I opened the door to hear, as I have too many times before, my parents talking about my... condition.  I guess shouting might be a better word.  Something about “It’s just a phase, well, she is going through” from my father.  I can’t recall him ever being a daddy to me, even if he is supposed to be a loving father.

I managed getting to my room without being noticed by my parents – phew.  I quietly stepped inside and collapsed on the bed.  Summer reading for tomorrow be damned, I was tired.



School was thankfully within walking distance of my new house.  So much could go wrong if I rode the bus in, or if I had to carpool...  if I knew anyone who would let me in their car.  I would be hard making friends in the first few days – hard enough for a normal person.  Surely I’d pass – simply a shy, quiet girl who had to move to a new school.  Surely, that will be all anyone will see of me.

I can’t tell any of my teachers either.  If they know, they’ll talk, and my parents will have to change houses again.  The principal had to know of course, and he seemed kind enough in that awkward meeting I had to do before they’d let me in the district – you’d think I had burned down my old school or something.

I’m not trying to be special.  I only wish all this had happened differently.

I can’t even play sports for all the trouble I went to getting in to this school.  That went off the table right with PE – they’re giving me the required credits, no questions asked.  Of course, if someone finds out I’m a fake, it all falls apart, but this isn’t helping me be normal.

I thought all this through as I walked through the doors with so many other people, talking, laughing, as if the imposing doors of normality above them were nothing.  They told me differently – freak, they said.  You don’t belong here.

So I walked to my first class in a hurry.  That was the sole advantage of me coming to school early – the Principal showed me to all my classes so I would be less late the first day.  That part was quite helpful, as there was no reason to hang around in the strange halls, pacing around because nobody knows you.  Not that I was eager to get to math (who put that first on my schedule? Thanks a lot, person!) or to introduce myself to my...

Oh God, what if someone has the same name as I did?  I’m still not used to answering my new one, pretty as it is, but if I answer to my old one... I’d give myself away before my first day was up.  Oh God, oh God...