2.
I wake up to a pounding fist on the door. "Miranda, it's time to get up." Mrs. Sarah raps at the door one last time before moving on to wake up the other kids. I sit up in bed as I yawn and stretch. This is the only wake call I am going to get, so I had to get up. I turn to my bed side table and flip on the only light that my room has. I glance at the clock and sigh at the time. 6:00, better get moving. I stumble to my dresser and take out a long sleeve shirt and a pair of short jeans. Once I'm dressed I stuff my books in my backpack and head to the bathroom. There is a girls bathroom and a boys bathroom. They look similar to public restrooms, they have stalls and a large mirror with sinks along it. The only difference is that peoples tooth brushes are in cups along the sink's counter.
When I arrive at the bathroom, Tina is the only one in line. Tina's eyes narrow at me. "I am so glad that I'm getting out of this place." She mutters, loud enough for me to hear. I shoot her a death glare, that scares her so bad that she nearly runs into the stall when it opens up. I continue my daily routine and finally get down to breakfast. Breakfast on weekdays is sort of like a buffet, there is the choice of toast, bagel, eggs, or French toast. I wouldn't try eating the eggs or eating the French toast, so I grab a bagel. By the end, I am basically ushered out the door to catch the bus. If you miss the bus, you must walk, and that's about 15 blocks away. Oh, and you have to run if you don't want to be late.
I suck in a deep breath before stepping onto the bus. I drain all emotion and feelings from my body and step onto the bus that brings me to my second life. Some people have a double personality illness, I don't think I have it though, because I choose to have two. The people who have the illness, don't mean to have two. I choose to let no one in, let no one know the real me. It hurts less that way.
"Miranda, back here!" My 'best' friend Cameron calls from the back of the bus. I should probably mention that whenever I 'smile' or 'laugh' this whole day at school, it's all artificial, forced, and unnatural. Happiness shouldn't have to be forced. Every time I force an expression of joy, a little piece of the real me is scratched off and lost, lost to a place where I'll never find it.
"Oh my gosh, hey!" I hug her and sit down next to her.
"So what did you do this weekend?" Cameron leans closer to me, probably hoping she could get some gossip from me, even though she knows that when its about my personal life, she comes up dry.
"You know the usual, work, do homework, clean." I chuckle. Cameron's shoulders sag in defeat, but I act as if I hadn't noticed it. "Anyway what did you do?" Cameron's eyes light up, happy for the conversation to get interesting.
"Well I went to a party, which you were invited to. Why didn't you come?" She asks, even though she already knows the answer.
"I was too tired, working all week day and night, takes it all out of me." I affirm what she had been thinking.
"Well you missed a good party! There was a lot of drama though. Dawn and Dan hooked up, even though Dan is dating Hilary…" I smile and nod and pretend to be angry at the appropriate times, each emotion as false as the last. When we arrive at school I am welcomed with many "Hi!" and "Did you have a good weekend?" My supposal friends are Dawn, Cameron, Chelsea, Sam, Ron, and John. They are my close friends, I have other people who I talk to and who I could consider to be my friends, but we never hang out other then the class I have with them. When I enter our circle, Dawn is pouting and Ron is talking about getting wasted at a party that happened over the weekend.
"So I'm starting to coax the girl to get in bed with me, when I puked everywhere. The girl screamed and ran away…it was one of the most embarrassing things that ever happened to me." Ron shakes his head at the embarrassment. Dawn sighs, and speaks up to share her story.
"Well, at least you weren't used. I thought Dan really cared about me, and he made me feel beautiful for a couple of minutes, but that was before the camera flashes and laughter. I just hope that Hilary dumps him hard." Dawns eyes become watery and she is forced to look away. What a baby.
