The only reason Alice liked Hannah was because she was one of the few people in the school who wasn’t horrible to her. It was hard not to notice Hannah, with her long, bright red hair. Alice often felt that her short, dark blunt bob felt painfully plain by comparison. She often kept her head down, and whenever possible she kept her headphones in her ears. Only occasionally permitting herself to glance up at her, of course she didn’t dare open her mouth and speak to her. Alice occasionally noticed someone looking over at her with a disgusted sneer, a reminder that fat ugly sows like her were a walking insult to living marble statues like Hannah. Alice had no hope getting another boy to look at her, never mind another girl. Her classmates didn’t need another reason to make her feel miserable, and so Alice kept quiet, only admiring from afar and occasionally drawing hearts on her eraser.
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Alice didn’t listen to a word of what was being said in class, the teacher came into the classroom and went about writing on the whiteboard. Alice had to take her headphones out of her ears, though that didn’t stop her from daydreaming. Her head was far away from this place, in another word where people at the very least saw her as human being with feelings, emotions and interests like any other. A world where she was at least reasonably happy, a world where Hannah at least acknowledged her. A world where she was just a young girl like any other, a world which at the very least understood that.
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Alice imagined this world as another version of the school library, quite and peaceful, though nothing was crying out to be read on the many tall shelves. In her mind she was peacefully listening to music, far enough so that the librarian didn’t take any notice. “What are you listening to?”, a calm voice asked, Alice looked up and saw Hannah standing in front of her. Alice didn’t speak, she didn’t really have anything to say in this world. She just offered Hannah a headphone, Hannah sat down next to her and gently took the headphone out of her hands. In Alice’s mind they just sat there for a long moment, Hannah would joke that Alice probably didn’t understand a word of what was being sung in the pop songs she listened to. Alice would simple shrug her shoulders, she liked the music anyways, and she understood the meaning of some of the songs. They sat there for a long moment in her imagination, just peacefully sitting there while the rest of the world faded away. Alice gently rested her head against Hannah, not letting anything else bother her anymore. It didn’t matter that everyone thought that Alice would just be an embarrassment to someone like Hannah. As far as they were concerned, Alice didn’t matter to them at all, so why should she give them any thought at all? Here in her blissful little fantasy world, what they thought of her didn’t matter at all.
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Alice realised that this was what she wanted all along. someone who understood that underneath the things everyone else found unsightly, she was still a person. Alice knew exactly what people would say if they did know that she liked Hannah, they would say that it would be embarrassing and absolutely humiliating for Hannah. Her admiration would be an insult to Hannah, it would be a massive blow to her reputation amongst their classmates. Of course the reality of the situation was that Alice would be the one that would be humiliated, but her classmates thinking that would implied they cared (at least a little) about how she felt. They wouldn’t be able to tell Alice anything she hadn’t already told herself, she knew she was hated and despised for her appearance, as forgetful as she tended to be that was something she didn’t need reminding. As hard as she tried to pretend otherwise, everyone else acted like they knew better than she did about the way she looked.
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Hannah took the headphone out of her ear for a moment and looked over at Alice, “do you want me to show you something?” she asked. Hannah stood up and walked towards the library door, Alice was just about to take her hand when she heard something in the distance stopping her. She tried to move but there was something in the distance which stopped her, trying to pull her from a perfectly good daydream. She wished the sound would stop but it kept persisting, she tried to reach out to take Hannah’s hand but it wouldn’t move. Alice tried desperately to close the imaginary gap between their fingertips, she wanted to just walk through this dreamworld hand in hand with Hannah. She wanted feel like something that seemed so normal to other people was something that she was worthy of. The song playing through her headphones was beginning to fade away in favour of the deeply irritating sound, which kept calling out to her “Alice! Alice! Alice!”.
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Alice was finally pulled from her daydream, she was in her classroom once again and there was a boy in her class asking for the packet of tissues next to her. She took the packet of tissues and threw it at him, there was no moment of peace and no escaping how people saw her. In the next few years she might look back on this, realise that Hannah wasn’t all that great as a person, and laugh about how she could daydream about such a person. Perhaps she would encounter someone better, someone who accept her, someone who truly knew her and understood her. For now, for now she could only look at the mp3 player in her school bag, with the headphones wound loosely around it. For now she just wanted to return to her peaceful fantasy world, where she could be whoever she wanted to be. A world where she could be absolutely untouchable if she wished, where no one could hurt her no matter how hard they tried. A world which seemed worlds away from the one she lived in now, her own little world.
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