Hide

This story is © copyrighted to Adrienne Wolter in 2003 and onwards. It was written on Saturday, September 27th, 2003. It is NOT about me. I was trying to do part of a story in present-tense. Do not take this story.

Hide

I wash my hair. The water comes down and slides over my shoulders like rain, down my legs to reach the floor of the shower. I concentrate on doing these things, so simple and practical in nature, easier than thinking about what I had done.
And easier than admitting to myself that I am running from my fears.

They had always said I was a strong girl. Strong in mind, strong in will, strong in emotion. I could fix a problem with a little bit of thinking, and I could fill an empty page when I wanted to. They had always said that I was a little different, too. I didn’t need people, I didn’t crave to fall in love and have a big family. They didn’t know how to react, so they didn’t. They let me be myself and I let them be them.
I never really understood other people. Why they so curiously wanted to be exactly like someone else, why they always wanted attention and to be ‘liked.’ In my world I walked alone, with shoulders squared and eyes forward. I heard the whispers, the questions, but they never were really right. They thought I loved the attention I got by being me.

I lather the shampoo into my dark hair, open my eyes. I wouldn’t dwell on what I had done now. No. Now I wouldn’t think. Thinking would not help me.

I never spoke, I never smiled. I never frowned, I never screamed. I stood straight and tall and watched them. Keeping notes.
Most of the other girls would excitedly talk about boys. Their world hung on what others thought of them, what whoever they thought was ‘cute’ did. I found it kind of funny how things so meaningless meant so much to them. But I guess that those things weren’t as meaningless to them as they were to me.

Rinse my hair, step out of the shower. I dry myself with a towel and wrap it with a towel. Now I must think.

These things, these obsessions, they are weaknesses. They pull our attention away from trying. Trying to live up to what you want to be. Trying to fill an empty page. Trying to sing a perfect note.
But in the end, does anything really matter? Everything could be just an illusion suspended in time. Maybe we’re just dreaming, and we end this dream by dying. I want to end this dream so I can see what else there is for me. Another world awaits my eyes, but I wonder if impatience will bar me from it.

I comb my hair while sitting beside an open window. The rain is so lovely. I love the sound it makes as it weaves its way through the leaves of trees to the ground.

If this is what I believe, then why did I give in so easily? Cave in to his smile, want to change if I could see it again?
I feel like I’ve betrayed myself, led myself to believe things that are not true. It felt good to smile. It felt good to end my loneliness, to stop hiding from what’s there. It felt good to throw away the scars of the past in return for the present.
Maybe that’s why they called now the present time. Like a gift.
I am going to smile again.