The Girl Who Learnt to Fly

Flying. Every moment she had, she dreamt of flying. She dreamt that she would, one day, be soaring high in the sky among the clouds and the stars.

She thought of flying as freedom, and that one day she could escape the life she had. Everyday her father would tell her she was worthless and a mistake. He blamed her for her mother’s death, telling her that she should have been the one to die. He told her that if it wasn’t for her, his wife would still be alive. He would often beat her after these taunts, all the while screaming that this was her punishment from God, for killing another human being.

She never showed any emotion whilst he beat  and taunted her. She tried to block the words and the pain with the thought of flying, but sometimes it wasn’t enough.

School wasn’t much different either. She was shy and often avoided answering questions where possible. However the teachers still picked on her, even though she never raised her hand. When she got an answer wrong the teacher would mock her in front of the class and the students would begin to jeer and smirk at her.

Most of the time in the corridors and during lunch, she was just another face amongst the sea of people moving from one place to another and most took no interest in her; but not to them. The ‘popular’ or the ‘alphas’, or whatever they were called, went out of their way just to mock and tease her. They made it their personal agenda to make her life a living hell.

The popular girls would tell her that ‘you shouldn’t have been born, it’s a crime against nature’ and laugh at the fact that her clothing did not keep up to the latest trends or that she couldn’t afford to buy anything particularly nice. The boys were worse. They would come up to her and ask her on a date. Thinking that someone felt that she was worth their while, would say yes and get her hopes up, but no sooner than she said yes, they would roar with laughter and shout out to everyone that she actually thought that he would go out with her and that he would never go out with a girl as ugly as her. She always walked away hurt and embarrassed. Eventually she learnt to ignore the boys and their dates, but she never forgot any comment that was said to her, and it made her heart very heavy.

She only had one friend, more of an acquaintance really, than a friend. He was also bullied by the same people who bullied her. She often wondered about him and if he suffered, like her, at home as well as school.

They always sat in silence when they ate. They never spoke, she wondered if he even knew her name, if anyone knew her name. She was often only referred as ‘that filth’ or whatever name anyone decided to come up with.

One day she decided to break the silence.

“What are your dreams?” she asked him quietly.

“Ah...Pardon..?” he replied, startled that anyone wanted to talk to him.

“What are your dreams?” she repeated in the same quiet manner as before.

“I’m not sure, I haven’t thought about it” he replied, not fully understanding what she meant.

“My dream is to fly.”

“Like in an aeroplane?”

But she didn’t reply. Instead she smiled at him and got up from the table and walked out of the room, leaving the boy alone and confused, with many thoughts running through his head.

The girl left the boy, not answering his question, she was sure he would find out sooner or later.

She headed towards the fire escape stairwell and climbed to the roof, not caring if anyone saw her. When she got to the top she stared out into the distance and reflected on the words that had got her thus far. “Relationships give us a reason to live”. She had interpreted this quote to mean that without relationships, life isn’t worth living. She thought it was a silly quote at first, as everyone had relationships, both positive and negative with someone or something, but what had really drawn her to it was the fact that positive relationships give us a reason to live. Not negative, positive.

 Slowly she took her foot off the top step of the stairwell and walked confidently across to the edge.

“Wait!” She turned around, startled and faced the boy she sat in silence with everyday

“I never got to tell you my dream.”

She looked at him intently, urging him to speak

“I…I want to fly too.”

She stared at him for three long seconds before she walked to him and took his hand

“Come fly with me,” she whispered in a distant sort of voice.

The boy just smiled an understanding in his eyes, and together they walked to the edge of the building and looked down. There they saw the teachers who mocked them, the bullies who tormented them and the people who just passed them by.

The teachers looked up and demanded that they step away from the edge, the students took at their phones, taking pictures and capturing them on film, but they just smiled.

The girl and the boy, hand in hand, closed their eyes, stretched out their arms and jumped.

They soared through the clouds, while those around them screamed in horror.

They surrounded their bloody bodies, but the girl didn’t care. She had finally learnt to fly.