Envy

I

Julia Wang is seventeen years old. She was born in 2001 to a father who is Japanese and a mother who is Irish. She is the middle child in her family. No matter how hard she tried in school she could never outshine her stellar, remarkable older sister. And no matter how many mess ups or failures she has received it could never equate to her troublesome little brother ́s problems. There was always someone doing better and there was always someone doing way worse. So Julia was never quite sure what to do. She wasn't so sure of herself. She never quite fit in at home but she stood out like a sore thumb, in school.

She knew she wasn't white (well not fully) and she was too white to fit in with the people who were non-white. She always felt like financially she didn't have enough until she saw kids who were her classmates with no money for lunch food. If she complained, she was just being selfish but if she kept silent, the other kids would pity her. Sometimes she just wanted to be 100 percent of something. Even if that something wasn't a good thing. At least she would be considered something and could fit in which is something she has never done. If she just had the blonde hair, blue eyes, and an eyelid lift she would be just fine. Or if she just looked exactly like her father she could hang out with the other asian kids at lunch.

She felt robbed. She was halfway there. She already had paler skin and a slim figure. Sometimes she pinched herself when no one is around just to confirm that she still had feeling. Being ignored for so long just makes you feel so numb. So you ́ll do anything to feel anything. Any pain, no matter how intolerable it was is better than feeling nothing. Once she knew she could feel it, then she could have something to talk about with her parents. Maybe if they see her pain, they would finally pay attention. They would have an excuse. Not like they need one.

She wanted what most kids want. The feeling of being loved. But she didn't even feel like she existed to her parents. Her needs, her complaints, were always put on the backburner. It's like when you call customer service and they leave you on hold for hours because they are attending to someone else, instead of hours, her parents have her on hold for her whole lifetime. It's like she is serving a life sentence for being born. For being in the middle. She was living life so backwards it became the new forward for her.

"Julia, are you ok?" Asked Sadie, her best friend with concerned hazel eyes peeking into the window of her soul.

Sadie is an adventurous girl. You could spot her anywhere with a smile on her face and her dyed light-brown bouncy curls, dancing through the air. Even in the darkest of times, she always has a clever joke right on the tip of her tongue. She is very eccentric and thinks outside of the box. Her mom really thought she was so ludicrous that when she turned 13 she got her brained scanned to make sure there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Her mother is African (straight from Nigeria) and her father is Polish. Even though she was born in Lagos she still wasn't black enough to fit in because she lacked having a blaccent (black accent, as if that is even a thing!).

Every time she smiled her freckles smiled with her. Despite her mother's religion, she identifies herself as bisexual and as a naturalist. Today, she was wearing a knot-tied, rainbow tie-dyed shirt with blue levi, denim jeans.

"No Sadie, I'm fine, " Julia spoke flatly without maintaining eye contact with Sadie.

Julia didn't want her innermost, vulnerable thoughts to be exposed to Sadie. She got so used to people ignoring her, she started the habit of ignoring herself. Yes, Sadie was her best friend but how could she even comprehend what it was like? Her struggles had to be a lot more complex and complicated than Julia's.

Sadie unapologetically shoved her hummus avocado, turkey sandwich into her mouth, all at once. Two popular girls sitting across from them rolled their eyes to the back of their skull while the guys shook their heads in disgust. Sadie was very aware but acted as if she wasn't. Julia sometimes wished that she could be that careless. It's not like anyone really cares about her.

"You, you don't mind?" Julia questioned with her eyebrows raised.

Sadie wiped the remainder of the crumbles of bread off of her top lip with the bottom of her shirt and shook her head.

"You've known me all these years and you still don't realize that I could give less of a care to what these snobby white folk think of me."

Julia wasn't sure whether to be offended or not because half of herself was white. Julia admired Sadie's bouncy, defined type 3 curls while her type one bone, straight hair looked boring. It looked basic like something that was out of the ordinary. Sadie stuck out for all the right reasons. The guys that she always ignored would become lovestruck with just one look at her. She was exotic, racially ambiguous and so many people knew she was mixed but it always was a topic of discussion of what she is mixed with. Julia always felt second.