Constructive Criticism

Author’s Note: Yes! I added two extra scenes at the end of this! Hope that’s enough to satisfy you all… and if it’s not, well… I’m sorry but I refuse to do any more stuff on this. My head hurts like hell. I can’t believe I forgot to put the ADD part in!!! That’s the only reason why I named him Daniel Drake! xD - love from SatoKibi.

Chapter Three

The next morning I was sitting alone on the bench relaxing. Soothing music floated through my head, erasing all my worries as I closed my eyes and imagined myself in fantasy-land, where choc-chip cookies grew on trees and that guy didn’t exist.

“What are you listening to?” Daniel asked, attempting to snatch my iPod from me.

I hastily turned it off and shoved back it into my bag. “Nothing much,” I replied.

He took it out again and started scrolling through my playlist. “Chopin? Mozart? Pachelbel? Beethoven? You listen to piano songs!? What the heck is wrong with you, Amelia? What would everyone think of you if they were to see all this?”

“I don’t want to care about what everyone thinks!”

“I think you should, even if just a little bit.”

“Why do you always insult me!?” I yelled in frustration.

“I don’t!” he replied. But I by that time I was already out of his sight. I avoided him the rest of the day, and as soon as I got home, I immediately deleted all the songs off my iPod. If that’s how you want it, Daniel Drake, then so be it. Even if I you never tell me anything about you, I still refuse to give you any more chances to criticise me!

“What are you doing?” Nanna asked, coming in with a tray of her special choc-chip cookies. “I thought you loved those songs! Didn’t you say that you would never get sick of them?”

“I’m sick of them now – whenever I hear them, they make me feel so annoyed.”

“How can classical pieces make you feel annoyed?”

“It’s all Daniel’s fault!”

“Who is Daniel?”

“Never mind.”

“Look Amelia, you shouldn’t change yourself just because you and this Daniel person have differences. Just do whatever makes you feel comfortable.”

That’s what I would’ve liked, but I didn’t want him criticising me so much! I want him to approve of who I am. I don’t want him to hate me. I’d hate it if anyone hated me. But the criticising just went on, and on, and on. He never stopped even once to consider how I felt. But the more he criticised me, the more I felt myself wanting to change. In a way, his criticism was my motivation, making me want to slowly but surely become a better person.

“If someone sees you with your hair like that – they will laugh at you.” I fixed it up.

“If you walk like that you’ll draw too much negative attention to yourself. I stopped.

“Don’t bring that kind of food to school! It’s not appreciated here.” I hid it away in my bag.

“Your bag is so weird. Can’t you get a normal one?” I hid my bag altogether.

And then I thought, was I really becoming a better person, or had I just become his Barbie doll who he could freely change whenever he was unsatisfied? And here was one thing I didn’t understand - why were we so different? We were both really smart, with only a one-point difference exam-wise, yet he seemed to be against everything I did, and he even had a problem with my belongings. It was really weird. But I found why, after a few weeks, when Daniel pushed me entirely off my mountain. A.k.a., I finally cracked. After such a long time of a mixture patience and ignorance, I was finally sick of his complaining.

“Ameeeliaaa,” he nagged. “Pull your skirt down a little – I can see it through your shirt and it seems like you’re wearing so high that it wraps around your ribs!”

“Shut up!”

“But I’m saying this because I’m perfecting your character!”

“Perfecting my ass!”

“Well your ass does need perfecting to, I mean, it is slightly too big…”

“You pervert! Do you ever stop!?”

“Well, the truth is…”

“I don’t want to hear it! I hate you trailing around behind me and pestering me all the time! Why don’t you find someone else to pester!?”

“Fine! I won’t pester you any more! Do what you like, but you’re the one who’ll suffer the consequences!”

After that I made a mental note not to talk to him ever again. He never talked to me again either. Life was good. I felt comfortable with myself again. I walked inelegantly around the school with my messed-up hair, strange lunch, unfashionable bag, high skirt, and best of all, a cheerful at-ease expression on my face. But as I reached our normal seating spot, to tell my friends about my freedom, none of them were there – it turned out that they had moved, and were sitting with another group all the way on the other side of the school. They didn’t want me with them anymore… And I couldn’t talk to Daniel because I was supposed to be avoiding him.

Maybe my life was actually a nightmare in freedom’s clothing. Whatever it was, I was rolling down my mountain at an incredible speed and I could feel the pain of the rocky slope as it steadily bruised my heart. I went to PE feeling depressed. As I came out of the girls’ change-room, Daniel was coming out of the boys’ too. He was in an argument with the other guys about deodorant.

“Ew! Daniel doesn’t use deo!” one guy cries disgustedly.

“Why do you care so much? I don’t even have body odour! Don’t I have the right to smell like a human instead of some stupid concoction of chemicals!? Get off my back won’t you!”

“I don’t use deodorant either,” popped out of my mouth. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I just admitted that in front of everyone. Also, I can’t believe we actually have something in common.

Plus, I made it worse. “Ew!” everyone cried together. “The two nerds don’t use deodorant!”

