Oh You're Such A Stupid Girl Belladonna

“Belladonna? Your parents must really hate you for that one” They told me. 

“Call me Bella, it’s preferred” I told them.

Lie.

Lie. 

Lie. 

I hated that nickname, I hated that stupid label people now referred to me as. 

“Bella this”

“Bella that”

I swear they never shut up.

 I had just moved to New York. Yes, a stupid little girl just moved to the grand and glorious New York. 

“Oh she’s so gentle”

“She’s so clueless”

They thought, even though I had no proof or justification that those were their genuine beliefs. I just know, I understand that sickening feeling in your stomach that appears once people start to stare and judge in the hallways. I understand the implied rules of conformity applied at Pinewood High. Pinewood High, an odd resembling name for a school planted straight on the streets of Manhattan. I would say there are not many pines located in the busy streets of my now new city I am forced to call home. 

I moved from California, a quite diverse place in my opinion. Students did not feel the need to blend into the walls of their high school there. Everyone back there was slightly different, their own little details that separated their distinctive features from the city lights that crowded the night filled streets. 

At Pinewood, if we, the students, were to step out of the dance circle, we would be shoved right back into the center. However in California, nobody cared about the circle’s borders. People often stepped over them and walked far from the sharp cut circumference wandering into the low-risk unknown. 

Though I may be biased, and surely I am, I do believe conformity is just an illusion. Teachers and other adults have always told me not to follow anything that isn't real, so why do we pressure ourselves into some kind of limiter?

“Grow out your hair”

“Hey we are wearing blue and white to school today”

‘My god, did you see Jake? Yeah everybody loves him”

They all talk the same. Every day in the cafeteria line, maybe in English class too. 

I have never noticed the process, but once you hear them talk over and over, you start to feel the need to talk about it too. Even if you hate it. You start to want to be just like them, you start to want to have someone to talk to, though for that to happen you must follow their rules. You must follow those stupid, pointless statements they speak of every day.

“Hey you're new here right?” I hear a voice quite familiar, yet I have no idea of whose presence it may be.

“I am”

“I’m Orion, what about you?”

“I’m Bella”

“Are you skipping?”

“Yeah, math sucks”

“I get it, I am too”

He sits down next to me, leaning against the wall of the fourth floor. I have never seen this guy, and even God knows nobody at Pinewood High would ever go out of their way to talk to someone new. Everyone was grouped into little groups that were combined into bigger groups, nobody was accepted unless they were the same puppet they wished for everyone to be. 

“How do you like it here, like in Pinewood”

“I guess it’s alright”

“What’s your favorite class?”

“English”

Orion seemed to be trying to find any possible way to start a conversation with me. I admired his courage, then his clothes. He wasn’t wearing the shoes everyone at Pinewood did, such a little detail sparking such an embrace of questions and thoughts. If you really looked at him you would notice his hair was styled slightly differently from the rest.

“Do they judge you?” I ask subconsciously.

“Yeah they do, but I don’t get it”

“How long have you been attending here?”

“Since freshman year”

“Do you have a lot of friends?”

“Very few”

The oddly specific questions seemed to not bother him the slightest bit. He seemed to enjoy talking to me, well that was my perspective anyway, I had no right to know his true thoughts.

Days passed, yet this quite odd interaction lingered in the atmosphere. Every time I was in the hallways alone, I felt him there. Every time I tried to talk to a group of well blended people, I felt him there. However when I turned around to find him, he was not there. Days turned into a week, we haven’t talked, at all. We stopped talking, and I started fading into the school walls. I started to wear color coated shirts and I washed out all of the dye from my hair, desperately trying to imitate my classmates. I was not sure whether this was a good thing, but I guess it doesn’t matter.

“Hey Belladonna”

“Oh, hello Orion”

A day has come, neither a special day, nor an exciting day, just a rainy day. He sat down next to me on the bench out front of Pinewood High. He looked the exact same as he did a week ago, the same as nine days ago too. I guess he doesn’t like to change very often.

“You have changed quite a bit Belladonna”

“I guess I did”

“Have you ever asked yourself why?”

“I guess not”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know”

“Yes you do”

“You don’t know what I think about”

“But I do”

“Okay then what do I think about, Orion?”

“You think about being like everyone else, I know you don’t want to be, but you still do it”

“That’s creepy”

“Your easy to read”

“Still kinda creepy”

“You shouldn’t force yourself to be like the others, you know”

“I am not forcing myself”

“You washed your hair dye out”

“So?”

“So just think about it, I have to go”

“Where?”

“None of your business”

Just like that he left, leaving me sitting on the bench in deep thought. He didn’t answer my questions as I desired, though he most certainly gave me something to think about. If I do not follow the patterns of the school’s walls, then no one will talk to me. Orion just said something stupid, he doesn’t understand anything. Nothing, not even the slightest little thing about me, he's wrong, he is wrong!

I continued to change, my hair fully back to its original color, my shirt blending in the flock of girls who all wore purple shirts on wednesdays. Foundation appeared on my face, three types of shampoo appeared in my hair every evening. Baggy and oversized pants fell to the bottom of my closet drawers, replaced with skin tight jeans. 

“Your still changing Belladonna”

“Why do you call me that? I told everyone I’m Bella.”

“Do you want me to call you Bella?”

Silence falls over us, I stare at the ground and ground only.

“No”

“What am I to you Belladonna?”

“What am I to you? Well, I am not sure”

“That’s alright”

“Orion, what am I to you?”

“A friend Belladonna, your my friend”

“Yet I still don't understand”

“You don’t have to, just accept it”

“I guess I kinda have to now”

“Tell me, why are you changing?”

“I already answered that”

“You didn’t answer truthfully”

“I don’t have to”

“That’s right”

Our conversations were so pointless, so meaningless. They striked a certain emotion in every interaction that we had. Orion spoke in riddles, I liked that about him. His words so vague, allowing me to interpret any opinion into his statements, allowing me to believe in anything I wanted. A confusing boy was he, normal people do not speak figuratively during persuasive conversations, yet he did. He was not normal. Different in every way, maybe not physically though his words pierced through me, rare for such simple sentences to do so.

I know I can not change him, I doubt that anyone else is able too, if they could, they would by now. Maybe it’s for the better. 

No matter how much time has passed, I am still the stupid little girl who just moved to the grand and glorious New York, and now I have found someone who is a stupid little boy who was born and raised in New York. 

That’s all I needed. 

I guess.