"Ron how stupid can you get? Don't drink so much, there's no point, when you're drunk everyone eventually hates you, and you usually make a fool out of yourself or spill someone's, or your own, secret. And Dawn what exactly happened? You should've known he was a user the moment you knew he was dating Hilary." Chelsea is the motivator/ punisher of the group. She's one of those people who's a lover not a fighter, but believe me she WILL fight for what she believes in. And God, if she knew what I was doing, what I did to myself, my ear would be chewed to a bloody nub, before I even had the time to get out of bed. She's not afraid to get in a fight with the biggest jocks at school, but is afraid of a baby spider. I respect her, and even my real self could've been friends with her. Dawn is left speechless and pushes past her mumbling something about getting to class.
"Chelsea, sometimes you can be such a bitch, even if you are telling the truth." Ron announces. Chelsea turns to him and grins.
"I know." Chelsea tosses her long brown hair over her shoulder. "Good morning Miranda and Cameron, I hope your weekends were better then Ron's and Dawns."
"Oh trust me, mine was! Mark and I had our first kiss!" Cameron squeals, and soon her and Chelsea are jumping up and down with the excitement.
"Oh my god, I need details!" Chelsea nearly screams. The two girls go off into their own conversation, ignoring the rest of us. I go over to the wall and slide down it. Sam comes and sits next to me.
"You're never really into that girl stuff." He claims, brown eyes boring into mine. I feel awkward with him staring at me like that, so I look away, and find the opposite wall comforting.
"Yeah well, call me crazy, but I never understood any of it."
"Ah-bviously, but how can you really understand anything when you can't see anything past those bushy eyebrows? Do you still love nature, despite what it did to you?" A shrill voice penetrates me in the darkest parts of myself. Even though I partly agreed with her (on the being ugly part), I absolutely despised girls like her. Instead of Sam responding, I look up into dark brown eyes, so dark that they were almost black, the color of her heart.
"You know Amber, sometimes I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't seem to get my head that far up my ass." I curtly remark, and before she can say anymore I say goodbye to Sam and shoot down the hallway. Amber, where could I begin with her? Well she was probably the older version of Tina (A.K.A, a bitch). Was she beautiful? Sadly yes, and therefore all of the guys went for her. She got to be a slut, whore, and goody good, all at the same time. All the adults thought she was fabulous and all of the girls in our grade looked up to her as though she was some sort of goddess. Goddess married to Hades, I'd accept. For some reason though, she had chosen me to hate more than anyone else in the whole entire school. She often made fun of my clothes and my school work, and once in a while she would try to show people my imperfections. For example, my eyebrows being bushy. She's one of the perfect reasons why I cut myself, and wish my life would come to an end.
When I'm in my classes, away from my friends, I sometimes forget about covering my thoughts. If you looked at my notes you would notice broken hearts and see eyes with tears in them. I never realize it when I'm drawing them, but then when I glance away then look back at the page, they're suddenly there. Some of the people who sit in the row next to me notice the doodles, but they don't so much as give me a look of disgust. I ignore them though and continue to push away the emotions that rise in my throat, sometimes in the form of a rock that no matter how many times I try to swallow it back down, it still sits there. Occasionally my eyes begin to sting, but I am so used to it by now, that I know a quick stab of pain in my hand will stop the tears before they show up on my face.
"Miranda, what did you get for this question?" My French teacher, Madame Maddie drags me out of my day dreams. I look hazily at the board, trying to figure out what the hell she's talking about. I look down at the book open in front of me and automatically respond.
"As-tu une voiture ou un velo?" My monotone voice hangs in the air as Madame Maddie seems upset that she didn't actually catch me off guard.
"Uh, tres bien Miranda!" I return my gaze back to the window and watch birds, who are most likely flying south for the winter, take flight. I envy them and their ability to fly freely, and ability to go anywhere they want. I frown when I realize that I would never be able to fly, and will always be grounded, like a baby bird never learning how to fly, jumping and trying, but falling every time, and one of these days, one of these falls are going to kill me.
I advance through my day and go to lunch. I shake myself into getting rid of all emotion and replace it with a pointless smile. Just as I do so, Sam comes up behind me and slaps my back.
"Hey!" He basically shouts. I lightly punch him on his arm, straining my smile the whole time.
"Hi!"
"How were your first couple classes?" He asks, his teeth are so white I'm almost blinded.