It turned out that for that lesson we were playing touch footy. The “loud-and-rowdy” people, were overjoyed. But I hate that sport. It’s absolutely horrible. Daniel didn’t seem too pleased either.

“Alright, get into pairs and practise your passing,” the teacher ordered. And I ended up partnering with Daniel because nobody else wanted to go near us in case they caught our “disease”.

“This sucks! Why do we have to play this right after yesterday’s rainstorm?” Daniel grimaced as he held the ball with his fingertips because it was so muddy.

“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding my head. Woah. I just agreed with him. Is the end of the world coming or something?

“And,” he continued, “Why is this thing called a ball anyway?”

“It’s not even round!” we said in unison.

“And look at this.” Daniel pointed to the air hole in the centre. “It’s like a little belly button.” Then he ran his finger down the row of woven leather strings that held the thing together. “And this…”

“…is like a Caesarean scar!” we said in unison again. Very scary. And then we laughed at ourselves while everyone around us glared. What was their problem..? He looked me in the eyes, for the first time in a long time, and I felt like I could read his thoughts just by looking at him.

Want to get out of this place for a while? his eyes asked.

Okay, I replied with mine.

“Our ball is flat,” Daniel informed the teacher. “May we please go get another one?”

“Go ahead,” he said, then quickly turned back to the “loud-and-rowdy” kids, who were so much more intriguing then us, the pair of insignificant nerds.

As we got to the storeroom he shut the door behind us and we sat down on some boxes.

“How’s life?” he asked, resting his chin in his hand.

“Everyone hates me now. But I’m not sure why.”

“You’re not? What planet have you been on for the past few years?”

“This one, I hope. And can’t you be slightly nicer when you’re talking to me?”

“I have been nicer. You just never noticed.”

“You have not!”

“If you really were on this planet, you would know that I have been nicer, and that people have always hated you- I mean us.”

“What!? Why?”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“What do you mean?”

“Amelia, you are smart. Can’t you even figure this out? We get the highest marks in our grades. It’s good, but don’t you ever realise that others get envious? Don’t you ever notice the jealous looks people give us when they hear about our marks, or their pretending to be happy for us? And what about your so-called friends who stopped being friends with you as soon as you refused to help them do their homework? Or were you too busy gloating, in the artificial light?”

“Oh.” Why wasn’t I devastated? I always thought that I would probably turn suicidal if I found out that anyone hated me that much, but for some reason, I could feel a strange smile slowly forming on my face. “So that’s why you kept telling me to change myself. Thanks for that.”

Daniel was surprised by my smile too. “I thought you didn’t like being disliked?”

I looked over at him, diving into his soft honest eyes, and I felt a rush of relief. “You don’t dislike me though, right?”

“Nope, you’re cool.”

I was really glad.

After that, Daniel and I became study-buddies (hey that rhymes!). He was such an intelligent guy, full of witty remarks, and always had a bright spark of amusement dancing in his eyes. He would flash his cheeky smile, and start going on about how he was so fascinated by chemistry and physics, and how maths seemed to make so much sense… And when the results for the next test came around, it took us both by surprise.

“You both got a hundred percent in the test!? Good job, you two!”

“And this test was actually said to be really, really hard! You must be like, so smart!”

“How do you do so well!? Teach me! Teach me!”

This time we knew exactly how to react. “Go away, stupid suck-ups,” we replied together.

Nobody ever bugged us again.

“I’m so proud of you,” Daniel said at recess, ruffling my hair again. We were sharing ear-buds of my iPod, and listening to Pachelbel’s Canon over and over again. We loved it, and nobody cared.

“I’m proud of myself too,” I said, trying to keep his hands off.

“You never change, do you?”

“I have! For example, I got full marks for the first time ever, and because of you I have become a total reject and I no longer have any friends…”

“Hey, what about me?” he asked anxiously.

“I meant female friends.”

“Oh.”

“But you know, I’m still glad I met you. Even though for a while you made me feel like I had ADD…”

“ADD? As in, like, Affection for Daniel Drake?”

“You wish!” I felt myself smiling more than I ever had before. "By the way, why were you so upset yesterday?"

"I wasn't upset!"

"Yes you were! It's so obvious that you were offended when I said you were dangerous!"

"No, but that was..."

"I'm sorry. Okay?" I gave him my cute-but-babyish puppy-smile.

His cheeks reddened slightly. “Th-that's fine. W-well, I actually…kind of…”

He's stammering. How cute! As my smile reached its limit, I leaned towards him and planted a gentle kiss on his lips. He was very shocked.

“It’s rude to stare,” I teased, wagging my finger at his frozen face.

He unfroze himself and grinned defiantly. “You kiss funny,” he teased back.

I slapped him lightly on the arm. “You ruin the moment well, though.”

“No I don’t,” he whispered. “Look I’ll show you.” He put an arm around me. “This is how you kiss...”

As I was falling in pain, Daniel caught my hand and pulled me back up. Nowadays, we will stand on top of the mountain once again. But this time we are not alone, because we have each other. And if we ever happen to fall off again, we will be there for one another, to remind each other that we must always, always… keep on climbing upwards.