the kids are depressed

•SUSAN

"Susan wakes up staring at the ceiling..."

Kylie Jenner and her entire sister's wouldn't qualify to lace Susan's boots if she got a dollar every single time someone said, "OMIGOD you're so beautiful" to her with a fake American accent. She'd be swimming in dollars, but Susan wondered why she never thought of herself as beautiful—I mean, did she take nice pictures that amassed her over 20 thousand followers? Well, yes! But did she walk down the street feeling like Beyoncé on the day she wrote Flawless? Damn NO!

She thought she was just like everyone else, she wasn't special—girls just deceived her and boys just wanted to sleep with her; no one really went about their day wondering how unfair God was for creating her so differently from them.

One thing about being "beautiful" that most people didn't know was that it kept you in a box. A very small and limited one—and in time you begin to realize that you don't even feel beautiful anymore—you just feel...acknowledged. I mean, she went for a modeling audition one time and overheard one of the popular judges who was speaking with someone on the phone, gesture at where she and the other models stood, saying, "yeah, I'm with a bunch of empty brains and withering faces—I'll call you back." Ouch right? I mean, "empty brains?...withering faces?" That was all the woman thought of her?...of them?

Susan got accepted for the modeling gig but she made a decision never to go back there or any other modeling gig in her entire life. She'd taken that woman's words along with her that day and although it sometimes served as a motivator for her to find her worth underneath her beauty, it also served as an indicator of her limitations.

One day, a boy in her class that was popularly know for always coming to school very late laughed at her joke and said he thought that was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard come out of a Nigerian girl. Everyone around laughed to his words and she even had to join out of shame, but that night, she cried herself to sleep—not because his words hurt (which terribly did, anyway), but because she still let him fill her up afterward.

"What are you thinking about, Suzy?" She was jolted back to her bedroom by the soft voice of her younger sister: Mary.

"I'm not thinking."

"You're just admiring the ceiling abi?" Mary didn't flinch or show any kind of emotion whilst saying this. Susan always feared that the life they were living was slowly beginning to drive her sister emotionally numb. Everyone was beginning to complain about how soft spoken Mary spoke with only a blink of her eyes.

"Mary, you seriously need to stop...speaking, like this—you're scaring people—it's so creepy." Susan frowned at her sister.

"Even you?" Mary asked with a soft sigh.

Susan frowned, "Even me what?"

"You're trying to tell me how to behave to. Everyone just think they can wake up one day and tell me how to behave—last night, Aunty told me that the man she sent me to told her that he didn't have fun," she made an air quote with her left hand while she slept on the other, "I'm just 14, how am I supposed to be normal when I'm sleeping with men old enough to..."

"I'm going to school." Susan stood up and sucked in a very deep breath. The last thing she needed was a reminder of the life they lived in order to earn their schooling and survival in Nigeria.

"You asked the question, Susan—I only answered, and how long do you want to go ahead pretending to yourself like our lives aren't miserable—let's just go back to father and mother in Sierra Leone," she heard her sister sniff and she gritted her teeth.

"You think I...I...you think I like how we're living? You think I don't lose my mind every single day?...you think I'm not looking for how we can run out of this stupid country?" Without looking back she found her sister's hands and held on to it tightly as she unsuccessfully fought back the tears that still ended up dropping. "I'm trying, Mary...I'm trying my best, just don't be..."

"Emotionless?" Mary asked holding on to her sister's hands more tightly. It almost felt like years since she had held her sister.

"Yes...please," Susan finally found the nerves to look into her sister's eyes and her heart broke into a million pieces when she found Mary's eyes blood red yet dry as a desert. She knew the girl was trying hard to cry but that it just wasn't coming.

"I'll...," Mary croaked and looked away, "I'll try," she finally sniffed and every fiber in Susan wanted to pull her sister into a hug but she knew time, distance and growth had created a level of awkwardness around that display of true emotions. She just rubbed her sister's shoulders instead and promised her that it was all going to be alright.

"Try to have fun," Mary responded, still looking away.

"Which fun?"

"At the excursion—you are smart, Susan—show that side of you to people—stop pretending to be a Barbie because you're too scared to let people see the real you—they'll never respect you if you don't show them the real you," Mary sighed and slowly recovered her fingers from her tight grip of her sister to wipe the tears off her face.

Susan was still staring at her sister was looked like she now found the floor as appealing as Susan had found the ceiling, when she heard her phone notification tone fill up the room. It was a message from her good friend: Temi.

HEY SUZY!
WAKE UP ALREADY! THE BUS SHOULD BE WITH YOU SHORTLY!

She smiled at the text as she composed her response before stepping into the bathroom with tears falling down her eyes.

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