Everyone Else

Image of Set Stories Free - 2018
Image of Short Story
My eyes were glued to the screen, fix on the new fashion trends today. I was always looking at the newer stuff because that’s what everyone else was wearing, even if it wasn’t my taste. Like the hot pink, plaid skirt with a matching jacket. I hated it yet I added it to my own closet with a click of a button. It was what everyone else was wearing and that is what I was, everyone else. I go to school again with fitting in, fitting in meaning I wasn’t noticed. That’s just how it was. When each day ends, I also act a different way in front of my parents, the person they want me to be, not me. When I go into my room, I started the process of meditating my emotions out. Seriously, it's a process in which I take my emotions out through a ritual, and in flying orbs, my emotions fly into jars and I bottle them up. Like the people around me, everyone else does it. I didn’t want to bottle them, but then I guess I didn’t have the courage to be myself. Like getting a black cat and naming it Midnight, but that’s just what everyone else did. It’s not like I didn’t want to be myself, I just couldn’t. In today’s society you have to fit in or be shamed. That’s just the world we live in.

Later that night, I heard a crash from somewhere in my room, my eyes opening almost immently. I looked around and saw my closest door was open, and Midnight had knocked over my emotion jars. I yelled at her, shaming her, but she just walked away like the diva she is. I felt a hot ache in my belly, seeping into my head. I stumbled back at this strange feeling. Was this....was this anger? I had never felt it before. Suddenly, something hot started streaming down my face at the thought of people finding out about it. I wiped my face finding only water. Are these tears? I had never cried before either. I looked around, feeling something light and my mouth curve at a specific picture. This was happiness I think it was called. I looked at other things, clothes that made me crinkle my face and made me sneer, I think this was called disgust. I then felt the hotness in my head as I looked at the open tab of fashion on tablet. I hated this, hated the world we lived in. I thought came to my mind at the moment. An original thought, and I smiled at it.

People gasped as I walked down the hallway, actually noticing me. Why? I was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt with a band logo. My usual black hair was down in beach curls and I had put dark purple highlights in them. Not sweater and shirts up in a ponytail, for that was the new hit and what everyone else was wearing, but something that was....and I can’t believe I’m saying this, me. Throughout the day, people whispered behind my back, but I didn’t care. I was actually happy for once, and I could feel my smile on my face, could feel myself almost glow. As I got home, my parents didn’t even recognize me. They said I was different then usual. That my attitude went from a casual smile into bouncing with....and they said this....joy! And that was true, for I was finally me and not someone else. As I looked at the jars of emotions that still survived from my cat, who I changed the name to Summer because it was unusual and I was on a role, I opened up each lid, smiling as all the orbs circled around then were absorbed into my soul. I smiled at myself in the mirror, for I had the courage to actually be myself, and the courage to show people the real me. For once, I wasn’t pretending to be someone I wasn’t, like everyone else. I was me, and I was feeling proud of that.
1