normal. That was exactly what he was though: normal.
My friends were really the only ones that I could count on to see me for what I was, because they were all social outcasts too. None of us could find a place to fit in with the rest of the school, and it was purely because we weren’t like them. We didn’t laugh at the poor substitute teachers who couldn’t pronounce someone’s name from the roll. We didn’t hang out in the senior’s area because we felt as though we were being suffocated by the amount of people around there. We didn’t listen to the newest music and we didn’t bleach our hair to make us the super skinny Barbie dolls that others were. We weren’t afraid to be us. The thought of being them was what repulsed us. It’s not like in some teenage movie where the outcasts protested for animal rights or the freedom of speech. We just ceased to exist to most of the year unless we were needed to do something. I used to hate it, but now I just as accustomed to it as I was being resented by the members of my family. We had our own little group; it wasn’t a clique, but we were exclusive. Ella Morris, Brian White, Jonathan King, Connor Warren and I had a reputation as outcasts and teacher’s pets, only if you really looked closer at the student body of our school, you’d see that we tended to stay as far away from them as possible. Of course, doing your work and actually getting the correct answers constituted as being a teacher’s pet at [name of school here].
It wasn’t even close to what made for a teacher’s pet in my book, but the rest of the school was hardly going to take a leaf out of my book. I was the ultimate outcast. I loved history. I spent maths and science lessons writing short stories in a notebook instead of focusing on the lesson at hand. I didn’t talk to anyone else in my english class unless we were working in groups and I was forced to sit at a table with a few other people that generally didn’t like me. I was quiet in class, but if something came up about the rights for the disabled I would put my two cents in. I wasn’t afraid to stick up for those students who were said to have a disability and I didn’t care if it took my teachers by surprise if I were to talk about something with a passion that someone my age wouldn’t normally possess. I was a freak. A nerd and I was proud of it.
“There you go, sucking up to the teacher like he was a violin that you’re playing.” Scott Macintosh always had some smart ass remark that made me roll my eyes in disgust and want to throw something heavier then paper as his unusually thick head, by I was held back by self-restraint. It wasn’t always the easiest thing in the world to do though, and there were times that I slipped. When I slipped, I was someone else entirely. I barely recognised who I was becoming, but my temper had been waging a war with my mind for the past six years. High school wasn’t as easy as some would make it out to be. A lot of difficulties arose from it. Friendships were made – and broken. Relationships flourished or they died. In the end, the result for each of us is the same: we learn who we really are inside. Except I already knew who I was, and I wasn’t about to change that for the world.
but I really actually loved this! I think Katy is a wonderful character who, as easilyinspired said, everyone can relate to in one way or another, and you have so many wonderful ideas in here which I can't wait to see developed further!
I hope something in this is helpful to you!
