To the moon and back •a zodiac story•

A little Libra goes a long way (Ch. 33)

"But I can see us lost in the memory, August slipped away in a moment of time"
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!Mild bullying and body shaming mentioning in the chapter! Please be aware if you are bothered by either of these topics <3

LIBRAS POV:
The chilled early morning air hit my body as I opened the heavy doors, the entrance to our home. It was too early for any sensible person to be awake but I felt there was no other option. The pure existence of the house was enough to overstimulate any reasonable person let alone living in it with 15 other living bodies would drive any normal person mad. Normal was a word that least described me for better and for worse. Was it something to be proud of? Not being normal? Being unique in a sense? To this day I didn't have an answer. My present self was conflicted with what would be considered the correct answer, nevertheless, I continue to wish that somewhere, in sometime, my future self could decide. I knew that I now, present me, could change the answer for my future self, but there was nothing I could do for the unfortunate decision of my past self. Little libra is what I like to think of myself back then, I wished I could show her what she had become, what had gone through, how she felt would be worth it in the end.

At the ripe age of 8 years old I was introduced to the unfortunate and painstaking pressure of being a girl, a popular one too. The girls at school were undeniably jealous of me, you could see it in their eyes. That was something I could handle, something I could live with. But when boys entered the equation, things become difficult.

"She's pretty and all but she's flat as a board" was the first thing said when I walked into a new class room every year.

Every.. year... the same scenario would repeat. Every year was a new class, with a new teacher, new students, but same opinion. This continuously became more and more difficult to cope with as year after year my hopes for a change slowly faded.

My change in mood, behaviour and even grades became increasingly concerning from my parents perspective, but they never knew the real reason for it, because I never told them.

So you can imagine that when my parents announced that we were moving one seemingly normal night I knew I had to do something to change, I couldn't let the rest of my life be this way and this was my only chance to have a fresh start the right way.

On one fine morning exactly one week before the move, I decided I had the perfect solution, dye my hair. I begged and begged my mom for what felt like hours until she agreed.

I distinctly remember being so excited to go to the hair salon the next day that I could barely contain myself. My legs swung back and forth excitedly in the back leather chair at the hair salon, being excited was an understatement.

I wanted to be normal.

So I dyed it what I thought would blend me in with everyone else the most.

Brown.

Dark brunette hair now replaced my signature crème blonde. I was so happy that I threw myself onto my mom in a hug.

I never considered anyone saying anything mean to me being possible now, but they always seem to come up with something...

As I left the salon, my hand held tightly by my mom's, a girl and tall woman walked past. I recognized the girl as a student in my class, popular for reasons I didn't understand. She bullied others, didn't pay attention in class, and sometimes cheated off of others on tests. It just never made sense to me.

Our eyes locked and for a moment it felt like time itself slowed down. She looked me up and down judgmentally before turning her head away to laugh.

Then... everything was back to normal. She continued to walk away with who I assumed was her mother, head still turned away as she silently laughed.