It's Just The Way It Is
I lay on the roof of the garage, staring at the transparent silver stars. The soft pink light of the morning sun bathed over the few clouds overhead. I could hear birds singing in the distance, their harmonies sad and lonely. The city around my mother’s house bustled with activity, though I was vaguely aware of it. I sighed heavily, knowing I had to go to school in less than an hour. The thought made me shudder. They know. They all know my secret. Well then, I guess it’s not a secret, is it? I sat up and slid down the side of the roof, jumping through several feet of air to the paved driveway. The small backyard was silent, each blade of grass decorated with several drops of early morning dew. I felt the crisp, leaf filled November wind blow through my hair. Tiny brown helicopter leaves floated from the oak tree over my head to the ground below my feet.
“Rae!” my moms shrill voice screamed from the house. I glanced at the small white building, grimacing as I noticed my mother. She was standing in the doorway of the French glass sliders, with her short blond hair greasy and in a messy bun. Her vivid emerald green pupils were bright, though the shadows underneath them insulted her whole face. The light green blouse she wore looked freshly ironed and the gray skirt beneath was too tight, showing off her thirty-nine-year-old thighs a little too much.
“Come on, we need to leave!” she yelled.
“Coming!” I called back to her.
I made my way inside the house and grabbed my bright orange backpack. Walking into the kitchen, I grabbed a partially bruised red apple.
“Throw me one,” my mom yelled from the dining room. I threw one towards the door and saw her catch it, with only her arm sticking out from behind the wall.
Then I turned to the front door and grabbed moms keys from where they hung on a short wooden peg on the wall. Walking out of the doorway to Mothers black SUV, I opened the door and slipped inside. Sliding the key into the ignition, I heard the front door slam shut. I left the drivers door open as I glanced over my shoulder to see my Mother struggling to carry her things to the car. I sighed. Ever since mom had lost her job three months ago, she had become the most unorganized person ever. Now that she got a new job, I don't know how she was going to handle it. I went up to her and took the travel mug from her hand that was spilling coffee along with the brown bag with her lunch in it.
“Mom, you need to do something about this non-organization before I leave for college next year. I am not always going to be here to keep you going,” I complained to her, worried about her wellbeing.
“Honey, I’ll be fine. And anyways, how do you know you are passing history this year? And mathematics?” she asked me.
I shrugged.
“I just will,” I told her, doubting my own words.
I really didn’t know. The bullying had become so bad since my secret got out that I might end up just dropping out of school.
We climbed into the car together and were off. Driving down the street, mom sped to get me to school on time. I watched out the window at the busy world of Rochester. We passed the public market, the green roofed buildings seemed unusually tall, but at least they protected the morning shoppers. In school, I had nobody to protect me. I used to, but now all my friends have become my enemies because of my stupid, stupid secret! We passed by a large elementary school, with children playing gleefully on a large tan playground. Three small girls swung back and forth on the tall swings, laughing as their braids flapped in the wind. I wish I could still be as carefree as them. No worries in the world, no drama to deal with, no really horrible secrets that ruin your life if they get out. Oh, the innocence of childhood.
After several minutes, we pulled in my school parking lot. Groups of kids hung around the front of the brick building, each one its own clique. I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing slowly to calm my beating heart. They know, and they are all going to stare at me because of it. I hate it when people stare at me. I hate being the center of attention.
I can't do it, I can't leave this car.
I glanced at mother, her face filled with worry. I smiled at her, through much effort, and she weakly smiled back.
“Are you going to leave? I can't be late to my new job,” she said, urging me to get out of the car.
“Do I have to go? Can’t you just like…home school me or something?” I asked, gulping as I gripped the door handle.
“Honey, no. Go now or I'll get one of those teachers to take you out of my car!” she smiled playfully, stroking me on the cheek.
“I love you baby,” she kissed me on the forehead. I felt tears rise to my eyes. How can everyone in school know and she doesn't? Should I tell her? No, it would ruin her perfect world of the perfect daughter. The daughter who aces every test and who always offers to help when help is needed. I would let her down, should I tell her.
I opened the door a crack, then slowly wider and wider until I could slip out. I shut the door and kept my head down, in the hopes that nobody would notice me. I can’t hide forever. I could see the group of football players and cheerleaders, and the gathering of the Goth kids. They are so ignorant, so mindless. They just follow their leader but they can't see how truly greedy and cruel the world really is. But I can. I have no leader no friends, and so all of the cruelty must have been slapped onto me. I could see smoke from the Goth kids cigarettes curling into the sky. I passed the clique of rich, preppy teenage girls very, very quietly.
It did no good though.
“Hey, weirdo, where you heading? To loser land?” I heard a girls voice snicker from my left.
I turned, knowing exactly who it was. Bridget Buttons, with her long golden hair and baby blue eyes, was smirking at me. I held my hands up.
“Yeah, that's right. Loser land. I guess I'll meet you there later?” I said, sarcasm rich in my words.
She moved close to me in three insulted strides. Her rose perfume enveloped me and I coughed from the overpowering aroma. Her finger came an inch from my nose and I glared at her, trying to hide how much her words hurt me. How much I didn't want to be there in that predicament right then. How much I just wanted to die.
“You can’t hide anymore, Rae McCormick. We know your secret.”
