Forbidden • Ellie Williams

1

"Rory!" I heard a yell coming from downstairs. I was sitting on my bed, dreading the coming 6 hours of hell I'd have to undergo.

As a Hawaiian girl in America, I've experienced my fair share of racism. My parents moved to America when she got pregnant. They thought I'd have a "better life" here. They couldn't be more wrong.

The 17 years I've lived here, we've had to move from place to place, as every school I went to I was bullied. They either bullied me for my skin, my native name (Aroha), or I'd asked out the wrong girl and the homophobic comments and rumors spread like wildfire.

Luckily, my parents are the few people who accept me for liking girls. I'm beyond grateful to have parents like them.

At my last school, I had a best friend named Amelia, but everyone called her Minnie. I miss her more than I thought a human could miss anything. And it hurts.

Minnie and I had stopped talking before I moved. I had made the foolish mistake of admitting my feelings towards her. I knew she'd be disgusted, but not to that extent. She'd ghosted me completely, and ontop of that, they whole school had found out and she apparently had "no idea how".

That's part of the reason we moved here, Wyoming.

"Rory!" The yell comes again, a little more impatient this time. I sigh.

"Coming!" I yell back.

"You'll be late!"

"Good!"

Eventually, I manage to will my legs to move, moving them off the bed and using them to push me up.

The hardwood floor is freezing cold, something I'm not used to. I move my feet of the icy cold polished wood and onto the rug beside it, feeling the cold sting leave my feet.

I look up and quickly realize why I'm so chilly. The window is wide open, the small flakes of snow floating into the room. I walk over to the window and pull it down, hearing the subtle click as it locks in place.

I'm dreading getting changed for school. I don't want to feel colder than I already am, even if it's just for a second to change clothes.

I take a deep breath and quickly take my shirt off, the cold stinging my skin before I slide another shirt from the dresser over my head.

I do the same with my pants, changing out of my checkered pajama shorts and replacing them with a pair of jeans.

I yawn as I walk to the bathroom, tying my curly dark brown hair up in a quick bun and then grabbing my toothbrush.

I apply the white toothpaste to the bristles and bring it to my mouth, taking an extra long time brushing as I try to avoid getting to school on time. My logic is that the later I am, the less time I have to spend there.

I look at the pictures hanging on the bathroom mirrors, all the pictures that I took. I've always loved taking photos, it's how I see the real world. Through a lens.

My parents bought me a Nikon for my 13th birthday, and N64 with 3-D matrix metering, 35 to 210 zoom.

I'm planning on majoring in photography at college.

"Rory!" The voice calls out again.

I groan and rest my face in my hands, my elbows on the counter. I spit my toothpaste into the sink, wash my toothbrush and put it back in the cup with the others.

I grab some mascara and put a little bit on my eyelashes, trying to make myself look somewhat presentable.

I force my legs to move, walking back into my bedroom to grab my backpack. I trudge down the stairs and into the kitchen where my mom is buttering some toast.