Normally, people don't notice me. I mean, yeah, they notice that I'm in front of them or I'm talking to them, but that's not what I'm talking about. Of course, you could certainly say I'm just a normal person. I live in a house, I pump my own gas, and I eat and drink. I get tickled, I get sick, I get sad, I get happy, I get angry, and sometimes, I have no specific emotion. But is that good enough?
Of course not.
People can tell that everyone is different. They can see that some people are white and some people are black. They know for a fact that people like different colors, and they know for a fact that some people will prefer different brands of cars over others. Honestly, I'm not different.
However, there's always going to be that one thing that gets treated differently. People notice that skin colors are different, true, and while most people don't care about it, other people automatically despise the race of that different person. Democrats will hate Republicans because they think they're way is right and the other way is wrong. The Republicans will think exactly the opposite, and pandemonium ensues. Some people despise a different brand of car and buy stickers of kids taking a piss on that other brand's logo.
Of course, life goes on, and people learn to live with each other. Life was going on for me, because at the moment, I was sitting in our kitchen, quietly sipping a mug of hot chocolate and thinking about the events of the day. It was something I did all the time: I'd grab a drink and sit, like everyone else is capable of doing. By drinking and sitting, I've made myself normal, haven't I? I've got what it takes to become a normal human being.
Right? Wrong.
It's not very easy being me. Whenever I go out, people will stare or mutter. They see me all the time, but I can still here them talking.
"Who is he?"
"He's one of the Teen Titans."
"But isn't he the one that-"
"Shh! Do you want him to hear you?"
"He seems like he'd be the one that'd hide from everyone else."
"Ha! I bet he does!"
"Why does he even come outside, anyway? He's so… ugh."
If there isn't something like that going on, something very similar is. Usually, I never talk to anyone about it. I just sit in the kitchen and drink something while I think it over. That was exactly what I'm doing right now.
Normally, I'm uninterrupted and to myself, but today I had an uninvited guest. Raven had walked into the kitchen, quietly whistling Daydream. As she reached the second line of the chorus, she opened the door to the pantry and stuck her head inside. Her whistling stopped for a moment and continued shortly after, now one octave higher than before. She tossed something around in her hands and closed the door with her foot, now making her way over to me.
"Hello," she said, sitting across from me. "How are you?"
"Fine," I muttered, though I'm sure she knew I wasn't.
Raven smiled faintly as she tugged at a package she had gotten from the pantry: a bag of Oreo cookies.
"Want some?" she asked, finally getting the bag open. I shook my head no and continued to drink my hot chocolate.
She popped a cookie into her mouth and chewed slowly, her eyes fixed upon my mug. I was trying my hardest not to give her a questionable look, and apparently, she sensed my discomfort.
"I'm not staring at your mug," she said. "I'm not staring at anything. Just thinking."
I brought the mug to my mouth. "Same."
Placing another cookie in her mouth, Raven was now staring at the bottom of my mug, using it as a replacement for my face. "What are you thinking about?"
"Stuff that happened today," I said dully, not wanting to talk. "Don't want to talk about it."
"You were noticed again, weren't you?"
I slammed my mug down on the table with accidental force. As a result, the mug shattered and caused the hot, brown liquid to run over the table and over my hands, like it was hurriedly trying to search for something.
"I told you I didn't want to talk about it," I said through gritted teeth, speaking the truth.
"You do realize that you're going to have to get over it, don't you?" asked Raven, acting as if nothing happened. "This isn't the first time it's happened."
"It's the first time someone's actually said it to me."
As I was saying this statement, Raven had been putting another cookie inside her open mouth. She was currently frozen, her mouth open and cookie in her hands but on her tongue. "What do you mean?" she asked, finally putting the cookie in her mouth.
"I was at the park, and kids actually came up to me and insulted me, Raven. They weren't just two elderly women talking about me behind their raised hands."
Raven put another cookie in her mouth casually; a casualty that would drive any impatient person up the wall. Apparently, that was about to happen to me.
"How old were these kids?" she asked.
"Eleven or twelve."
"Ah."
"And don't just think that they were being immature. The things they said weren't exactly grade-school insults."
"What did they say?"
"To be frank, they called me every four-lettered word they knew, and they knew a lot."
"They called you this because of…?"
"Right."
A moment of silence went by, Raven still munching on cookies. The hot chocolate had long-ago finished flowing across the table and was now becoming a brown, sticky mess. Finally, the silence was shattered, much like a hammer breaks glass.
"Cyborg… I want you to know something."
My eyes met Raven's, which were filled with concern.
"What?"
Raven reached inside her bag of Oreos and pulled one out. "From what I see, people see you like an Oreo cookie. Your spirit is the creamed filling, which is surrounded on both sides by a chocolate cookie. In this case, your robotic body."
Raven looked up at me to make sure I understood, but I was too busy looking at the cookie. When our eyes never met, she continued.
"Now a lot of the time, people will just pop the cookie into their mouths and enjoy it as quickly as they can. Sometimes, though, people twist off one of the cookies and eat the cream first." Raven did what she had said and looked at the white layer in front of her. "See, Cyborg? You're a normal person, but you're just in a different body. And I want you to realize that even though most people see you as… well… different, there are still some people that are going to look at you for who you are on the inside."
Raven stood up and began to leave the kitchen, her bag of cookies with her.
"And you've got friends that eat the filling first, Cyborg. Keep that in mind."
I was alone now, thinking about what my friend had just said. She was so right…
Getting up, I grabbed a couple of paper towels and began to clean the mess.