'Chapter The First', Writ I

I was looking for something in my room once. It was truly the room of an artist, cluttered with dirty and clean clothes, and old school books buried in boxes full of paper.

Caressing the worn frame with elfin fingers, I spread the contents out, revealing old secrets to a new self, one by one.

One spoke the stories I used to write when I was in my first years of primary school.

They had the wobbly writing of a child, but advanced spelling and use of sentences for that age.

They were always, always made up. But they were always true, sort of. I didn't really go to those places or do those things, but that's what I would have done if I had the chance.
One story caught my eye. 'Today I swam in a pool and I died.' I scanned it again and again, looking for a possible mistake, but each word was spelled correctly. 'Today I swam in a pool and I died.'
Gosh, what kind of imp was I? I smiled and went to the next book.

Next book, I went up a notch. I was now working in paragraphs, and I could spell almost anything.
I loved words, I could never use a dictionary properly because I always stopped for the interesting words along the way, I could take a metaphorical eternity to find the word I was sent to find.

Though the content was still novice. They were either short mindless cartoonish humour stories, or painfully but beautifully childish fantasy stories.

But some...some were actually good. For that age, yes, but still good.
I'm more speechlessly proud of those than the best thing I'd ever written at my current age.

The teachers seemed to notice. The good ones, anyway.

I remember what I was like then. I was naturally bright and metaphorically loud, but (to most) naturally and unknowingly annoying. I wondered why no one liked me. I never thought that it might be me as well as them.

I was a dreamer, and a believer. And regrettably, very trusting. Blindly trusting.
More than once, a kid had told me they were an alien or a scientist and I thought that they really were.
They were playing a game, of course they were. But they didn't tell me that.
So as far as I knew, it was true.
Nobody would lie to me, because I was a special girl who believed and trusted and loved and dreamed and never hurt anybody.

If only that were true.