Disclaimer: I do no own Maximum Ride.
I could never look anyone in the eyes. Not in the past, not now. Most people were too polite to say anything, but I knew what they were thinking. Freak. Weirdo. She doesn't look anyone in the eyes. I had no confidence, no self-esteem. No pride. I felt useless and rejected, and buried myself in my work. If you asked anyone about me, they would say, "Maximum Ride is a nerd, and a weirdo. She has no friends, and she's a loner. Plus, she never looks anyone in the eyes." That was who I was known as. The nerdy girl who wouldn't look anyone in the eyes. Thus I became Maximum Ride, the quiet, shy girl who everyone avoided.
My refusal to look anyone in the eyes was connected to my past. I used to be a lively girl with lots of friends, the one who knew how to have fun, and the one everyone liked. Everyone but my parents. I didn't live up to their expectations. Far from it. I was expected, as the firstborn, to be the perfect role model to my siblings. I was supposed to be he girl who excelled in projects, was the class president, and who was the teacher's pet. Nope. That was me know, but not me before. Instead of being a straight A student, I was a B student. I wasn't a teacher's pet, due to my tendency to talk, and I hated projects.
Every time I didn't live up to my parents' expectations, my mother would pull me aside. She would say, "Max, I am disappointed in you." I looked away. Those words pierced my heart. No matter how many times she said those words, I could never get used to hearing them. My mother would then say, "I expect you to do better next time. Why can't you be more like your sister?" It was a statement, a simple fact. Next time never came. I always got a B on my tests. When my sister was born, and received her first test grade, my parents knew. My sister was the dream child. She wasn't a waste of space, someone who didn't live up to the simple standards. She was the most popular girl at school. The apple of my mother's eye. The girl everyone wanted to be. The second she looked at my sister, her eyes would soften and fill with care and love. It was then I wished I had the perfect grades.
I began to associate eyes with disapproval and disappointment. The teachers would look at me with love and care, but it didn't matter how much approval I got from others. I only wanted to please my mother. Yet she shunned me. My will to live faded away. I felt that life was not worth living if I did not have my mother's love. Slowly, my intake of food stopped. I became a ghost. My parents didn't notice, infatuated they were with my sister. Only my best friend did. "Max," she pleaded, "don't go. Don't leave me!"
My only reply was, " I don't want to live any more. I want to leave this world of pain. Let me be released." One night, as I was walking home, a car crashed into me. I was in pain, but I could feel myself slipping away, succumbing to the darkness. My last thought was, Release.