My Friend Reuben (Completed)

My Friend Reuben (Part One)

Chapter One.

Silence.

Silence is golden.

Silence is where I really feel complete. The only thing that interrupts it is the chatter inside my thoughts. My eyes focus on each word, comprehending sentences and sentences into stories. Stories of real people, stories of the mind and stories of belief.

My room has no picture frames, no photographs or dear friends, nor does it have posters of models or pop stars. Piles and piles of novels, novelettes, hardbacks, paperbacks, fiction and non-fiction line the walls, making me happy.

My room is dim, and my reading light heats my hand to the extent where it scolds me. I pick up Of Mice and Men, set in on the bedside table, and take a sip of my coffee. While in bed, I pick up my mobile phone and text message my closest and only real friend, Reuben.

***

Reuben. Through the tough times he's been there for me and he couldn't give a damn about what other people think, because if he did, I'd be a lonely child.

First day of High school. I was 'weird' and no one wanted to chill with me. I read at lunchtime beside a nice Frangipani tree. I was thirteen, and you know thirteen-year olds, they care a lot about appearance and reputation even if it means lessening their self-esteem. I 'clinged' with many groups. I was acknowledged, but I was never desired enough to not be the last one chosen in team sports, or to be brought to parties.

Everyone went on Myspace in their free time, I read.

Everyone liked Kanye West. I liked The Smiths.

I could not form a friendship by similarities, so I tried to be like them.

I wore fluoro nail polish and Nikes with my super bright skinny tank tops. When I got to school, people were more embarrassed than impressed to see my new sense of dress. They pitied me because I tried to hard. I got home one day, ripping my clothes off and giving them to my sister, taking the ridiculous neon polis off my nails and re-doing them with my favourite chocolate brown.

As the new year came by, I promised myself to accept myself.

Yeah eight came the way it had begun, me as a confident fourteen year old, and the isolative peers around me.

The decision finally arose, and I accepted it with open arms. Another chance at another school? Taken. Co-education. Woo! Pfft, as if boys would help me gain friends.

The transition was difficult, but as are all school changes. I was not laughed at, or talked about in a mean way, just looked at fascinatingly and whispered about.

Ever since I hit the teenage years, I'd acquired my taste in fashion.

I wore oversized cardigans and high-waisted shorts with belts. I wore Doc Martens. People wore singlets that came in three colours, neon green, pink and yellow.

People called me gothic. I knew who I was, I was NOT gothic. I was NOT Emo. The denied my denies because they thought I had self-denial. They thought I was Goth, because I was different and didn't dress similarly to them.

Band shirts, hats, tights in different colours, nail polish, beige cardigans and belts were the only things that I liked to collect, excluding books. I shopped in op-shops and Retrostar. They shunned me.

They shunned me until the day fashion magazines declared it 'in' to be vintage. My first day at my new school came as a shock to me, as people walked in with straw hats, high-waisted denim shorts, and floral printed mini-dresses.

I was no longer unique, and I no longer felt like an outcast. After so long being tagged as individual, it didn't feel right. I liked my cocoon of individuality. But never had I found anyone who knew that the words Yeah, Yeah and Yeahs could form something beautiful. I belonged, and I was happy.