hand me downs

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17. hand me downs

Primrose Bennett never truly had any true friends.

Thirteen years didn't give her much time to find them, hell, she was too young to even find herself at that one point. Her childhood was a crazed disaster, heartbreak being a general feeling weighing on her youthful shoulders. She experienced every person within her smaller life let her down, and the ones she cared for the most seemed to do the most damage. Hope was struck by force every time her bright little smile rose on her childish lips, her baby blue lighting up at even the merest excitement as any little girls would. And those baby blues would witness first hand as that excitement was ripped from the air, twisted and pulled apart until not even the gods above could put the pieces together.

Her classmates didn't like her much and although they weren't ever truly mean towards her directly, she knew since her first steps into that kindergarten classroom that they would much rather push the other kids on the swing sets. They would rather chase the other children around during hide and seek, instead of the weird little Bennett girl who always smelled like cigarettes and whose shoes were always a size too small.

As a young girl, Primrose didn't understand why her classmates would look at her funny. Their innocent, unintentional gazes and whispers always made her feel a way she could never really describe. She just knew it didn't feel very good. She didn't understand the sad, soft gazes of her teachers as they looked upon the brunette, the same sad, pitiful smile that every adult figure in her life always seemed to give her. The pity filled gazes would send a small trickle of tears down her cheeks as her hand me down sneakers scraped against the asphalt on the walk home.

Naive little Prim didn't understand until she got older, and the innocent and unintentional, curious whispers turned into words of hate. Kids became meaner, looks became crueler, recess became longer and the teachers lounge she would spend time in rather than the playground became more and more quieter.

But those hand me down sneakers that were now two sizes too small became a year older and the walks home in the asphalt became a little more painful.

Despite it all, she had never once muttered a complaint.

She loved where she came from.

That broken down, single wide trailer at the very end of the dirt road was everything to her. It was paradise - a castle within her fairytale. Her crown had been gently placed on her hair, her chin tilted upwards and her tears swept away by a kiss to her pale cheeks by her brother like the pretty little princess she was to him. Motherly, weak hands placed gingerly on her cheeks as her mother's thumbs applied a thin layer of blush upon her skin. The rough, calloused, sour smell of cigarettes melting into her clothes as she was picked up into her fathers embrace, the smell becoming her sense of comfort over those years. The soft tug on the hems of her t-shirts that always brought her attention down and towards the blonde baby that looked at her like she was held the world in her palms.

Naive little Primrose didn't understand why her feelings would get hurt so easily. How her sensitive blue couldn't walk away without quivering lips after she watched the girl's in class scoot their chairs a bit away. She didn't understand until she watched the blonde baby that adored her older sister become the one wearing those hand-me-downs. The ones that were now three years old with the seems unseeming and the fabric at the toes rotting away. Whose tobacco smelling backpack that was once on her own shoulders cover Teddy's back instead, carrying the school supplies they couldn't afford. Whose classmates would send her running home in tears after her first day of kindergarten. Whose teacher called home atleast twice a week, checking in and hanging up hesitantly.

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