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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Family & Friends
- Subject: Friends / Friendship
- Published: 05/10/2018
“Oh my gosh be quiet people can hear you”
“Stop wearing baggy sweatshirts, and those jeans, I don’t like them”
“Do you think he’ll like it if I wear this shirt?”
“Why are you such a prude? You need to wear shorter shorts.”
“Don’t make a scene people will think you’re weird.”
“Oh you studied? I didn’t but I still got an A”
“Just do or say whatever will make them like you.”
-Ashley
Saturday afternoon Emily walks into the warmly lit coffee shop in the jeans she secretly loves, but doesn’t wear to school anymore. Her backpack cuts into her right shoulder, but she stopped wearing it on both shoulders out of habit, because they told her it makes her look too nerdy. Nervously pulling at her jacket, she orders a latte at the bar, sets down her backpack at a table, and waits by the counter. Worried that she looks awkward and people are watching her, she wanders over to the section of the counter filled with business cards, flyers, pamphlets, and a box full of colored paper. She starts shuffling through a box of colored papers, and in her haste she spills three of them; a pink, a green, and a yellow paper, each one with a different poem. She shoves the green and pink back in the box, and starts reading the yellow one. Her eyes flit across the page, and each line she reads she frowns a little bit more. By the time she finishes the poem, her forehead is furled into a V and her head is tilted to the side. The guy who made her coffee pulls her out of her trance by sliding a hot, foamy latte in front of her. She straightens her head, and dons a smile, hastily shoving the poem in her back pocket so she can accept the warm beverage from the barista in the red plaid button down. She sits down at the table she left her backpack on, and pulls out her papers to study for her upcoming history test. But if her friends ask, she’ll never admit she was studying and will claim to only have gone to sit and sip her coffee.
Two days later, the few short words arranged on the small yellow page keep flying around her head, molting, taking on a different meaning, and pecking at the back of her mind. She feels their influence in the most unexpected situations; pointing out the flaws in a typical comment from her friend or in an offensive comment from the pompous boy in her class. For some reason, talking to one of her closest friends and the person she dislikes the most feels disturbingly similar. Everything the bully Seamus says is fabricated to gain attention: everything her closest friends Ashley and Eliza say is fabricated to appear perfect. Everything Ashley says is supposed to elevate her above everyone else; to make her appear more intelligent, more attractive, more popular, and more golden. Every hair, smile, and swish of eyeliner must be in place. Nothing she says or does should appear abnormal to anyone, and she dresses to appease those looking at her, not to be happy with herself. Just a couple days ago Emily idolized her, but now her illusion of perfection is less convincing.
“I’ll always be better than you by nature, I’m a man”
“You don’t look attractive enough when you put your hair up”
“You would look hotter if you wore better clothes”
“Let me see what you got, I’m sure I did better than you”
-Seamus
By Friday, she feels her mind being thrown into turmoil, attempting to stay aloft like a baby bird thrown from the nest for the first time. The words from the poem float in front of her eyes everytime Seamus offends her, challenging her, daring her to silence him with a cutting word. Emily finds him so irritating she tries to subtly defy him, wearing her hair up in a bun only in the classes she has with him, wearing her least revealing clothes, and studying to score well on tests. Of course, he and Ashley would never admit to studying for a test. Each day she becomes more irritated with the fake phrases they proclaim: perfect shiny golden ideas that have no real meaning or depth, but are meant only to provide them with attention and the illusion that they are superior.
Her friends Ashley and Eliza continue their weeks fixing their hair, their clothes, covering their faces in a thick layer of makeup and pretending they are worshiped in the world they live in. They taught her to live in constant fear that someone’s watching her and judging, they say she has to dress a certain way, agree with people, not stir up trouble, and for awhile she did, afraid of the judgement they threatened would come from others but really originated from them. After a while, Emily stops dressing the way they wanted her to. Each day, she wears less makeup, no longer covering her face in concealer and eyeshadow. When she’s doing her homework, she ties her hair up in a bun, and leans in closer to the paper; she no longer spends just as much time worrying that someone is watching her as she writes.
Later that week, Emily returns to the coffee shop, not worrying about appearing awkward, she asks the guy in the plaid button down his name, and starts to talk to him. They swoop into deep conversation almost immediately, getting to know each other based on their beliefs and ideas instead of a fabricated appearance. Sometimes they agree with each other but often they ruffle each others feathers the wrong way. They discuss how to break down the stereotypes Seamus propagates at her school, and how he needs to genuinely talk to his girlfriend and resolve his issues with her. From then on, whenever she sees him working she feels a red warmth in the back of her throat, a reminder of the conversations and arguments they had. Sometimes it’s comforting, sometimes it stings, but she always craves for it to come back.
One Wednesday, the burning in the back of her throat was undeniable, she had spent all morning listening to Ashley yammering about a party, melting down and combining the opinions of others to form her own facade about where to go, what to wear, who to be with, so that everyone would agree with her. Emily tries to ignore her.
