Flaws

Two

Reluctant to an extremity, I finally go. The facility is more of a . . . Support group, than a testing factory. You sit at a table, one that is normally at shoulder level if your short, and a pair of doctors sit in front of you, straight-faced and acting like you are some sort of decaying piece of roadkill. They prod at you, talk to you, and make you feel bad about yourself. Not my ideal trip. My parents force me into the train, and Mother smiles at me.

"You won't regret this," she says, but I ignore her. I'd rather not be going to this, or be talking to her. I'd simply rather not be myself at all. I'd rather be normal and just not be here at all. That would be a whole lot better for the both of us. I wouldn't have to deal with my extremely annoying and paranoid family, and they wouldn't have to deal with an ugly daughter. A win-win, I suppose.

My fingers curl around the cold-metal handle of the sub-train as I stare out the open window. Tall grey buildings tower above us, huge and immense in the center-city but smaller and shorter as you span out. The smallest houses are basically shacks built precariously on the outskirts of the city, belonging to the Flaws. And no one wants they, so they belong to themselves. I sigh, wondering what it would be like. Being a Flaw. For all I know, I am one, just not technically labeled yet. Would it be like a taste of freedom? Some sort of sweet and beautiful relief? I'd live in poverty, but I'd have no one to judge me, because I would've already been judged. I would already have been deemed ugly and a fault, a mistake, rather.

Who would've guessed? A girl named Valentine, named after love and beauty itself, a Flaw.

"We're here, Valentine," my mother chirps, trying to act like I'm normal. That's what she's been doing all these years though, pretending that I'm normal and beautiful and fake just lik everybody else in this messed up, shallow as a petri-dish city.

I glance around at the other girls on the train before getting off. Most of them either have bright blonde or stark blue-black hair, with green or blue eyes. They sit in tight groups, whispering and laughing, shooting me the occasional glance of disgust.

I turned back to my mom as I walk down the stairs to the platform. "It's Val."

"Your certificate says Valentine," she counters, blue eyes flashing warily. It's a warning, I realize. Not here, not now, her eyes seem to say.

"Fine," and I hop off the stairs the rest of the way, landing on the platform with a solid thump, my dirty black sneakers scuff the ground.

"No need to make a scene, meet you here in half an hour," she hisses as the train pulls away, leaving me alone and in the dust. Time for them to tell me everything wrong about myself. Time for me to be more and more reluctant every day to go. I wish I could just be free. But then the alarms start to go off and a steady, quiet drizzle falls upon the earth.