School Struggles- The Fight to Fit In
A short story describing one girl's battle and eventual success

in the war against her own differences

The girl sat on the edge of her bed, her chest heaving as she gasped for air after the breathless sprint to her home from school. Natalie Scott stared at the plush rug beneath her feet as she tried to catch her breath, wishing for an icy glass of water. She paused, her ears straining for any noises from the sidewalk below and dreaded what she heard- quick, hurried footsteps coming to a halt in front of her house accompanied by mocking, unfriendly voices.
It had happened again. This was the fifth time that Natalie had made it home just in time to escape a beating from the school bullies. Out of all the "nerds" at her school, Darla and her friends always noticed her and her alone, and Natalie's parents didn't appreciate their daughter coming home with black eyes and bloody noses. Despite their best efforts to help Natalie fit in with her classmates, nothing seemed to work. She just wasn't like everyone else, and the punishment for that could be brutal. Natalie winced as she carefully explored the bruises on her face, remembering that she had used up her last chance to come home unharmed before her parents went to speak with the principal. She moaned aloud, burying her face in her pillow as she thought of what Darla might do to her as a consequence of her parents' actions.
Natalie was distracted by a loud, raucous call from the ground below her bedroom window. The insult was nothing new- she had been called worse. Crossing her room, she opened her window and looked out, only to find just what she both expected and dreaded. One of Darla's gang elbowed their ringleader, directing Darla's gaze to Natalie's bedroom window. Darla dressed, for the most part, in black, which didn't go too far toward her appearance. Her skin was pale and her black hair fell shoulder length around her face. Her clothes were decorated lavishly with pins and chains hung from her pockets, swinging in the breeze as she spoke momentarily amongst her cohorts before bending down to pick up something Natalie couldn't quite see. Darla's friends looked no better than she did and acted much the same- they all dressed in dark colors, sat in the back of their classes, and their grades were realizations of their actions. All in all, Darla's group was the closest to a full-fledged gang that could be had in their small suburban neighborhood.
Natalie took a deep breath, tucked her hair behind her ear with one finger to gather her courage, and called down to Darla.
" What d'you want?"
There was no response for a few moments as the children below snickered amongst themselves until Darla, their self-appointed leader, started walking toward Natalie's house. Natalie blinked in surprise- although she had been followed home before, the gang normally grew bored of taunting her in a few minutes and left. This was the longest that they had stayed in front of her house, and certainly none of them had ever dared to approach. Darla stopped walking when she reached the middle of Natalie's driveway. She paused, leaned back, cocked her arm, and threw a rock at Natalie's open window.
Natalie drew in her breath sharply and, though she tried to dodge Darla's missile, the rock clipped her smartly in the side of her head. With a gasp, the girl fell to the ground, where she lay unconscious. Below, Darla's face went even paler as she realized what had happened. She backed up slowly to the sidewalk and, when she turned to speak with her friends, saw that they had all ran away. Looking up the street, Darla saw her best friend Jen turning the corner, her feet slapping the concrete frantically in her mad dash to get away from the scene.
Darla took a deep breath, looked back up at Natalie's empty window, and tried to think of what she should do, but before she could decide, she saw Natalie's best friend, Sarah, come walking up the sidewalk.
Sarah stopped, stared at Darla, and took a step toward her. "What're you doing here?" she questioned the frightened bully as she prodded one finger into Darla's chest. "Didn't I tell you to leave Natalie alone?"
"I wasn't doin' nothin'. yet." Darla squeaked, backing up as she faced the older girl. "But your little friend had better watch out- she won't always have you around."
Though Natalie didn't stand up for herself too well, she had managed to get in with the right crowd. Sarah was an attractive girl, a tall, slender brunette who wasn't afraid of anyone. She liked to dress lightly, wearing mostly skirts and sandals, but even these clothes didn't affect the way she managed to strike fear into the hearts of others. Her green eyes narrowed angrily as she approached Darla, feeling what was almost pity for the girl who had been abandoned by her friends in the most critical of situations.
"I'll give you 'til the count of five to get out of my sight," she barked, looking down at Darla who was considerably shorter than she was. "One. two. five!"
The bully who persisted in terrorizing Natalie had considerably changed in just a few seconds. Showing her true colors, Darla bolted off up the street, spilling papers out of her backpack as she desperately tried to get away. Sarah scowled after her before turning to enter Natalie's driveway. "Strange," she thought to herself, "Natalie is always waiting for me at her window after school."
Sarah walked up to Natalie's front door and pressed the doorbell, listening to its ring echoing throughout the house. Waiting a few moments, Sarah became worried when she failed to hear Natalie stirring. She backed up, again looking through her best friend's window to no avail. Normally, she would have gone home, but since it was unusual for Darla to be hanging around Natalie's house this late in the day, Sarah suspected something was up. She tried the doorknob and wasn't surprised to find it locked, however this wasn't enough to deter her. Sarah crossed the porch to the Scott family's "secret" hiding place and pulled their house key out from beneath a potted plant. Shoving the key into the lock, she quickly flung the door open and walked inside.
"Natalie?"

