You Are My Gift, And I Am Your Curse

High school is never considered a fun place to be – especially not by the students. Not even nerds like high school, and they’re nerds. If nerds hate high school, then what does that say for the rest of us?

Well. As for me, I hate high school; but I have a good excuse. At least it’s a better one than “There’s too much homework” or “The teachers are so mean”. My excuse is reasonable, and hating school is just one of the horrible things my excuse offers me.

Unfortunately it’s first day of school for my junior year. Not only do I have this entire year to get through, but I also have all of next year and then the rest of my life; and each year I’ll be surrounded by more and more people. It’s. Going. To. Suck.

Don’t get me wrong. I like people. They just don’t like me; or, maybe they do like me, and that’s the problem.

A kid I recognized but didn’t remember passed me on the bus we were riding, flashed me a grin, and walked on. Yes, it’s definitely them liking me too much. I scrunched myself up closer, attempting to use my 3 times too large, black jacket as a shield from the rest of the high schoolers on the bus.
This year was going to be as bad as last year and the year before that combined, I just knew it – all because of this stupid power.

I hate my power, I really do.

I pushed myself even closer to the window and pulled the hood up more – I was trying everything in my power to become invisible.

There were already about 30 of us on the bus, and there were still many more people to come. Most on here I recognized, but there were a few fortunate souls that I didn’t. I hoped I’d never recognize them, and that they’d never recognize me.

The bus jammed through a speed bump, and everyone jumped a few inches up. In the process of moving, my two sizes too big jeans caught on the uncomfortable, plastic cushion. This caused the hem of my jeans to move up only an inch, showing the ghostly pale skin that was my ankle. By the time I noticed it’d happened, the bus had stopped.

I rushed to cover the moonlit skin before those people got on, but I was too late. As my hand reached out to grasp the hem, the bus went ricocheting, pushing some new kid in my general direction. Our hands whispered across one another for the barest of moment – not long enough to feel warmth cascading through the tips of our fingers – but long enough to destroy another person.
I didn’t want to look – knew what I would see – but as the random kid’s eyes met my own disparaged ones, I knew it was too late to look away. I would have to witness what I’d done.

First his eyes jumped in shock, like waking up in the morning to the sun crashing through the window. Then his jaw dropped and his mouth opened just slightly showing a black hole of nothingness – the nothing I’d created within him. Finally his eyes softened and bore powerless against my curse.

The day had barely started and already one was gone.

“Hi,” the guy said breathlessly, as he looked upon me like he would to a goddess. His hand swept through his hair in an attempt to act suave, but I merely cringed. Nothing of him registered or ever would register with me again. From now on, he was just a number; one of a long list of men, and women, who had fallen to this gift, this curse.

The bus kept on rolling to its next destination, yet the guy stayed, holding up the line of people waiting to move. Still, his eyes – the color became irrelevant the moment our skin touched – bore into my own.

I looked away from him, ashamed of what I’d created. He stayed fixated even as I raised my hood and became a black lump in the seat, almost indiscernible from the black plastic beneath me.

I still don’t know where my ability came from, or how I ended up with it. I know my mother doesn’t have it, or my dad, or my sister; yes it’s here, impossible to ignore.

As far as I know, I’ve had it al my life. When I was little I thought it was a neat little trick. All I had to do was lay a finger on someone and they’d love me forever. I could walk into a restaurant, touch the hand of the manager, and I’d get a free slice of cake for being irresistible.

Then school started and it was even better. I made friends with everybody. With me, the boys didn’t care that I had “cooties”; I was sweet and adorable, and they invited me to every party. Every. Time.

Then middle school started and the “cooties” went away. Feelings of more than just friendship came about, and I was left to deal with a hundred suitors asking me to every dance, party, and important game. Although, I think even then I enjoyed the attention. I knew that I wasn’t beautiful enough to get the attention without the gift, but I wanted it. Who doesn’t? Popularity is something all children want for themselves.

