Clarity

Still July

I have been in this town for a week already, and I still haven't gotten around to unpacking. The boxes are in my room, nowhere near empty, and I barely set foot outside these last seven days. I crawl out of bed at the crack of dawn when everyone is still tucked safely into their beds, go for a run, and return before it's even seven in the morning. 

The people around here have such boring jobs, nine to five, same thing every day. I don't understand what is appealing about the simple family life. I really don't. Who wants to take care of rotten kids who want an iPad and an iPhone at age seven? I was still playing with Barbies, correction, I was mutilating Barbies at age seven.

The only reason I have an iPhone is because my mom gave me her old one. I don't even use it. I'm not like those other girls, who are like me, I don't find solace in strangers on the internet. I don't seek out people like me, because I don't want to be the headcase who is friends with the freaks. I'd rather be the girl who is friends with no one. A loner sounds a lot better than the alternative. A loser. I am a loser though, so I guess it really doesn't matter. I doubt there are people like me in Gem anyway. I don't think anyone in Gem is capable of relating to me at all. I don't want to be understood really, I want to be tolerated. People see the headcase walking down the street, and pretend to like me. 

I don't need fake friends, and fake friends are the only thing I will ever get, so why have friends if they're all going to be fake? 

Noah's room is outside my window, I can see into his room, he can see into mine, and every now and again, I'll see movement, and look. He'll be sitting at his desk, or playing a video game, sometimes he will already be looking at me. I hung curtains only on that window, just to get away from it. I'd go to the room on the other side of the house, but there's a leak in the ceiling, and it's way smaller. It's like a shoe box. 

If I'm going to be one of those people who never leaves their bedroom, I better not be reduced to living in a shoe box. I need enough room to be able to shove all the mess to one side, and not have it be a tripping hazard. 

I came in my room one day, and there were paper airplanes, and tennis balls, and bouncy balls with paper stuck to them. I unfolded one of the paper airplanes, and Noah had written on it. He said if I didn't come out soon, he was going to start calling me Anne Frank. 

I didn't find it very funny. It was actually a little bit offensive, I guess. Anne Frank was a Jew hiding from Nazi's trying to save her own life, as much as I would like to believe the people around me are Nazi's all plotting to lock me away, they're not. Needless to say, it was pretty offensive, not to me of course, but to Anne Frank. 

I kept my window shut after that.   

I feel like the neighbors all set watch on my house, like they take turns watching, waiting for my mom to leave to go do stuff at the high school. As soon as she drives her depressing 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee out of the drive, they all make their way to my house, like cows to pasture. I won't answer the door, so I don't know why they are bothering. New people must not be a thing in Gem. Besides tourists, who never come to stay.  

At least in Portland, I could walk down the street, and not have people whispering. I was another face, I was a person like the next person or the next. But here in Gem, I go out, and people watch me. I'm not a disease, it's not as if they can catch my social anxiety, it's not like being a loner or an outcast or a freak is contagious. 

People see me on my runs. My mom told me people are already finding my name on their lips. I am blaming my mom for them even knowing my name. I will also blame the Carpenter's, they probably like to gossip. They seem like the type. 

'Oh how was your day, Christine?' 

'I found Billy and Timmy smoking marijuana in the bathrooms during free period. How was your day, William?'