When Alex woke up late the next morning, she cursed quietly to herself before jumping up and throwing on random clothes for school. No one cared about what she wore, least of all her. She then ran downstairs, grabbed a slice of toast (buttered well and good god damnit) and her backpack and ran out the door.
As she was walking to school, Alex ate the toast and mentally checked her mind to see if she had forgotten something. She wasn't sure if she had, but then again, Alex forgot many things. The feeling wouldn't shake her as she walked, and she repeatedly looked back, as if that would help. A few times she heard an odd song and thought she saw an awkwardly strange man, but that really must have been her imagination.
When she got to school, everything was basically the same. Which is to say, horrible. There was a buzz in the air about the fabulous Halloween party everyone would be attending, with the boys taking about their ironic costumes and the girls saying things like 'short shorts' 'bunnies' and 'playboy girrrls'. Alex was quiet in class and walked down the hall with her head down, hoping no one would notice her, hoping to avoid the whole situation of people. And even though Alex made those precautions, the others still laughed at her, threw paper at her, and even pushed her around. Alex didn't care. She would be gone from this place soon enough, anyway. Though, not gone quite soon enough for her.
As she walked forward in the hallways before ninth period (art, thank God!), she tripped and fell right onto her face. Alex really isn't that surprised; this happens all the time. And, right on cue comes the boisterous laughter and finger-pointing, and horrendous name-calling. Someone then decided to cross a line and they stepped forward, tipping their smoothie all over Alex's head, drenching her book and her hair. She tried to make the tears go back, make them disappear, but they kept coming and threatened to spill any second. Suddenly Alex was done.
She was done with enduring their torturous cries at her for being a 'Space Nerd' and for liking girls, and for knowing 'all' the answers, though never talking to anyone but the faculty and Jade. She was done with the fact that she could only have a half-friend in this dammed school. Alex turned back and started yelling, addressing the entire hallway.
"You all think you are perfect. You all think that because you have the right friends, because you like the right gender, because you don't have scars, because of whatever, you think you are God's gift to all others. Well guess what? YOU ARE NOT. You are all terrible people, and you know what? SO AM I. The only difference is I know how to control it, I know how far is too far. You don't. So that, my friends is the main difference between us. So why don't you go do whatever the hell you guys usually do, other than torture me for once, and let me live my own freaking life."
With that, Alex spun on her heels, going back the way she came, towards the girl's bathroom to see what could be done about her poor, smoothie-drenched book and her hair. As she walked, she noticed that everyone was quiet. No one was talking; they were all staring at her in stunned silence.
And, predictably, Alex wanted to look back. However, being as stubborn as she had always been, she refused herself and kept going forwards. Once she got to the empty bathroom, the tears took over and she found herself sobbing in one of the stalls.
It can't be said that she didn't try. That was all she did in Middle School and the freshman year of High School. She had tried liking boys, tried dating them. She had tried to not be interested in space or science, tried to act bored when the teacher went on a whole lecture about the Galaxy. She tried not to spew random facts or to be outgoing and say 'Hi!' to someone. It was hard. She went into a dark place and didn't do anything. She couldn't feel anything. She had self-harmed for some release, some relief.
It just didn't work. Alex was who she was, and she finally came to terms with that last year. Over the last year, she had finally admitted that she was a lesbian and proud as fuck, that she loved science and space, that she was terrible in the social aspect of life. She stopped cutting. No one had really liked her when she was a fake, anyway. Even though everyone else in the whole town seemed pretty fake.
Alex tried to stop the crying, and once it had slowed, she went out of the stall and stood in front of the sink. She stood right in front of the mirror, alone for once. Alex splashed her self with cold water and tried to get some smoothie out of her hair before giving up and looking up, into her own eyes.
Her hair was too thick. Her stomach was too big. Her thighs were absolutely huge. And how about her chest? Well, it was much too small, apparently. And, 'ew!' she let the scars on her wrist actually show. That should be illegal, right? To show the scars that helped her become strong and become who she was? Yuck! All the boys, even the girls told her that. She felt as if it might just be true, but Alex tried to push the thoughts out.
To distract herself, she thought about the Halloween party. She decided to go. She would show them that they could not harm her; she was much stronger than they thought. She would show them.