Aquarium stone

When Blue was four, her worst nightmare was that her mother would discover the stash of peanut butter and jelly she kept under her bed. The reasoning behind it was oddly comforting, she found peace in knowing that the underside of her bed didn’t harbor monsters, but rather, two of the best foods in the world. she dreaded the day her mother would make her throw it out.

When Blue was ten, she started dreading that her mother would find her diary. It had a little penguin on the cover, and inside, she wrote everything she knew about them. She was master at hiding things under her mattress. She constantly feared the day when she would be out of the house and while cleaning her mother would get her hands on the diary. If she found the diary, she’d know all her carefully gathered information on the world of penguins.

At thirteen, Blue was terrified her mother would find out she stayed up all night. She’d lie awake until five in the morning, waiting for the sun to tap on her window. She didn’t know why she couldn’t sleep like her friends. Something inside her was shifting. She felt like a lump of jelly freshly poured out of a plastic container, unsettled, trembling, not yet in place.

By fourteen, her nightmares no longer came in sleep they hovered near her like a cruel version of a guardian angel. She lived in constant fear that people would discover she wasn’t what she appeared to be. Her changing body betrayed her, her breasts felt foreign, as if some aliens invaded her body and left lumps left behind . Everyday the lumps sucked out all her joy transferring it to the aliens via a secret route unknown to her. Her hips too were widening as if she is looking at herself in a funny mirror.

At fifteen, Blue feared all the mirrors she avoided them like her female cat avoided her mother. She was hiding another secret, the angry red marks under the sleeves of her long shirts. The tool that created those marks hid neatly under her mattress. She couldn’t explain the marks to anyone, she was overwhelmed by the web of lies she had spun. She wanted someone to know, only if a little bit, So she started telling people about her dislike of summers. To her surprise, people agreed. For the first time, Blue felt like she was capable of forming a normal thought, maybe the monster in her was leaving. She was getting rid of her problems. Her boyfriend nodded in agreement about how tiring summers are, looking at his innocent face she felt an unknown sadness lurking inside her. She lied to that sweet boy. He believed she was just hiding her true personality which is charming and soon enough I would lose my social awkwardness, start fitting in with his people.

He didn’t know the pearl he was searching for inside her didn’t exist. He was unlucky.

When Blue turned sixteen, her mother found out. Her eyes overflowed with tears, her hands trembled under the table. Blue finally confessed one of the truths she’d hidden her entire life. Now, someone knew the monster she was. She was the textbook definition of abnormal she hated certain textures a little too much, understood social cues too little, and she was terrified of change. The change was happening in front of her eyes, watching her parents struggle to grasp her reality unsettled her. Watching her boyfriend quietly distance himself unsettled her even more. He realized what he thought was a soft mystery was actually something bigger and more terrifying. He wasn’t a good discoverer, but at least he was a smart hunter.

At seventeen, Blue began seeing a therapist, who didn’t understand her. The therapist told her to dress more appropriately, to try to "resemble herself." But Blue didn’t know how. She only knew what it felt like to be a rock placed just inches from the water under a scorching sun, thirsting for a sip. Her bedroom door was plastered with posters of men with muscular bodies, everyday her eyes lingered on them a little too long. She knew the rock would never move. It would never reach the water.

When Blue was eighteen, she felt herself breaking. Each day, she took the train to college, watching people surrounded by friends. Blue understood evil better than kindness. She believed nothing could change her now. The jelly had settled and spoiled in the heat. It had no form, no taste, no sweetness. It only feared being noticed by someone who might throw it away. She knew it would happen, it was just a matter of when. At eighteen, Blue's greatest fear still remained being truly seen. But now, her structure and her walls were collapsing.

At nineteen, she gave up. She stopped locking her phone. She left her blank diary out in the open. She no longer wanted to write anything she didn’t want to spend any more time with herself.

At twenty, Blue was discovered. All she felt was relief, like a serial killer living hints out for the detectives to be found and rescued, only in this case, she knew there was nothing left to rescue. A few months of constant questioning and many failed attempts at rescuing me from my true identify.

Blue felt relief he finally left home.

The apartment he moved into had no space beneath the bed. There were no gaps between his chest and the binder he wore. The favorite part of his house was the fish aquarium where he stored the rocks his friends found for him on beaches. They all swam in the water all day, above them stood little penguins. He took a day off to build a shelf on which he kept everything he cherished out on display.

In this house, he put up seven mirrors.

To them, Blue was an open book."

He realized it really sucked what the aliens did to him but he could live with it as long as he can have peanut butter and jelly every morning as his breakfast.