Epilogue

"Natalie?" the voice came again, sounding a little more insistent this time.
"Mmm," Natalie murmured contentedly, turning over as her husband Chris gently rubbed her shoulders.
"Wake up, honey," he coaxed as he kissed her, "you'll be late for your high school reunion. but I don't care," he soothed, his voice clearly showing his resistance to leave her, "you really don't have to go."
"No, I've got to go," Natalie whispered as she forced herself to sit up and looked at her face in the mirror across from their bed. She shook her shoulder-length amber hair and ran her fingers through it in an attempt to smoothe the rumpled mass. Natalie had matured from a "nerdy" ten-year- old girl sporting inch-thick glasses, pigtails, and a high forehead into a stunning woman. Her skin was tanned to a golden brown, blending perfectly with her amber hair and green eyes. When Natalie was in her early twenties, she met Chris in her college library and experienced love at first sight. They married two years later.
Natalie tore herself away from Chris, who looked after her lovingly before burying his face in the pillow and going back to sleep. She got out of bed and crossed their bedroom floor to enter the bathroom, where, several minutes later, the water began running for a shower

Two and a half hours later, Natalie hopped into the driver's seat of her red Mercedes. Starting the engine, she took a deep breath and pulled out of the driveway. As she drove smoothly down the street, she sighed. Wiping her eyes, Natalie self-consciously patted her black satin dress and adjusted the string of pearls around her neck. "Don't worry," she consoled herself, "breathe deeply."
"Ai," she moaned, "I sound like a psychiatrist."
Just then, as she pulled up to a spotlight, Natalie glanced out the window. On the corner, swaying lazily in the breeze as it dangled from a telephone pole, hung one of the brightly colored posters advertising her reunion. She hadn't yet seen one of these, having heard about the reunion from her newspaper, so, interested, she squinted to read the bold black letters.
"4/15/28.. come by for four hours of musical fun. meet all your old friends." she muttered to herself, running her fingers absentmindedly through her hair as she read. However, before she could finish scanning the poster, she was distracted by a loud honk from behind her. Natalie glanced up just in time to realize that her light was green and quickly drove through the intersection. She turned the corner and pulled into the parking lot of her high school, Meskimen High.
Taking yet another deep breath, Natalie gathered herself together, adjusted her black heels, and stepped out of the car. Shutting the door of her Mercedes carefully so as not to scratch the fresh coat of paint, Natalie turned on the car alarm and set off into the main grounds. Following the trail of brightly colored posters, she soon arrived at her high school gym.
Once Natalie stepped inside the door, she found herself in a new world, one entirely different from that she had experienced during all four years of her high school career. Gazing about herself, Natalie took in all the sights. The gym had been set up with the usual streamers and balloons draping from the ceiling, almost covering the poster proclaiming Meskimen's award-winning basketball team that had hung there for as long as anyone could remember. Couples danced all over the impromptu dance floor, bodies gyrating and beating as one under the bright rainbow lights. Still more couples stood by a long table near the doors, snacking on various ordeaurves, punch, or just casually chatting. Natalie hadn't had very many friends in high school, as even her best friend Sarah left her in their freshman year for the "cool" crowd, but she still managed to recognize most of the faces in the room. A few steps brought Natalie to the punch bowl, where she casually reached over to pour herself a cup of the pink liquid. Taking a sip, Natalie nearly spat her drink out again when she saw Darla approaching. Darla had matured as well during the years- her pale skin had significantly darkened and she had dyed her hair a beautiful dark brown.
"Natalie!" Darla exclaimed, "why, it's so good to see you after all these years! What have you been doing?"
"Darla?" Natalie asked, astounded by the other girl's friendliness. "Darla, you realize we weren't exactly friends."
"What are you talking about? Oh, that. We were just. rude to each other. But that doesn't really matter now as we're both older and more mature. We can certainly look past our differences now, right? So what have you done with yourself?"
Within a few minutes, Natalie found herself surrounded. Two of her old friends, Miguel and Sarah, crowded around her along with several other students she remembered from various classes.
"Well, I graduated with all of you guys," she said, stumbling on her words, "and, and then I went to Park City College. I. erm. I got an English major and a Creative Writing minor and I'm an author. I'm married with two kids. What about you?"
"Oh, I went to StarSims and graduated with honors," Sarah responded, "but that isn't much. Why don't you come have some food?"
As Natalie was escorted over to the table by several others, she realized that she had finally gotten what she'd always wanted- she "fit in".