“Hey Emily, are you coming tomorrow night?” Ashley asked, flinging her hair over her shoulder.
Emily tried to ignore her again, imagining a gust of wind carrying her fake words away.
“Emily! You have to come everyone will be there, it’s the place to be” Ashley insisted.
“I’m not going, I don’t care” Emily responded, trying to focus on the lesson in their history class. But she was abruptly distracted, because Seamus walked behind her chair at that moment.
“I was thinking, women shouldn’t be allowed in the military, they’re not as smart or as strong as we are,” Seamus said, standing right behind Emily’s chair.
Emily can feel the burning in the back of her throat like molten rock. Staring at him, she opens her mouth, and after weeks of waiting, pondering, uncertainty, and anger lets her words fly at him. She finally lets her ideas free from the prison of her mouth and mind, lets them peck at his eyes, opening them to more than one opinion, idea, and belief. She can tell that he doesn’t like it, but he stands there silently, for once.
She turns and sees the faces of her friends, Ashley and Eliza, and for once their penciled eyebrows are raised out of place and their mouths are opened wide in shock. For a moment, they’re unable to hide their shock behind the facades they have built for themselves, and Emily hesitates for a moment, hoping they’ll cast aside their golden shells as she has, but they begin to defend Seamus, they argue that Emily was too harsh, that he has some valid points she should consider, but Emily isn’t listening anymore. She puts her left hand in her back pocket out of resignation, but runs into a small sheet of paper. Smoothing it out, she finds the yellow sheet she took from the coffee shop a couple weeks ago. The page is more wrinkled than it was then, with creases on the corners and a small rip on the side, but it’s the same sheet that has been drifting in her mind. As she reads the poem, her eyes flit down the page. The corners of her mouth turn up, and her eyes brighten. For the first time, Emily notices the distinct orange line on the side of her jaw, a clear mark from the mask of makeup she donned that morning, plastered on her face, never to be removed. For the first time, Emily can see through the golden reflective facade Ashley has built, and there’s nothing to idolize on the inside.
Flight of the Tongue(Emma)
“Oh my gosh be quiet people can hear you”
“Stop wearing baggy sweatshirts, and those jeans, I don’t like them”
“Do you think he’ll like it if I wear this shirt?”
“Why are you such a prude? You need to wear shorter shorts.”
“Don’t make a scene people will think you’re weird.”
“Oh you studied? I didn’t but I still got an A”
“Just do or say whatever will make them like you.”
-Ashley
Saturday afternoon Emily walks into the warmly lit coffee shop in the jeans she secretly loves, but doesn’t wear to school anymore. Her backpack cuts into her right shoulder, but she stopped wearing it on both shoulders out of habit, because they told her it makes her look too nerdy. Nervously pulling at her jacket, she orders a latte at the bar, sets down her backpack at a table, and waits by the counter. Worried that she looks awkward and people are watching her, she wanders over to the section of the counter filled with business cards, flyers, pamphlets, and a box full of colored paper. She starts shuffling through a box of colored papers, and in her haste she spills three of them; a pink, a green, and a yellow paper, each one with a different poem. She shoves the green and pink back in the box, and starts reading the yellow one. Her eyes flit across the page, and each line she reads she frowns a little bit more. By the time she finishes the poem, her forehead is furled into a V and her head is tilted to the side. The guy who made her coffee pulls her out of her trance by sliding a hot, foamy latte in front of her. She straightens her head, and dons a smile, hastily shoving the poem in her back pocket so she can accept the warm beverage from the barista in the red plaid button down. She sits down at the table she left her backpack on, and pulls out her papers to study for her upcoming history test. But if her friends ask, she’ll never admit she was studying and will claim to only have gone to sit and sip her coffee.
Two days later, the few short words arranged on the small yellow page keep flying around her head, molting, taking on a different meaning, and pecking at the back of her mind. She feels their influence in the most unexpected situations; pointing out the flaws in a typical comment from her friend or in an offensive comment from the pompous boy in her class. For some reason, talking to one of her closest friends and the person she dislikes the most feels disturbingly similar. Everything the bully Seamus says is fabricated to gain attention: everything her closest friends Ashley and Eliza say is fabricated to appear perfect. Everything Ashley says is supposed to elevate her above everyone else; to make her appear more intelligent, more attractive, more popular, and more golden. Every hair, smile, and swish of eyeliner must be in place. Nothing she says or does should appear abnormal to anyone, and she dresses to appease those looking at her, not to be happy with herself. Just a couple days ago Emily idolized her, but now her illusion of perfection is less convincing.
