~Ch. 2~Big Bad Bullies~ “Umm… Titalee?” The substitute teacher butchers my name, earning me some snickers and smirks from the back of the room. “Tita’s good,” I tell her, trying to ignore the fact that the bullies now have a new horrible mispronunciation of my name to mock me with. Once the sub finishes attendance, start ELA, my favorite subject. She puts a writing prompt up on the board and tells us to write a short story. Psh. Easy. The day goes by really slow, and it seems to draw out social studies, which I'm pretty bad at. Then we have science, in which I manage to only knock over and almost break just one microscope (have I mentioned I’m kinda clumsy?) Finally, lunch comes around, and I hunch over my notebook in the cafeteria, writing. “Heeeey, Teetaleeeeeeeee!” says a sing-songy voice. “Shut up,” I mutter, not loud enough for anyone to hear because I don’t have the guts. I know I’m too much of a coward to stand up for myself, so I settle for snapping my notebook shut and not looking up at them. Ignore them, and they just might leave. “Awww, is the wittle pwetty butterfwy sad? Come on, Teets, talk to your friends!” I stay silent. “She /is/ talking to her friends, Ali- in her mind. Because they’re imaginary!” The entire group of girls who look like they’ve stepped right out of Mean Girls start giggling. Even their bullying is ladylike. Stuff like this has been happening ever since- well, forever. But after by parents vanished, it got worse. My whole life, my ‘friends’ dropped me like a fly after finding better, more popular, cooler, talented, confident, all-the-words-that-don’t-describe-me friends. I started to close my heart, and my friends became less of people I trusted and vented to and more of just people I joked around with, pretending everything was fine. And then, they were gone. My awesome nature-loving parents disappeared on a trip for a documentary in South America. Some of our family begged them not to go-the Amazon was by far one of the most dangerous trips they’ve ever been on-but it was their passion, and the money was great. I guess having my parents just vanish, even if they weren’t leaving me on purpose, opened my eyes to the fact that no one would ever stay with me. I was just a phase in people’s lives, a chapter in their story. You know those annoying chapters in books that are, like, two pages long and have barely any significance in the story after they end? Yeah, that’s me. Even to my parents. The betrayal got to me and I just shut myself out from the world. I guess I realized if I didn’t open my heart to anyone, didn’t trust anyone, didn’t /love/ anyone, then no one could hurt me. Even though they meant the ‘her friends are imaginary’ thing as a way to say that no real person would ever want to be my friend, they were right, really. My ‘friends’ are figments of my imagination, because my imagination can’t hurt me. Or so I thought.
Next chapter : https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/988887578
