Loose Appearances, Stuck Personalities

Chapter 1: Moving Isn't What I Would Call it

If you had asked me what I thought I was going to do in my high school year I would have replied with Playing violent video games, studying and acing all of my tests with no intention of getting anywhere in life other than up. I would have had no social life with normal people and just kept to my tiny corner called my desk all day long and eaten lunch in a deserted area of the school. To me, life would have been simple and easy compared to what other people had to deal with. I could just skate by with my smarts and skill without relying on anyone else or talking to anyone else.

However, that all changed when my so called Sisters had seen me, on more than one occasion, doing something they labeled as strange.

It started off as small talks in the den. Them along with my mother asking me what was wrong and that I could talk to them, and to which I would reply simply, nothing is wrong. Next it was my mother non-discreetly talking to my teachers or my sisters asking my classmates if they could talk about "understand something at their school". Eventually they all sat me down, giving me numbers of psychiatrists in the area, asking me to pick one. Although I did so with malice and begrudging, I had no intention of letting anyone in or my guard down. That's just how normal people get you. They get you to let you guard down through sweet talk and kind words only to crush you later with what you have told them.

The psychiatrist's name was Dr. Penelope. I always wondered why she prefered her first name over her last one, but she never told me why. To be honest, I had almost liked it there. But within the first week of going, I had already scared off the lady I was seeing with my so called "strange ability". So much so, that my Mom had gotten a call from Penelope's Daughter, explaining the trauma that I had put her through and that had her mother told her not to press charges, she would have sued. While my mother apologized to the woman, I could hear the other lady on the line talking to her about something. To this, I had only mentally laughed while my mother hung up the phone and went to her computer. I smiled, thinking that this would be the last of it. Mother's last attempt to shut me up and make me the daughter she wanted me to be.

Later, I will have wished I would have stopped her from pulling up her laptop, opening the browser, and surfing the internet with the tag "schools for gifted children".

Within two days of searching, my "legal guardian" had come across a school named DEPRAC (whatever that stood for). It was apparently a boarding school for gifted and special children. My first thought that went through my mind was that name sounded like flem rising in the back of your throat. The second was, so she wants to sign me up for a special needs boarding school for impaired kids? Not that there's anything wrong with that type of school... however, I was not impaired and had no mental illnesses, so why should I have to go?

Next thing you know, I was packing my bags two weeks later. I didn't have much, as I looked around my room. I Decided on taking only two suitcases to fit the stuff I was taking with me. The first contained: a few pairs of clothes (3 skirts, 4 button ups, a vest, and 3 pairs of nylons), a scarf, and an old beat up pair of knee high boots. The other was chock-full with books, notepads, journals, sketchbooks, and art supplies. I didn't exactly know where I was going at the time, but I wasn't going to leave without my essentials. On my person, I was to take my fish bowl, and an Ipod with my earbuds.

The following day, and with the help of my sisters, I heaved my bags into cab trunk. My oh so loving mother told the driver where to go and paid him in advance. I briefly heard the name Barnes before I tuned out the world with my thoughts. Earlier she had explained that I was to go alone since school rules said so. Immediately finding the place sketchy, I had argued for a solid week, but to no avail. Other rules were explained to me, but I didn't bother to listen. Climbing into the back seat, I could hear the whispers of my sisters, muttering gay comments and snide remarks behind the now closed shut cab door. My only remaining parental figure looking almost relieved.