She walked briskly, keeping her head down. It was in sight now and she was almost there. It always seemed an odd jaunt but it’s not as if she had other pressing tasks at hand, the apartment was clean.

Entering the brightly lit room she became more anxious, it was packed. She thought about turning back but that was definitely a cop out and only more boredom awaited her back home. So she entered her name on the computer screen to get a space in line.

She thought about the silly reason she was there, like one of the surrounding teens skipping school she was going to hop online to check for messages on that big ole social networking site. But friends were difficult to make and two boys men were semi courting her via that blue site in the interim between parties so why not?

Maybe she should leave, there wasn’t even an empty waiting table. In fact the only one available was literally packed. She’d have to sit next to someone. What if they tried to talk to her? Horrifying. It would be horrifying. She would say the wrong thing or nothing at all. The other strangers at the table might unify to taunt her. But she sucked it up and sat down because that’s what a “normal” person would probably do.

All of the sudden the woman girl sitting next to her turned to her excitedly.

It was that bag’s fault, that goddamn bag. She loved it but it brought every random semi fan out of the woodwork. She would walk through a flea market and suddenly someone would run over yelling “My aunt/mother/cousin just loves Jessica Rabbit! Where did you find that purse?”. She would admit that it was a gift and not even have a suitable answer for where another could be purchased. She also tended to notice that no one seemed to yell “I love her!”. It was always a friend or relative, as if loving something were so uncool that they needed a cover.

And now it was happening again, except not. “You have a Jessica Rabbit purse! Oh my god, I love her! Did you know…?” and then the girl rattled off so much information that she had no idea what to do. In fact she didn’t know any of what this lady was telling her. She primarily liked the looks of the character and the fun, sexiness that she seemed to give off. She didn’t really know much about her and that was fine but now what to do?

It was only later that she realized that her response was sickening and biased. If it were some other person she probably would have just admitted her lack of knowledge and feigned interest both to seem nice and to learn fun facts.

However she just wanted out of this particular dissertation, mainly because the other people at the table were trying not to stare and failing and she knew that if she talked to this girl like anyone else she would be lumped in with her and then what would they say, what would they say? So she nodded noncommittally and tried to be polite but in the least engaging way.

Eventually the girl lost interest and she was back in her bubble. Her face was red, her invisibility was broken and this whole thing seemed like a stupid idea but she just sat and waited.

It was only later that she processed how sick she felt about othering someone. Why did “they” make you do that? Why couldn’t she engage with her like anyone else without fear? It was what they taught her in school she supposed, not the early years, but when grades really started to matter.

The first few years everyone was together, she had some nice friends, who, for whatever reason, seemed to actually like her. Some of them had problems she supposed but she didn’t really grasp or think it othered them. The boy who never wiped his always running nose but was really fun. The girl who had to wear a helmet because if she fell and hit her head a blood clot might explode inside of it. She wanted to walk around town with the other kids and see everything that was happening though so she just picked a pretty pink helmet and didn’t let it hold her back.

Somehow over the years those people dropped away. Those specific friends moved but in general what happened would later disturb her.

There was talk of a new set up for the special education students. When she saw it she wanted to understand but she mainly learned about othering and unnatural hate.

It was a small trailer between the back of the school and the playground. In warm weather they lined you up for lunches in a long, winding line that stretched outside of the building. That’s when she heard the mean things, said with thick contempt.

“Those kids are retarded.”
“They probably ride a short bus to school.”
“Heard it’s really hot in that metal room but it’s not like it matters, it’s just them.”
“I’m glad they aren’t in class with us, ew, that would be gross.”

That was most likely when she first learned that being imperfect was wrong, being different was wrong, try like hell to fit in, you’ll fucking fail but at least you’ll hate yourself for learning to ignore and look down on people who don’t deserve it.

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