Her Own Wings

Miserable Teenager

Liz was a miserable teenager.  She was at the awkward age where she wasn't a child any longer, and she also wasn't yet an adult.  She wanted more responsibility and more freedom and was pushing gently for it, yet she wasn't mature enough to handle the responsibility and freedom.  She was a very naïve girl.  She thought she was very smart about the world around her, but there was a lot she didn't know about how the world works.

She didn't have any friends; no one she could talk to and confide in.  This wasn't for a lack of trying.  She talked to people in her class almost daily.  The problem was that she was perpetually the new kid in the school, and all the kids had already formed their friendships, and they all had history with each other, and she didn't share that history.  She kept trying to make friends, but it seemed like the more she tried, the more she failed to make friends.  Because of Sir Father's drinking, every year or two the family would either get evicted from their apartment, or the apartment manager would refuse to renew their lease.  So, every year or so, the family moved.  Every year or so, she was the new kid.

She did, eventually, make a couple friends.  The girls weren't the most popular girls in school.  In fact, they weren't all that great of an influence for her.  They drank, and used drugs.  The good thing for Liz, though, was that they accepted her and she had friends for the first time in her life.  She had a place to go and a reason to leave her house and get away from Kim and Sir Father.  The friends didn't care if she drank, smoked or used drugs.  All they cared about was if she would narc on them, and if she would, on occasion, help them get more cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.  She thought it was worth it to risk getting caught to have a couple friends.  It gave her someone to hang out with at lunch at school.  Someone to sit with on the bus, or to ride to school with.  It meant for a few minutes that day, she wasn't alone; ignored.

Her sister Kim and Kim's friends were cruel to her.  When her parents weren't around Kim and her friends would make fun of Liz constantly.  She stayed in her room all the time reading.  It continued to be less painful for her to isolate herself.  She knew if she left her room, her drunken father would begin some asinine lecture about her snot-nosed punk friends.  She knew that Mom wasn't able to stop Sir Father from picking on her, and Mom had long stopped trying once Sir Father got started.  When Mom and Sir Father weren't home, if she left her room for anything, Kim and her friends would tease her about what she wore, how her hair looked, what her glasses looked like or they would start calling her a nerd.  Kim would make fun of her reading books all the time.  Kim had even taken to trying to fistfight with Liz.  She learned that if she just went into her room and stayed there, Kim would not bother her, so she just started staying in her room.  She became invisible at home, as well as at school.

What no one knew was that she had a robust world she had been creating in her mind for years.  She knew that this world was make-believe, but just having it gave her the strength to get through another day.  In this world, she had two happy, stable parents who adored her.  She was an only child and was the most popular girl in her school and had many friends.  She was making straight A's, and was college-bound.  She had already met the man of her dreams, and he was absolutely gorgeous and was head over heels in love with her.  She had already designed what her house would look like.  The unicorns had reappeared, and she was able to ride them, and she still just had to flap her arms like a bird to fly.  It was in this, her imaginary world where she would let all her emotions run free.  It didn't hurt here to feel.  It was safe.  She was secure.  She learned to close her heart, her emotions off in the real world, because she could control them in her imaginary world.  She could feel the bad feelings a little at a time.