Cherished [Beloved Friend remix] by Michelle Almirón

A long time ago, I had waist long hair; shiny and brown. After washing it, I would sit in the sun-room as my mother brushed it with gentle, even strokes and slowly, the long healthy strands would dry naturally. As I walked around, the thick tresses acted in concert and moved around like a ballerina’s voile skirt.

Every morning, after putting on my school uniform in slow motion in front of the heater, I would sit at the kitchen table, tilt my head to the side, and slowly plait my hair with my stumpy fingers, then neatly affix clips to my head to take care of any flyaway strands. When I slouched on the chair, eating my breakfast, I could see the button-holes in the chest of my school dress strain open, like feral cat eyes changing into something ethereal.

As I got to school, I would sit at my desk at the back and hide behind gothic comics as other girls ran around the room, telling each other about who was hot, who they got on with and who was a slut. Sometimes, I took the time to quickly do homework, but that was only if I hadn’t finished it during class the day before.

Every day, I sat in the far-off seats that circled the perimeter of the school, concealed from everybody, hoping somebody would veer off the territory of their social clique and start chatting to me. But they never did.

I decided to take matters into my own hands when a new girl came to school. I offered to show her around. We hung out for a couple of weeks, where I shared my comics with her and showed her my goth drawings. She said they were good.

I said - Meet me next to the Drama Room - as I went off to another class. I sat on the cool grass under the tree, waiting. I started to nibble on my nails, biting the soft flesh, causing it to bleed a little. I would soothe it, lapping it with my tongue and savouring the tangy aftertaste of my own blood. After awhile, I got up and went to the toilets, the hidden way I had devised so nobody could see me but I could see everyone. I heard my new friend talking to a group of girls in my year level. She said - she’s so weird. Her drawings give me the creeps, you should see them. I swear, she’s a freak! - they laughed.

That afternoon, I went home and stole twenty dollars from Mum’s wallet. I went to Priceline and brought some hair colouring. In my bedroom, I got my craft scissors and started to cut chunks of my hair off. Then, I followed the instructions and dyed it. As I looked myself in the mirror, I promised myself not to wait for anyone to discover whatever it was that I wanted to share with the world. Instead, I would be my own beloved friend.

The Beloved Friend remix by Michelle Almirón is licensed under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licence. It is a derivative work of Emily Maguire’s CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia licensed story. The original is available at http://www.remixmylit.com/storiesremixes/emilymaguire/. For details on how you can reuse the original and this remix see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/au/