Title Unnoticed Bravery
Rating T
Summary She will continue to try and conquer her fear, even if it means she'll cause herself harm.
Disclaimer I do not own Teen Wolf in any way, shape, or form…sadly.
Notes I just really love Erica okay.
Words 573
*~E~*
Every day she tries to ignore the taunting whispers. Every day she wants to scream at the people are doing the whispering. They don't just whisper though. They laugh, mock, taunt, and do anything to try and get a reaction out of her.
She didn't react though. She didn't want to give them any more ammunition to hurt her with.
Put it that way, and it sounds like fear. Doesn't it?
It isn't though. Fear. Erica has never feared her tormentors. Hated them, wanted to make them feel the same way they make her feel, but she had never feared them.
Because to fear someone or something, there has to be something to be afraid of. These people are not something to be afraid of.
There are the few who don't do their best to make her life hell. Erica appreciates these few strangely nice people. Strangely nice because no one in Beacon Hill is nice, not really, at least not to her.
Well, okay, some of the people who didn't make her life hell weren't exactly nice to her. It was more like they didn't notice her. Some days it was just enough for her to get through the school day without finally snapping and slipping into a homicidal bloodlust filled rage. Other days, well, other days she had to find something to hold her back from being sent to a nice padded room, or even one with bars.
One thing that she could never decide was good or bad, and she still can't decide, was that Stiles never took notice of her. Never noticed her crush, and never even seemed to see her.
Maybe it truly is for the better though, because if he had noticed…
Well, he was probably the only one who could have hurt her.
But he didn't, and never could.
The only time Erica was ever really hurt by others was when she couldn't do things because of her epilepsy.
Like trying to climb that damn rock wall in gym.
She hated to admit it, but the laughter hurt more than usual that time. It always hurt, but for some reason it was worse that day.
Maybe that was why she went back to try later. She had always tried to do things that she previously hadn't been able to do, sometimes safely and sometimes not, but not near as bad as what she'd done that day.
Erica vaguely recalls wishing that they hadn't moved the mat away from the wall, but it wasn't enough to deter her from trying to climb it again. It really should have been. Even before she started climbing Erica knew what she was doing was extremely stupid.
Maybe it was her pride that pushed her into doing something so reckless. Maybe it was the mocking laughter of the other students that she kept hearing in her head, but she didn't stop for a second to rethink her decision to climb the wall.
No one but her mother had ever called her brave, but if she had witnessed her daughter just then. Well, she probably would have called her stupidly reckless in that moment.
Stupidly reckless, but she also would admit to the unnoticed bravery that Erica possessed.
Because neither Derek, nor The Bite had given Erica that bravery. Self confidence, maybe, but not the will to climb a rock wall without at least a mat in the likely event of falling.