"Fine. How were yours?" I say just to be polite. None of my 'friends' ever seem to notice that they're the ones to start all of the conversations.
"Well Mr. Buckams caught me texting in class, and now my phone is with him and I have to see him at the end of the day." I clench my teeth together, trying not to blurt out 'at least you have a phone!'
"Ouch, that sucks." I finally manage to speak calmly. Somehow Sam realizes that I got mad and winces.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you." He seems deeply concerned so I am forced to accept his apology. Before long we meet up with my other friends and we sit down at 'our' table.
"So guys, my friend from the orph- my childhood," I quickly recover and continue, "is moving here, and is going to be going to our school on Monday." Camerons eyes widen with shock, before they light up with excitement.
"You mean next Monday!" Cameron is bouncing in her seat. Her enthusiasm disgusts me. I flinch with everyone's eyes on me, and protectively graze my wrists, making sure they were covered. Despite my feeling of unease I simper and pretend to glow with happiness.
"Yeah!" I squeal, and hold back a grimace.
"Is she pretty?" John and Ron's eyes glitter with the hope of me having a slutty friend. I am taken back but slap the smile back onto my face.
"Oh goodness no, he is not a girl." I giggle to play along with the situation, even though it sounds like a gorilla.
"Oops, sorry, John and I just figured that we were your only guy friends, other then Sam." Ron looks utterly confused as I try to brush off the insult. Most people would just brush off the comment, and think nothing of it, but not me.
I stare at them for a moment before forcing a smile and say, "What do you mean?"
"Oh no, we didn't mean that you weren't pretty enough or hot enough to have guy friends, we just assumed that you didn't have many because you aren't very outgoing." Sam thinks that he has covered for him and his friends, but he slowly realizes what he has said. Everyone is staring at him open mouthed, all except me that is. Sam's eyes suddenly become extremely wide in shock as he frantically tries to recover. "Umm, that came out wrong! Forget that you heard that, you are a really smart and beautiful girl and you are brave and amazing and have a hot body. I'm surprised that guys AREN'T throwing themselves at you."
"Nice recovery man!" John slaps Sam on the back and Sam's face becomes red. I am fighting down a rock in my throat, and my eyes feel a pinch from humiliation. I swallow down my bubbling emotions and turn my gaze to everyone else.
"Umm, anyway, his name is Chris and he's an amazingly sweet guy. Just treat him nicely, okay? He has been going through some hard times lately and I don't want anyone giving him a hard time."
"What do you mean 'going through some hard times'?" Cameron heads straight for the gossip as always. I couldn't say anything about his real problems without everyone finding out my secret so I shake my head and put a finger up to my mouth as if I am shushing somebody.
"Sorry that information is confidential, I can't tell anyone. I wouldn't mention it to him at all either, unless you like having your head shoved up your ass." I smirk and meet everyone's eyes getting the point across that I can and will hurt them if they try to bring it up. I couldn't afford any of them knowing my real situation, because then they would know that everything they knew about me is a lie. It is so much easier for them to believe lies then having them know the truth. What they don't know can't hurt them, right?
"Okay we'll be as nice as we possibly can to your friend." Sam gets a little too close for comfort and I am tempted to scoot away, but I don't and take my chances and narrow my eyes at him.
"Are you being sarcastic?" My voice lets him know that if he was joking then he's going home with a black eye. His teasing eyes become warm as his leg leans into mine.
"No, I would do anything for you." His gaze becomes locked with mine, and secretly my breath gets caught in my throat. The feeling of sheer terror pulses through my veins. My face bursts into flames and I stand up, pretending I heard nothing.
"Right, well I have to go see my math teacher about my test." I grab my backpack and scurry out of the cafeteria as fast as I can. Instead of going to my teacher I run into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. I look at myself in the mirror, and am not surprised to see the madness in my eyes. The bathroom door opens and closes, foot steps echo off the walls on the bathroom. I quickly grab paper towels and wipe off the water on my face, but I freeze when I see a familiar pair of eyes glaring at me, reflecting off the bathroom mirror.