The sky was blue that day, or at least in reality it was. The colorblind may have seen it as grey. The depressed may have found it too dark. The cave dwellers may have found it too bright. But in reality; it was just blue. The grass was just green, the clouds were just white, the house was just yellow, and my hair was just black.
“Come down for breakfast!” I heard my mother call.
I grunted and started to stumble down the stairs. My hair fell in front of my eyes with a quiet swish, so I could barely see through its dark carpet.
“Brush the hair out of your eyes. It makes you look like that girl from that horror movie.”
I pulled it back into a neat ponytail, the elastic snapping into place, exposing my pale face and neck. I felt like a vampire.
“Much better,” my mom said, placing a bowl of something in front of me.
I looked at it and then looked at her, she was busy eating away at her own bowl. She saw my look and rolled her eyes.
“It’s just oatmeal. Eat it.”
I took and bite, scraping the spoon with my teeth, and then made some lame excuse about how I was late for the bus, even though I really wasn’t, and ran outside. I let my hair out again once I got to the bus stop. My parents were always threatening to cut my hair, but every time I somehow managed to sneak out of it. My hair was down to about my butt now, and it was thick and straight. Its length helped me hide and make it so no one looked at my face too much. My skin looked like a sheet of white paper and my eyes were a light shade of grey, which I had no idea even existed. I thought eyes were only brown, blue, and green. Clearly not.
When the bus rolled up it let out a puff of exhaust, almost like a sigh. There were about five other kids at the stop with me, and when I stood up and started walking towards the door, they all parted for me to come through. They all seemed afraid that I was going to lash out at them and kill them or something. I mean, did I really look that much like something that would crawl out of your TV screen?
I sat alone on the bus, as always. Nobody wanted to sit next to me, I guess for fear of being eaten, I guess. As a joke, I turned to the boy in the seat next to me and said “boo” and shoved my hands out. He recoiled, gave me a weird look, then proceeded to quietly talk to his friend next to him. I sighed.
School was hustling and bustling, as usual. We were all like sardines, packed together, moving slowly to whatever class we had next. People next to me would walk stiff and stalk, looking as if they wanted me to think they were invisible. I mean, I have grey eyes, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind. Occasionally I would tap them or whip my hair so it brushed them. They would always jump. I mean, it’s not like I’m touching them with a knife or the barrel of a gun. Is there really a need to jump?
I had given up trying to talk to most people awhile ago. I guess that “hi” was now a death threat. I was clearly not up to date with society.
I shuffled into homeroom finally and sat down. I had the usual sensation that my hair was being played with and rolled my eyes. Sarah, who was basically my only friend, giggled.
“Your hair looks better back.” She said and started to braid it. I let her.
“Whatever.”
“You know I have every class with you today so I can make sure that you keep it up.”
“Oh joy,” I responded.
“Oh don’t sound so excited.”
“No excitement was intended.”
She laughed and tied the braid with one of the million hairties she has on her wrist. Another snap.
“There.”
“Now everybody can see my white face.”
“Which is very pretty.”
I scoffed and the teacher gave me a glare. I shrank back, wishing my hair was covering me again.
Sarah started twirling my braid in her fingers.
The teacher started rambling.
And Tommy moved over a seat to sit next to me.
Tommy was the cutest kid in the entire school, or so most of the girls thought. I never really thought he was, like, hot or anything but everybody swooned over him.
He wrote something down and passed it to me. I never thought I would be the type of person who passes notes in class. Those people were the people that thought school was really below them.
You’re hair looks better pulled back.
I scribbled a quick thanks and threw it back to him. He smiled at me and I once again wished I could hide behind the carpet that was my hair.
Sarah was still playing with my braid.
I noticed Rebecca giving me looks. Typical. She was probably jealous that Tommy was sending me notes.
Don’t get your panties in a knot Rebecca, he just wrote me a note.
The moment homeroom was over, Rebecca ran up to me.
“Whadihesay?” She asked, her words slurring together into one huge one. She grabbed my shoulders and shook me, causing some of my books to fall.
“Just that my hair looks better pulled back,” I mumbled as I picked up my books.
Rebecca nodded. I started backing away to head towards my next class when she mumbled quietly, almost so I couldn’t hear her,
“It really does.”
I pretended not to hear and walked away.
Class was the same old. Sarah and I sat by ourselves in a corner, being generally avoided by the rest of humanity. However, the teacher did call on me more, which was good I guess. I mean, I’m not big on attention being called towards myself but it is annoying when I know the answer and she never calls on me. One person, when I walked into Science, made a snarky comment about how Samara had come out of the well. People can be so rude. I mean, I didn’t look that much like the girl from The Ring, did I?
At lunch Rebecca sat next to me and Sarah. One of Rebecca’s friends hit her shoulder and gave her one of those looks that asked, “What the heck are you doing?!” She shrugged and turned away. Her friend gave me the worst death stare and I quickly looked down at my food. I reached for my hair, as if to pull it down but Sarah hit my hand so hard it left a mark. I didn’t reach for my hair again the rest of the day.
School kept droning on, the “popular” people kept avoiding me, but at the same time, new people kept talking to me.
Study hall, the last period of the day, was the classic “let’s faint at the sight of Tommy” time. The girls would try to sit on his lap or make him say he loves them or something. I mean, he’s not an electronic toy, you can’t just press a button and make him say something. The unusual thing was that Tommy was continuously looking at me. Sarah and I were doing our usual pictionary in the back of the classroom on one of the whiteboards and whenever I would turn around, there he was, stealing glances at me.
When the bell rang, I came up to him and asked him if there was a problem. He shook his head and laughed.
“You’re just really pretty, that’s all,” he said, then walked away.
He didn’t say anything else. He just turned around and walked away.
I stood there, staring after him, dumbfounded.
When I got home my mom asked me the same thing she does every single day.
“How was school Rachel?”
“Good.” I said. And for the first time in my entire life, I actually meant it.
