They said she had a big heart. They said that she was strong, the bravest of them all.
What they didn't know was that she had a secret, one that she couldn't share with anyone, most certainly not her mother. For she would send her the crazy house. And poor, as the 'most popular' kids would say, Dylan Lockhorn didn't want that. She wanted to stay where most things made sense to her. She knew, and could feel, the pitiful glances and stares, as she would walk to her next class.
Dylan wanted nothing more than to be the one to smack them stupid gawks off their faces. As for she had been taught better.
Walking, head down, sleeves pulled to her knuckles. It seemed more like a guard she didn't, couldn't let down. It meant letting people in, and that meant they could leave, without a trace. Like most girls in high school, she didn't have a body guys would want to worship, or a 'pretty' face. Her family said she was beautiful the way she was, but like always she wouldn't listen. Always letting her mind get the best of her. She was living in the dark, always have been, always will be, she thought.
No one at school paid any attention to her, unless for answers for a question. Even the way people talked to her, it felt as though they knew her mysterious secret and gave her special treatment. She hated that, the fact that know one gave her the right choice words.
When in Biology, boys would come over and talk to the girls that sat at her table and talk about how the girls were pretty, and wondered why they never complemented her.
'Because they don't want to lie.' Her conscience would always remind her.
In gym, the other girls with the tanned hairless legs, thigh gaps, wore shorts, while she always stuck to her skinny jeans. Standing in the background, hiding behind her straigtened, brown hair, watching out for any of the flying basketballs, waiting for the bell to ring to escape. It was as though know one knew she existed, in the world of perfection. She knew she didn't belong. Dylan loved being alone. There were no fakeness, no high pitched squeals at bad jokes the cute guys told to the desperate girls, and certainly no people. When Dylan was alone she could play her music as loud as she wanted, she could think straight, and just be her quiet self.
She never was the outgoing type that would just go up to Josh Hayden and just start talking to him. She definitely wasn't the type to dress up just for school.
She was more conserved, more of the girl to be obsessed with numbers on a scale, more of the girl who never ate in front of people, more of the girl who after a meal sneak off the bathroom and empty the contents of what her stomach once consist of. Even though she knew it could kill her, she didn't really care. That was kind of what she wished for.