Well. Popularity I got, but I realized soon I was missing one key factor: friendship. The saying “boys and girls can’t be just friends” fit me perfectly. I couldn’t be “just friends” with anyone – girls, boys, even adults as I got older. Anyone who touched my skin fell madly, hopelessly, and completely in love with me. Friendship just wasn’t an option.

By my freshman year, I sat alone at Lunch. I had no friends, I sat next to no one in class, and every class project we did I asked to do on my own; and still people came to me, and still people come to me. My gift is my curse, and all perish before it.

“Hey! What gives?” a voice I knew only too well called from behind my newest stalker. Okay, so maybe not everyone gives in to the curse.

I looked up from my jacket and met eyes briefly with Alison Monroe – Aly to her friends, a select group of people I was most definitely not a part of. “Oh, it’s you,” she sneered as she saw me. “Of course it’s you.” She pushed the boy into me and squeezed her size two body past him to get to her seat in the far back. The people behind her followed her, while giving small glances in my direction. Those who knew me, smiled as I caught their eyes, and glared at the guy now half on top of me. Those who I didn’t recognize just walked on by, curious, but not ready to ask questions just yet.

The guy on top of me caught himself with an unperturbed motion after only a second’s hesitation. The smile he sent me was supposed to mean, “I meant to do that”. Gladly, he took the empty seat next to me, inching closer than mere strangers out to sit. Not that we were really strangers anymore.

His smile was intoxicating, and I knew right then that if he hadn’t touched me I would have considered him cute – definitely friend-worthy. As he had touched me, he became an immediate bore. Something I didn’t particularly want to deal with.

Then he began talking. He told me something I didn’t care about at the time, and something I knew I wouldn’t care about later. For the most part, I ignored him.

Tilting my head back a fraction of an inch, I could make out Alison Monroe sitting in the back with her boyfriend, Carter Mochrie, along with their large posse of friends. I smiled a little in pitied jealousy of them – especially of Alison Monroe.

Alison Monroe was a special case. She moved to small town, Prescott, Arizona at 14, right when we started high school. She fit in perfectly the moment she walked through the door; she had money, clothes, and was easily the prettiest girl in school. She was the type to win Prom Queen and she knew it. There was only one thing standing in her way: me.

At first, she didn’t know of my existence – why would she? I was a loner in every sense of the word. Yet when three guys turned her down to the Sadie Hawkins dance, telling her, “I’m waiting to be asked by Carrie Springs,” she learned of me very quickly. From then on she’s hated me like a bad hair day, and avoided me at all costs. Not that I blame her.

Compared to Alison Monroe, I’m nothing. Where her brown curls jump at the chance to be admitted, my platinum blonde hair withers at a simple look. Her chocolate brown eyes make her a goddess in every right, while my dull green orbs do nothing for my complexion. Worse yet, her olive skin could make a grown man shudder in desire, and my ghost of color destroys a person’s will – and not in the good way.

I have nothing on Alison Monroe – and yes, her name is always said together, first and last. Next to Alison Monroe I look like a small fries from McDonalds – that’s greasy and unimportant. She knows it, I know it, and she is left to wonder why the rest of the school doesn’t – especially why her boyfriend doesn’t.

“My name’s Tommy,” the boy explained as he interrupted my thought process. I turned my head back to him and away from the true Goddess of Prescott High School. “What’s yours?”

The bus doors finally opened, for the last time this morning, to the Prescott High School, or PHS, grounds. Everyone began a slow crawl to the bus doors and the first day of school. The boy – and I’d never know him with a name. Not after the spell was placed on him – didn’t move. From past experience I knew he wouldn’t move until I answered him. “Winter,” I lied. “My name is Winter.”

“That’s a cool name,” he told me as he finally lifted himself from his perch next to me. “I hope I see you around some time, Winter.”

I hoped we’d never see each other. Then again, that was my hope with everyone who fell in the trap. I hoped and hoped that I’d never see anyone. Ever. Again.

Unfortunately, the hoping rarely worked.