“I’ll always be better than you by nature, I’m a man”
“You don’t look attractive enough when you put your hair up”
“You would look hotter if you wore better clothes”
“Let me see what you got, I’m sure I did better than you”
-Seamus
By Friday, she feels her mind being thrown into turmoil, attempting to stay aloft like a baby bird thrown from the nest for the first time. The words from the poem float in front of her eyes everytime Seamus offends her, challenging her, daring her to silence him with a cutting word. Emily finds him so irritating she tries to subtly defy him, wearing her hair up in a bun only in the classes she has with him, wearing her least revealing clothes, and studying to score well on tests. Of course, he and Ashley would never admit to studying for a test. Each day she becomes more irritated with the fake phrases they proclaim: perfect shiny golden ideas that have no real meaning or depth, but are meant only to provide them with attention and the illusion that they are superior.
Her friends Ashley and Eliza continue their weeks fixing their hair, their clothes, covering their faces in a thick layer of makeup and pretending they are worshiped in the world they live in. They taught her to live in constant fear that someone’s watching her and judging, they say she has to dress a certain way, agree with people, not stir up trouble, and for awhile she did, afraid of the judgement they threatened would come from others but really originated from them. After a while, Emily stops dressing the way they wanted her to. Each day, she wears less makeup, no longer covering her face in concealer and eyeshadow. When she’s doing her homework, she ties her hair up in a bun, and leans in closer to the paper; she no longer spends just as much time worrying that someone is watching her as she writes.
Later that week, Emily returns to the coffee shop, not worrying about appearing awkward, she asks the guy in the plaid button down his name, and starts to talk to him. They swoop into deep conversation almost immediately, getting to know each other based on their beliefs and ideas instead of a fabricated appearance. Sometimes they agree with each other but often they ruffle each others feathers the wrong way. They discuss how to break down the stereotypes Seamus propagates at her school, and how he needs to genuinely talk to his girlfriend and resolve his issues with her. From then on, whenever she sees him working she feels a red warmth in the back of her throat, a reminder of the conversations and arguments they had. Sometimes it’s comforting, sometimes it stings, but she always craves for it to come back.
One Wednesday, the burning in the back of her throat was undeniable, she had spent all morning listening to Ashley yammering about a party, melting down and combining the opinions of others to form her own facade about where to go, what to wear, who to be with, so that everyone would agree with her. Emily tries to ignore her.
“Hey Emily, are you coming tomorrow night?” Ashley asked, flinging her hair over her shoulder.
Emily tried to ignore her again, imagining a gust of wind carrying her fake words away.
“Emily! You have to come everyone will be there, it’s the place to be” Ashley insisted.
“I’m not going, I don’t care” Emily responded, trying to focus on the lesson in their history class. But she was abruptly distracted, because Seamus walked behind her chair at that moment.
“I was thinking, women shouldn’t be allowed in the military, they’re not as smart or as strong as we are,” Seamus said, standing right behind Emily’s chair.
Emily can feel the burning in the back of her throat like molten rock. Staring at him, she opens her mouth, and after weeks of waiting, pondering, uncertainty, and anger lets her words fly at him. She finally lets her ideas free from the prison of her mouth and mind, lets them peck at his eyes, opening them to more than one opinion, idea, and belief. She can tell that he doesn’t like it, but he stands there silently, for once.
She turns and sees the faces of her friends, Ashley and Eliza, and for once their penciled eyebrows are raised out of place and their mouths are opened wide in shock. For a moment, they’re unable to hide their shock behind the facades they have built for themselves, and Emily hesitates for a moment, hoping they’ll cast aside their golden shells as she has, but they begin to defend Seamus, they argue that Emily was too harsh, that he has some valid points she should consider, but Emily isn’t listening anymore. She puts her left hand in her back pocket out of resignation, but runs into a small sheet of paper. Smoothing it out, she finds the yellow sheet she took from the coffee shop a couple weeks ago. The page is more wrinkled than it was then, with creases on the corners and a small rip on the side, but it’s the same sheet that has been drifting in her mind. As she reads the poem, her eyes flit down the page. The corners of her mouth turn up, and her eyes brighten. For the first time, Emily notices the distinct orange line on the side of her jaw, a clear mark from the mask of makeup she donned that morning, plastered on her face, never to be removed. For the first time, Emily can see through the golden reflective facade Ashley has built, and there’s nothing to idolize on the inside.
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JD
06/05/2018Hi Emma, I think your story does a great job of capturing the sort of shallowness that often plagues our culture. And I really like it that your main character is becoming a more aware person with greater depth of character who understands that there are more important things in life than trying to impress and please others. Well written, thoughtful, and wise. Thank you for sharing your story on Storystar. Congratulations on being selected as one of the Story STARS of the Week! :-)
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Kevin Hughes
05/10/2018That caught so many of Societies messages, it is almost like you put out a net and scooped up all the media seep that crowds us all the time. It isn't feminine rhetoric, it is the viewpoint of a strong human being, and those folks don't count on gender for their good qualities or their bad ones. Well done! Smiles, Kevin
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