Nothing ever changes. Day after day we go about our business like normal people. Like we don’t kill monsters in our spare time.
My mother and my teachers scream at me for always showing up late and for never being prepared for class and for failing out of biology, but they can’t feel the heaviness of death upon the frogs we’re dissecting or the bacteria in the test tubes.
It’s murder. Life is full of murder.
I can’t use hand sanitizer anymore. I can’t use the soap in the school bathrooms that kills the bacteria. I have to bring my own soap that just washes them off.
My mother doesn’t understand. She’s normal. She doesn’t understand why I can’t leave my room when she’s cooking or when I leave when she’s gardening. I’m depressed, but she doesn’t know why. My therapist thinks I’m just a problem child because I won’t and I can’t tell him anything. He doesn’t understand.
As soon as Jason and I enter the apartment, I fling myself onto the couch and bury my face into the pillow. It’s not like I can block out the world, but it’s as close as I can get.
Jason stands over me and rests his hand between my shoulder blades. The pressure of his hand releases the tension inside of me and I cry for the second time. I weep. I mourn over the lost souls of the Púca we killed today. I cry over the love I’ve never known from my mother and I weep over the overabundance of love I’ve only known from Jason.
I can’t cry around anyone else and so I don’t. I put on my strong face and go out into the world like a normal girl. But I’m not.
It’s not only the grief or the pain of death, it’s the fact that I’m not normal.
Everyone says that, but most people are wrong. I’m not.
Everyone is so intent on being different that they essentially make themselves one in the same. I’m not trying to be unique, I just am. You wouldn’t like it one bit.
I’m not normal. In fact, I’m not even human.
