The Masks We Wear

It's amazing how one day you can be walking along, pretending to enjoy your life, and then someone makes you realize how much you've been missing. Somehow it's also terrifying, because you're afraid that once the mask comes off your face there will be nothing underneath. I was afraid that I'd been pretending so long that the real me had faded into nothingness.

Educating yourself as a young 160 year old girl, is a very highly thought of thing. I had to master the different techniques of fighting the Nameless and creating a life for myself. I had five classes and then a lunch period and a small religious class available only to Ancients.

I believe it was a Monday when I walked into one of my classes and sat down next to a pretty Ancient girl named Alice. She was tall, beautiful, blonde, and for some reason, determined to make my day better. I was very confused when she started to talk to me...Not that I thought she wouldn't because I had any bad impressions about her, but I was confused because this girl had never spoken to me before when we had had classes together. So she just up and started a conversation with me, and I slowly became aware that this girl was actually really nice. Soon, we were friends. But despite my happiness at having found a friend that was neither stupid nor human, the mark on my leg was spreading. I wore my faded jeans to cover the growing disease. It finally occurred to me that my old friends in conventional school were NOT going to come back to rescue me. I had to make friends here. So I left my wretched little band of half-brained kids, and asked Alice if she would let me stay with her at lunchtime. And she happily agreed.

Alice hung out with a giant group of Ancients. All laughing around the circular table in the lunchroom, their auras were aglow with happiness. I smiled, and an instant relief flooded over me. These people were going to become my friends. I sat down at an open seat, and just then I knew that my previous observation was correct. There was one person I was particularly glad to meet, Hal. Hal was a tall, stout boy with a large jaw and a hilarious sense of light humor. Hal liked the older things. Not the same amount, or to the same degree, but he appreciated them somewhat. And that's what made us click. We were friends, and the rest of our friends considered this a sign of a possible relationship. Hal was nice. Hal was funny. But Hal and I....NO. I just didn't look at him like that. It was brilliant, being with these people in a happy place, but then school would end... And I was left to plunge back into the battlefield. Alone.

One day, I came into lunch and found a new person sitting at the table. This person's name was Edmond. The thing about our lunch table is that if you don't grab a seat quickly, you are not going to grab a seat at all. If you leave, your seat will be taken. So I got up to get lunch, and Edmond, Hal and I were forced to leave the table and sit at another. Edmond was just barely taller than me with dark brown hair and adorably squinted brown eyes. He had broad shoulders, a broad smile, and a dark -- somewhat perverted -- sense of humor. I liked him immediately. I didn't like him in the sense that I would have been interested in him as a romance, but he was so much fun that I could not let him go.

Hal developed a random spasm of meanness where he would just say something terribly rude and then go back to being nice. It began occurring more and more often until I got so tired of it, I discontinued my habitual communication with him entirely. I eventually left the big group entirely, sitting at a table with Edmond and LaMar (a short silky-haired younger friend). At this time, I also became friends with a tall blond boy named Jonah. I went boy-crazy over Jonah. He was so tall, and so athletic and fun and flirty, I assumed he liked me too. I was planning on telling him at the New Years Dance, which I attended with a happy heart. Most dances given for youth are quite large, hundreds of kids swarm into the massive room to forget about the monsters outside that we would have to fight again tomorrow. Edmond and LaMar were there, and I spent most of my time with them. We laughed, played a small game of holographic hockey, and danced. On the sides of the dance floor, Edmond and I sat down together to catch our breath.

"I've never told anyone this, but I've been crazy about Jessica for about a year." He told me. I half-smiled and glanced over at the short blond in the swarm of dancing people.

"You should ask her out." I told him. He looked at me for a minute, smirked, and then stood up. The dance was about to end. I felt a twinge of jealousy as I watched him dance with her, at the time I wasn't certain why because I was blinded by my feelings for Jonah... I could not see past my silly little mask. At the end of the dance, I told Jonah how I felt about him. I was promptly refused, but because of the context, and the way that he said it, I was lead to believe that he had feelings for me too. For the next two hours, I was the happiest girl on earth. Edmond and LaMar came over to my house and we hung out for a bit; enjoying the New Years moment. But then they went home, and my moment was over.

Then I found out that I was wrong. Jonah didn't have feelings for me. A: I felt like the biggest fool on the face of the planet. B: I thought he was a jerk for not making it more clear to me, so I lost all of my feelings for him. And that was that. And I was done faking everything, I was done lying to make people feel better, I was done wearing even half of the mask that I was wearing before.

I threw that mask out... It was never seen again.