What if the seven dwarfs never really existed and were just branches of Snow White's personality? Happy for the good days, Grumpy for the bad, Sneezy when under the weather and Bashful around that special someone. What if every time you looked into...
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I was finally going to conquer my fears and face the world again.
"Daze... Call me anytime if you're having any trouble during the day, okay?" Dad said, kissing the top of my head.
"Don't worry, I'm going to be fine,"I said, faking a smile to conceal my nervousness. I was truly terrified about how this day was going to turn out. I hadn't told anyone, not even Dad about why I'd wanted to skip school the whole of the past week. I just told him I felt sick and dizzy every time I tried to walk and that I just needed some time to myself. Being the supportive and loving father he was, he actually let me have my way without questioning it.
One time, I heard Dad asking Ava about it. She simply said two words: 'memory loss.' I didn't understand, to this day, the meaning behind those words, but so long as he was off my back, I was okay. I knew that Ava knew the gist of the story and what was happening to me, but I avoided every question she threw at me. I didn't want to involve her in my drama.
I needed to fight my own battles. I didn't want to pull anyone into this mess with me because them knowing wouldn't make anything better. In fact, it'd probably make it a lot worse.
I'd been bullied. I'd been bullied to the extent that I couldn't fathom going back to that building and facing the people inside. I'd been sent notes during class that said horrendous things like 'slut' and 'fake'. Apparently people thought of me as an attention seeker who just wanted to make out with any guy I saw. My locker had been vandalized. It'd been painted with a list of boys' names that I'd apparently hit fourth base with. It traumatized me.
A few days prior to when I'd decided to skip school, a rumour spread that I'd secretly had an affair with Ted, Ava's boyfriend. Everyone knew that Ava was my best friend and that there was something happening between the two of them, so of course they had to ruin my image in the worst way possible. What was even worse was that Ted was the school's golden boy. Everyone knew him because he was captain of the football team and practically every girl in school had a crush on him. Naturally, a rumour like that had to spread like wildfire and there wasn't a single person who hadn't heard about it.
Of course Ava didn't believe any of it, and of course she had a clue as to why I'd wanted to hide away the past week, but I was pretty good at acting as if it left me unfazed. There may be many downsides to cheerleading, but one good thing it taught us was to stay in high spirits no matter what.
I hadn't even had my first kiss yet, and here everyone was labelling me as the school's 'Belle of the Ball'. I guess those were the side effects of being a cheerleader. People wouldn't stop degrading you and objectifying you to the point where you either chose to drop out of the team, or drop out of school altogether. A similar rumour was what caused Ashley to drop out of the cheer team. The notes and gossip started to creep under her skin at one point and she couldn't bear to handle it. That's when she became friends with Thea and Emma, who took her under their wings and out of the limelight.
