No title

Part 1

I have never blossomed under the weight of others eyes. In fact, I hated attention. It had become a reflex to turn away from anyone who looked at me with anything like interest. It was something of a form of self defense. It wasn't an act of cowardice, I refused to believe I was a coward. No, the eyes were something I was used to, they had become familiar to me. Almost like an old friend that I now despised. The staring I could handle, It was the effort to not let it get to you that I hated. Everytime I left my house, everytime I took so much as a single step outside, I had to build a wall. A big wall. One that was impossible for anyone to see over.

I wasn't the only one. My whole family had to suffer this weight. The stares had started years ago, when my mother had died. Not necessarily died. That's where the problem started; the rumours. There was a mystery surrounding her death, one that seemed impossible for people to ignore. She was killed,they say. Executed for treason. Could have been suicide, they murmur, she seemed unstable. But my personal favorite, she was hiding the fact that her daughter was a freak. That her daughter, heaven forbid, was different. In retaliation, the daughter killed her own mother. I could her the whispers now as I walked through the street, moving at a steady pace. Fast enough to escape the whispers, but slow enough that I didn't bring anymore attention to myself than was needed. It was all part of the wall. It had been five years of this weight, enough to break a person.

It didn't help that I didn't look the same as them either. When I walked by Mrs.Covell, the horrid older women who enjoyed sitting on her porch and gossiping, she would whisper just loud enough that I could hear her from the street.

"Its the devils work I tell you,"She would whisper "The guilt must be eating her, there is no other explanation."

It was my skin. The color was leaving it. It had stopped progressing for the last few years, but the scars remained. They scattered my body. Mostly they came in large areas surrounding places like my elbows and knees.One slipped past my collar and up to my jaw. My skin was normally tan, making the pale, milky white spots more conspicuous. They left everything void of color and, as Mrs. Covell had so kindly pointed out, looked as if they were going to eat all the color I had. I could hide them, I know. It would lessen the weight of the stares. But it felt like surrender, and surrendering would be admitting that I was different. Admitting that being different was a bad thing. So instead I wore my hair up to show my neck, often leaving it in a dark, curly mess of a hairdo. The best attempt at a bun I had to offer. I wore shorts most of the time. Nothing longer than the knees. My shoulders were always exposed, showing the marks that had made themselves home there. It wasn't a cry for attention. I understood it seemed that way, and I accepted it. Though it didn't change the fact that I did it to prove something. Prove that I wasn't hiding who I was, I suppose. That I didn't have anything to hide in the first place.

"Here comes the devil" I heard Mrs. Covel hiss as I walked past her house, one of the many identical ones that lined this road "We should petition to have her banned from the streets. Removing the trash would certainly keep the streets looking nicer, don't you agree." I heard snicker of the women surrounding her. I risked a glance in her direction. Her thin, white hair was done into a fancy updo, making her cheekbones look pointier than usual. Her eyes were sunken in like always, making them appear black from where I stood. Her lips were pressed into a thin smile. Hands were folded in her lap, her bony knuckles were white. She was small, though she tried to hide it by wearing big clothing. Today she wore an overly unnecessary and most likely uncomfortable dark blue satin dress. It sagged around her neck, didn't quite fit her petite figure. The sleeves of the dress came down to her wrist in a flow of light material. The dress itself most likely cost more than I had. Pearls sat upon her collar bones. Matching earrings hung from her sagging earlobes. Her pale skin and wrinkles suggested she was on the brink of death. One could only hope.

"Good morning Mrs. Covell," I said, sarcastically perky, stopping to face her now ",You look absolutely stunning today, finally aiming for husband number four I see. Never can have too much money I always say."

It was wrong, I know, attacking an old women like that. But the flash of annoyance in her normally dead eyes was worth every word. The women surrounding Mrs. Covell gasped, acting scandalised. Mrs. Covell herself raised her chin to look at me down her nose, glaring at me viciously. I smiled kindly, curtsied mockingly, and continued walking. The whispers were behind me now. More eager this time and overlapping each other.

"-absolutely disrespectful"

"A mistake if you ask me-"

"You would think she was raised by animals"

Mrs. Covell didn't seem to be listening, though, I could feel the weight of her glare on my back as if it were a physical thing. I had said things to them before. Each time it left me with a sense of nervous excitement. I stood up for myself after all. Defended myself in my own way. But still, I dreaded it l each time I had to say anything at all. Dreaded I would go too far. Hated that maybe one day, as absurd as it sounded, I would hurt anyone the way I had been hurt.

It felt like a weakness.

I continued my walk home. The voices behind me growing quieter. The weight of the stares lessening. The buildings grew older and smaller. Mrs. Covell herself had never been a problem, not really. There were many who acted the same way towards me as she did. And there were just a few that seemed to not mind me at all, that didn't see me as guilty. I had chosen to build a wall that made me look strong. Made it seem as if it were impossible to touch me, absurd to even think of offending me.

The truth was, though, that every once in awhile I would catch a word-a glance even- that would make me want to tear down my wall and show that I wasn't okay. I haven't ever really been okay.

I had been dealing with the weight of the eyes since I was twelve. I had chosen to make my facade. I had chosen to strike swiftly and not look back. I had chosen to not accept anything they said, not to let it touch me. And I knew, as much as I hated to admit it, it wasn't a facade anymore.

This is who I was.

Now, don't think that my life is a complete tragedy. Even I know that I could have to bare much worse. Sure I was questioned everywhere I went, never treated as completely trustworthy. Always looked at as different. Always seen as a freak. But I was loved. I had a family who would do anything for me, and I would do anything for them. They saw me as a person, not a murderer. They trusted me. I wasn't ever truly rejected either, I could walk the streets. I could buy things, sit anywhere, say anything. It was as free as a person had to be. I had everything I needed really.