I felt awkward, my breast was FINALLY shaping up – filling an A cup, padded to add that extra curve. No longer did the girls in the change room laugh at me while they compared cup sizes while grabbing at my bra straps.
Self-conscious, the shadow that followed me everywhere I went. No place to hide as my thoughts mocked me. “Skeletal-Sue, so thin she needs an elastic band to keep her socks up.” I hated every waking moment of my life. Thinking back, pulling at my hair, the pain a distraction from the despair and loneliness. Weighing in at 45, the laughingstock of the entire tenth grade.
12 October 1987
Today the smell of toasted cheese had me gagging in the back of Mr. Jackson’s maths class. I watched Ruben as he stared at Mary-Lee, oh how I wish he could look at me the way he looked at the back of her head. I wonder if he remembered that time when he kissed my hand when we were 6? He told me that he wanted to marry me and I said yes. How stupid of me to still hold on to that promise almost ten years later!
My father’s been in prison for almost 15 years while everyone thinks I’m an orphan. Why can’t my life story be that of an ordinary teenage girl?
Tomorrow is my 16th birthday and what’s the point of celebrating the day you were born when it is your very birth that resulted in your father killing your mother? What is the point of all of this – here I am, a day away from being sweet sixteen, stuck in Foster Care – the fifth one at that!
As much as I hate school, it is the only place where I get attention. Even if it is at the hands of the bitches who continues to bully me for being skinnier than them. What did I ever do to anyone to deserve this. I doubt that anyone would miss me!
Surrounded by noise, my diary of ’87 the only remnants I have of a childhood that was never meant for me. Or maybe it was? I’ve been living on the streets since sweet sixteen, the day I became a prisoner of my own making. My body’s been sold a hundred thousand times over. My addiction has allowed me to survive; selling myself kept me alive and protected from the many dangers while living on the streets.
I’ve evaded arrests, and now I have no breast – that too was taken from me when the cancer got hold of my body a few years ago. Now on the eve of my 62nd birthday, living in a shelter for the aged I look forward to my death – our government found mercy on us and signed off on the “My Time Act” which gives me as an aged person the right to sign away my life once I turn 60. It is now 2033 and I signed and submitted my documents this afternoon.
Tomorrow I kick the bucket when I admit myself to the after care.
*fiction
Contact Childline in South Africa on 0800 55555 if you are being bullied or if you are a bully and need help.
Today’s post was a Title Challenge from Jonelle who blogs over at Tyranny of Pink.
Chevone!!! Your intro had me thinking of the late bloomer I was where breasts were concerned only for me to freak out as I continued reading.
Your stories all come alive in my mind as I read it. I was briefly in Mr Jackson’s classroom now too.
I am in awe!!!
Thank you Celeste for sharing your reaction, as a reader, with me. It is very encouraging!
Oh I want to more about her beautiful as usual …
Thank you. I challenge you to add an in-between chapter 😉
Soylent Green echoes?
I’m lost, is this a person?
Chev, you are on fire! A brilliant piece. I was absolutely in it. Write the novel please?
Thank you! Now that you mention it, I’ve been thinking the same thing, that maybe I should ask for a title and then write a novel – but that is a BIG commitment. Right now I have two novels gathering dust that needs editing. One fiction the other more of a biography of sorts.
Yes please write a novel. Damn this story is hectic. I wanted to know if she saw what happened to Ruben…
There is so many ways that this story can shape itself to the end, the beauty and mystery of writing. Thanks for popping-in Melissa.