short stories

The Girl

They say I have a problem. Ever since I can remember I've always had to take pills without even knowing why. Always going to doctors and therapists. Always being watched and tested on. Being told what I can and can't do. My parents look at me with either blank stares or pity. I can't decide which is better.

I've never thought that something was wrong with me. I can do anything anyone else can. I don't need help. But somehow, I'm still labeled as different, sick, wrong.

I'm told that I'm not normal and that I shouldn't go near others. I'm told that I'm special and that others don't understand me. I'm told that I have "thoughts" that aren't normal. I'm told that it's because of these "thoughts" that I'm not normal.

They think I don't notice. The way they look at me when we are in a new place. The way they look at others if they get "too close." The looks they give each other whenever I open my mouth. The fake smiles that never seem to leave their faces.

I feel like it would hurt. To smile that much. To constantly be pulling up at the corners of your mouth. To pretend like everything is okay even when it's not. To go through life like that.

I noticed this a long time ago and I've tried to help. Tried ripping this somehow cursed flesh from my bones. (Or maybe it's the bones that are cursed) Tried bleeding out whatever it was that was so bad from inside me.

For some reason this only makes them worse. The looks happen more and more often. The doctor visits do too. The crying as well.

In my life I've only cried three times.

One:
When my hamster died when I was six. I was always told it wasn't my fault. 

My parents thought it would be good to have a little "funeral" of sorts. It was mainly my mom crying and my dad with his usual stone cold face. I think she was crying more for me than my hamster that day. 

They wanted to pray. I never really understood that. The whole praying to a divine being thing. They let me pray and I asked if God could help mom and dad. That's when mom started to sob.

She bent down and hugged me. That's another thing I never understood. 

As she was crying I cried with her. I wasn't sad, but it felt like she needed this. For me to show her I could feel. To show her despite what all the doctors say, I do have a little human left in me .

Two:
This one was fake too. I was sitting on my hospital bed, like usual, and nothing was happening. It was so dull and lifeless. Yes, lifeless, that was it. That was the problem. There needed to be life. Life, so easily able to be taken away. But I won't take it, because there needs to be something more than just me.

So I started to cry, loudly. 

My parents were back to having that look in their eyes. But this time there was something more. Maybe hope? Because if I was crying over something, then surely I could feel, right? At least that's what they thought. 

In the end they never did find out why I was crying. I never told them. Never told them that I was crying because I was bored. 

Three:

I don't know if I'll ever forget her. 

This 8 year old girl across the hall from me. She was half my age but I felt like the younger one. She knew her condition even if no one had the heart to tell her directly. She didn't care though. She still lived as if she wasn't going to die soon.

We actually talked quite a bit before she died. Her parents didn't like her hanging out with me though. No one did. 

She did.