Shaken (An Adopted By Lin-Manuel Miranda Story)

o n e

Ariana's Point of View

When you think of the word broken, what comes to mind? A glow stick, spending its last hours shining as bright as it can, but fading away? Maybe you think of something like a personal belonging. A broken phone. Useless, replaceable, unwanted. When I say the word broken, though, it means so much more.

I'm not broken bone wise. I don't have a shattered elbow, or a messed up back. What I do have, though, is emotional damage. When you live how I did, you're broken mentally. Years of tormenting, years of pains, regrets, and hurting... all leading up to a big pit of nothing.

I didn't care anymore. Everywhere I turned had a flash of memory, had brung up thoughts that made me go deeper and deeper into a pit of despair, trying to claw my way back out again. Alas, I just made my hole even deeper.

The one thing that was keeping me breathing, though, was theatre. The works of art that could only be portrayed by the best of the best, to tell a sequence of events.

Musical theatre was my favourite, though. Instead of one song, short and plain, there were many. They all had a purpose, made up a story. Each song had a different scene, a different problem or resolution. Each song helped contribute to the story... no song would be less important that the other.

That's what I wanted my life to be. Like a musical theatre production, where at least someone gets a happy ending. But since I was basically the only one in the story other than my bullies and the orphanage, I was pretty screwed.

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October second started off as any other day. The golden leaves commenced their process of falling off the trees elegantly, dancing in the wind as I trudged my way to school like everyone else. It was cold and wet, but delightful to look around at. All the different colours made for a quite delightful show, and so no one complained. I for sure didn't, for fall was the season of cardigans, hot chocolates, and cute boots.

Not on me, of course. I never wore a cute pair of heeled booties or an expensive, carmel cardigan from American Eagle. But everyone else around me had on the cutest clothes of the century. I just wished that one day, I could be wearing the same things as them. But I guess, they call a dream a dream for a reason.

Since it was fall, though, that meant heavy sweaters and comfy clothes. Now, the orphanage supplied plenty of those for us, and they weren't too shabby looking, either.

And so, when I walked casually to school on the day of October second, I wore what i usually did, not expecting what the day that I would continue to have would bring.

♥ '¨'•.¸¸.♫│▌▌▌│▌▌│▌▌▌│▌▌│▌▌▌♫'¨'*•.¸¸♥

When you enter a school, most people's hatred goes toward the classes that you were forced to learn from. But only a slight percentage of the population can say that thy were truly unhappy with school because of the people inside it. Most people were pretty average, but when it came to bullying, I was always the main target. An orphan with little shown emotion? Someone that anyone could rely on for a good laugh. People at Royal Alexandra High were the worst, I tell you. It was like anarchy - every person for themselves. But in my story, unlike most, the people that bullied me the worst were boys. Greedy, dirty, selfish high school boys that would one day grow up to be un-married slaves to the workforce. But that didn't matter then. Then, they were just bullies, trying to make my days worse and worse, pushing me closer to my bursting point.

"If it isn't little miss Ariana no-last-name," one of the most inconsiderate people in the whole world, Chase G, tormented. "Buzz off, Chase. I'm not in the mood today," I sighed as I carefully shut my locker, pulling back a strand of my sandy-blonde hair. "Oh Ariana, sweet, sweet, Ariana. I don''t think you seem to get it. You see, I don''t care if you're in the mood to talk to me, or talk to anyone for that matter. Because, news flash, you don't matter. Not to me, not to anyone. Not to that stupid actor you have a crush on, you geek," he smirked, walking away from my grey, plain locker. I sighed and re-attached my lock to the hook, clicking it shut before carrying my heavy books and binders all the way to the other wing of the school. Being a school in New York, it was huge. But with being huge, it was also completely terrifying. We had to go through metal detectors every day to make sure no one had any weapons, and the odd time, people would get stopped. No one ever knew what the people who got stopped had, though. The police always cleared the area before searching whoever the kid was. When I walked down the hall that day, I was just as terrified as I was the day before. It was scary being somewhere so public in a place so big, with everything going on in the news.

I walked through the door to the next class that I had, drama. Being a kid who enjoyed theatre and absolutely adored music, it was the perfect class for me to take. The activities were fun, and the lessons were interesting. It was the perfect way to stay awake in the middle of the day.

I took off my shoes so the carpet in the small room wouldn't get dirty, and took a seat on one of the three couches spread out across the room. I snagged a blanket and carefully and neatly sprawled it across my legs, giving me warmth on the cold, autumn day. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that I was finally safe in the old classroom that I relied on so much. The people in it were always so positive and encouraging, it made me feel like I mattered. I grabbed a pencil from the couch cushion beside me and my binder from the floor, opening it to an empty page to start a sketch. Class didn't start for another five minutes, so why not spend it doing something I loved most?

I started off with one word.

School.

Then I went into detail. I went into detail and set all my thoughts and opinions on that sheet, eraser shavings lingering around the paper as I wrote down everything I was feeling about it. The dread, the fear, the agonizing pain of the hours that went by each day that I wasted learning things that I'd never need in my life again.

Until the bell rang, and in walked none other than Chase G and his group of idiots.