***Please don't make fun of me. I've had enough of that from when I was a kid. Please read, and thanks to all who review.***
I sat on the steps outside, my eyes scanning the playground swarmed with students. Everyone was playing; some hopscotch, others basketball or tag. Giving a weary little sigh, I sniffled back a tear and pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose before they could slide from my face. I was invisible.
Sometimes I wondered why I was so different. At the age of six, you can only suppose that something's wrong with you. After all, I could hardly walk. My weak little legs beneath me hardly gave enough support to keep me from falling every twenty steps. I couldn't understand back then. I couldn't understand that I'd had a stroke, that I shouldn't be able to walk at all. I didn't understand that I was lucky. Huh, lucky--what an ironic thing to say.
All I understood was that the other kids could play. They could walk, and even run, or jump, or skip. If they fell, it wasn't hard for them to get back up.
Most days I pretended not to care. I plucked grass from the ground and watched birds flit through the sky. Sometimes a teacher would come and talk, but that only made me feel worse. After all, who wants to be talking to a teacher? It also made me realize that I was different both outside and in, for we didn't share thoughts. My world was not hers, or anyones. Sometimes I would walk around a little bit, wobbly steps not getting me anywhere fast. If no teachers were in sight, sometimes I tried to run, only to fall and be sent to the office to have my bruises taken care of.
Today wasn't like that though. I was too disheartened to do anything but cry. Was envy such a sin if you desired something so simple? To want to be able to laugh and run and jump would be like flying for me. I cried, wishing somebody could understand. Instead, they only pass estranged glances, wondering why I cry. They don't get it. They never will. Even if I can ever learn to run.
"Are you okay?" a girl asks, flanked by her friend. I knew who they were; Cheyenne and Jessica. I didn't know them well. They were girly-girls, I knew that much. They didn't play kick-ball or tag, instead giggling about boys and gossip. I wondered if those were normal things for a girl to do.
"I'm--" I bit my lip, and tired of lying I blurted, "I want to play too."
It came out as more of a sob than words, and both girls stared at each other.
"Okay, we'll play with you," Jessica said with a smile.
I rubbed my eyes hopefully. "R-really?" I croaked.
Then passing one another a more uncaring grin, both shouted "NO!" and ran off giggling, joining a flock of other girls who began giggling too.
I wished I could hurt them. I wished I could scream. I suppose that I could have yelled after all, because no one would care. Birds of a feather flock together, but I couldn't fly.
Heavy-hearted, I got to my feet. I staggered, clinging onto the step's rails, my glasses nearly falling again. But I was standing. I cautiously made my way down each step, one foot, then the other. My shoes reached the ground, and I smiled. I took a couple of steps. Cheyenne and Jessica were forgotten, but how I felt wasn't so easily left behind. Half in desperation, other half in desire, I tried to run.
For a short instant, I could fly. My arms swung fierce like two pendulums, my legs doing the same. For a second, neither of my feet were even on the ground. Was that a jump? A leap? For a second, I joined the birds in the crystal-colored sky.
Then I hit the ground. My glasses were knocked from my face, skidding out of reach on the asphalt ground. I crawled to the edge where the grass was, and looked down at my hands. They were bloody now, with little chips of black rock trapped inside the stinging scrapes. My dress had torn a little, and my tights were destroyed, revealing bloody shins. I cried, but I think I smiled too. My hands hurt, my knees hurt, everything stung from the bitter crash to the ground...but I flew. For one moment, I was a bird like everyone else. For one moment, I wasn't a broken child. I wasn't anything but another beautiful bird.
"Are you okay sweetheart?" a teacher asked, lifting me from the ground by my arm. "Come on, let's go to the principle's office and clean you off."
Unable to argue I followed, so quickly becoming a broken thing again, forgotten by the others. Already I missed that moment of belonging, that feeling that I was one of them. I felt like Pinnochio, wishing that I could just be a "real" child. I couldn't be one, because a real one could walk and run and skip and fly. I looked up towards the blue air above me, to the white cotton-clouds and the red-breasted birds. Envying their freedom. They were not condemned by a shattered self or a weary heart. They weren't bearing the weights of being a cripple. Like the others, they didn't care for me. I sighed, watching them disappear in the sky.~
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