I turned my back on her and walked inside the building. Stepping into the lobby, I caught sight of my ex-boyfriend as of two days. He stalked towards me, his tall body more muscular than before. I wanted to flee but my feet wouldn't cooperate. He stopped before me, his chocolate eyes penetrating my green-gray ones.
“Why, Rae?” he asked me.
“Why what, Kale?” I snapped, knowing what he was about to ask. I dreaded his next couple words. They would tear me apart. I had never wanted to let him down and yet I did.
“I still love you! I wanted you back, Rae, do you not understand that? And now, that will never happen,” he said, anger ringing in his every word.
I felt tears rise to my eyes. “I’m sorry, Kale, I didn’t mean to. It wasn't my choice! It's not like I can choose to change it! It's who I am! It's just the way it has to be!”
“I just don't understand, Rae,” he looked away from me, “Why did you have to become a lesbian?”
We stood for a couple seconds in a mildly awkward silence. I opened my mouth to say something, but I realized there was nothing left to say. He laughed cynically for a moment then bit his thumb as he always would when he was angry. Then I was caught off guard as he leaned forwards and kissed me on the lips. I stood stunned when he pulled back and looked me in the eyes once more.
“That kiss was for me. To remember how you hurt me.”
I bit my lip and stayed silent, swaying in confusion about who I was and who I wanted to be. The truth was I was lesbian, but I so wanted to be with Kyle. He once more cynically laughed, then turned and walked away. I was left alone with my severely jumbled thoughts and my brain that had now turned to mush.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
140,755 Literary Works • 673,687 Reviews
This became really good!
The few changes really did bring the story out in a great way! I only noticed a couple of very small nitpicks here, but I couln't remember them when I'd finished reading so they can't have been too important!
Great job, this is a really good story and you've portrayed it well! Keep it up
You made this even more interesting now!!! I want to know what happens please continue on with this!! The corrections really helped this a lot. Still leaving me wanting more haha!! Good luck okies? Keep up the brilliant work and I'll keep an eye out for more of your works. Happy Writing!!!!!!!
Soulkana<3
Wow that was great, you had me hooked from the moment you mentioned a secret. College was spelled wrong (typo?) but that's the only mistake I could find. Thanks for the read.
This was a really good story! You had me paying attention at once and the build up was good! I was constantly wondering what the secret was and I felt really sorry for her. Very well written!
You have a good language and it's easy to follow the story. The only thing i have to say about the text as a whole is that someimes we get to know stuff that isn't really relevant at all, and there are a bit too many descriptions that doesn't have a point at all. Sometimes it's a litany about how things look and what she can see, but it's not really a point to it. A lot of places you could easily put in some feelings and thoughs and description of the atmosphere instead of just a description. Remember that we don't want to know what the painting looks like, we want to know what it feel like in the painting!
But nevertheless, this is a really good story and I very much enjoyed reading it! The voice is clear and strong and you tell in an intruiging way!
So red and green aren't actually right and wrong, most of the time I just have a suggestion for another way of writing it, it doens't mean my option is right though, it's just my preferences and the way I would do it. This is actually really well written!
Red: Wrong
Green: Right
Purple: My comments
Blue: I'm talking about these two things.
I loved this first paragraph. It set a beautiful opening and the flow was good. It was easy to pay attention and I got into the story straight away!
I think this was a bit too much description of what things look like. The colour of her blouse and what sort of doorway she's standing in isn't really relevant, and in this paragraph it seemed to only be a list of adjectives. Maybe mix it with some thoughts and feelings or happenings? Anything really, as long as it isn't just descriptions.
Not that it matters, but these paragrapghs have a few too many lines in between them - as does the rest of the story. It would look better if you fixed that, but like I said it doesn't really matter.
Apart from what I commented I liked this! Especially the part where her mther is this big clutz, it gives us something. We get some part of her mother, and that helps readers empazise with the story! You could easily put a lot more of this into the story inbetween all the descriptions, telling us something about how her mother losing her job affected their lives or how she acts or something.
This is a good! We get to know more about the bullying, and how she feels about it. I would put in more feelings, tell us more about how lonely and awful she feels.
I like the car drive, how you see the town and all the people in it. But I feel there could be a lot of emotion inserted in it! Write something about how she misses being a child without worries as they drive past the elementary school, how she customers seem to have such a nice, peaceful morning. Also, what is the atmosphere like? Is there music on? Is it an awkward silence between her mother and her or are they just peacefully enjoying the silence? Is the sun shining in their eyes? I want anything. Now we only see things, but we don't know how she feels about them or what she's thinking about them.
I really liked this! How she doesn't want to go, and almost breaks down right at the end, not saying anything about it before she really faces it, it shows how she's ashamed about being bullied and also how much she dreads going to school!
This is good tension bulding! Very nice!
Although this is really great, I feel a little deprived of an ending! Maybe say something about how he walks away and she stands there all alone and someone yells something at her and we get to know how she feels? other than that I love the ending! It's a brilliant plot and it's well built up!
Well done, good job, keep writing!
This made me sad. Hugs* This is very beautiful. It sorta reminds me of my own deep secret since its the same ....as the girl here. Anyways I have been through bullying before and now its gone but the affects still linger. I can't wait to read more soon. I love this and can't wait for more; if you will keep it going. Good luck and Happy Writing!!!!!!
Soulkana<3