Page 20 of Role Model

The dance draws nearer and my friends are speaking to me. Only just. Ana has regained her favour and I’m on the edge. Jaya is more distant than ever, but Sable keeps insistently checking that I’m still happy to wear the lavender dress for the dance.

“If you’re not in a pastel, it will throw all of us off,” she repeats again and again.

“I know,” I assure her, as we leave school after the last bell. “I promise. I won’t mess it up.”

There have been no apologies about the party but I suppose they just didn’t realise how I would react. It’s seemingly behind us. Ana asks about my hair and makeup plans. We all agree to meet in the middle of the dancefloor at quarter past seven on Friday evening.

“It’s awful, being the first ones to arrive,” Jaya says, 157 finally speaking after a long stretch of silence.

“Agreed,” I say, trying to be exactly what they need me to be. “Quarter past seven.”

“In lavender?” Sable asks, one final time as she walks to her mother’s car.

“Yes,” I confirm, as I join Ilya at ours.

Later, while I get dressed at home, I remember what Dr Mars said about a film crew being there.

I’m relieved that at least I’ll be part of a group.

The purple among the blue, pink and yellow.

I’ll be part of something, rather than on my own.

I stare at myself in the mirror. The lavender dress hits the floor.

It has so many layers. The fabric around my neck is so high and it feels like a chain. As do the long sleeves.

But it’s the dress my friends picked for me.

Mum offers to come with me in the car but it’s a quiet drive back to the school. I can tell she doesn’t know what to say.

“You like nice,” she finally manages. “It’s a nice colour.”

I look down at the fussy, heavy dress. “Yeah. I think I would have preferred blue but… someone else picked that.”

She smiles. “You can’t both be blue?”

“No,” I say, softly. “It’s one of their rules.”

And they have so many rules. If I break any more 158 of them, even though it’s almost always accidental, I’ll be thrown out of the group.

“Fizz said,” Mum says my sister’s name as though it’s painful, “that they’re not very nice to you, these girls.”

I stim. I fidget. The question makes me feel like I’m on trial. “It’s normal, though. For friends to do what they do. It’s… our age, I think. Things change a lot. And sometimes people are mean.”

Mum makes a small noise of amusement as Ilya pulls up to the school. “It sounds like politics.”

I almost smile at that. “Yeah.”

“But, Aeriel,” Mum speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Fizz was right. You should stand up for yourself. It’s not okay for people to treat you like that.”

Now I don’t know what to say.

“I chose the spotlight,” Mum says, as we look up at the school. It’s brightly lit up and there are teachers guiding people towards the assembly hall. “You didn’t. I see that now. I should never have let it get this far.”

I stare up at her but look down when she glances at me, because the eye contact feels too intense right now. “I… I just so wanted to be useful to you.”

I get out of the car before she can say anything.

Ilya stays with her as Dr Mars guides me up to the hall.

There are photographers on the steps of the building 159 and they flash and click and yell my name.

I can hear music blasting through the walls, as well as lots of chatter but I’m prepared for it this time.

There is more space to move around in a large hall than there is in Sable’s small conservatory. I’ll be fine.

It’s so busy when I enter the hall, almost everyone has arrived. The large clock on the wall says it’s exactly 7:15pm. But, as I stand on the wide stairs that lead down into the main basin of the hall, I realise something.

Sable, Jaya and Ana are all standing in the middle of the room–exactly where we planned to meet.

But they’re not wearing the pastel colours. The three of them are all dressed in black.

Sleek, expensive black satin dresses with really short hems. Black high heels. Grownup hair and makeup. Not a scrap of colour on them.

I stare at them. I really take them in.

And it’s like I’m seeing them for the very first time.

A few other people are watching me, especially the camera crew who are huddled in one of the corners. I spot Txai by the snack table and he looks at me with so much empathy, it makes me feel ill. Niamh is there with him and she shakes her head softly, as if disgusted with my friends.

My friends. My friends who lied to me. Who 160 tricked me.

I watch as Sable and Ana double over in laughter.

Ana desperately checking with Sable, to make sure she sees how funny Ana finds it.

I wonder whose idea it was. I would bet Sable but I wouldn’t put it past Ana.

She’s so insecure about her place in the group.

Only Jaya stands up straight, with no expression.

The old me would have run away. The old me would have found this too far to fall.

Not now. Not anymore.

I step towards them.

“Nice dress,” Sable says silkily and Ana splutters with laughter.

Jaya says nothing.

It’s now. This is the moment. The baby bird either flies or it falls to the earth. The elephant strikes the ringmaster at last, no longer willing to perform stupid tricks for cruel onlookers.

I’m done.

“It’s not the nicest dress,” I hear myself say. “It could do with some improvements.”

I suddenly rip at the collar, pulling the lavender scrap of fabric free. I let it drop to the floor, like the shedding of a snake’s skin. Sable stops smirking and Ana stops laughing.

161 “It’s not perfect,” I continue, ripping a sleeve away. “It’s not normal. It’s not what everyone else looks like. Certainly not you three, right.”

I realise that I’m letting go. I’m pulling myself up.

I’m standing tall. I’m setting myself free.

I can’t take this anymore. I can’t keep trying to read their minds, wildly hoping that they might accept me if I say the exact right thing.

That is not how love and friendship is supposed to feel, I know that I’ve known this all along.

It’s been the needling feeling inside of me.

The uneasy voice I’ve refused to listen to.

I’m listening to it now.

“You could never wear a dress like this,” I tell them, ripping the other sleeve away with a loud, violent snag. “Because you don’t know how to be brave.”

“Cringe,” Ana whispers to Sable, just loudly enough for me to hear. “So cringe.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I say, ripping a large strip away from the bottom of the skirt. “But I would rather be me, standing in a ripped-up dress, than be you. Standing there, looking like everybody else. Looking like a cardboard boat in a school musical. Or a bird that won’t fly out of the nest.”

People are listening now, even as the music thunders over our heads.

162 “I’m tired of pretending to be something I’m not,” I say. “I’m tired of coming to dances like this with my real face. While everyone else wears a fake one. I’m tired of trying to fit in with people who don’t even like who they are.”

I look at the camera crew and then at Txai and Niamh, who are watching me with wide eyes.

“You’re like the ringmasters,” I tell Sable and Ana.

And Jaya, too, I suppose. “And I’m so tired of the circus.

I don’t want to perform anymore. I don’t want to be laughed at.

I wanted to try and show the world,” I gesture towards the film crew, “I wanted to try and show all of you… everyone watching me, that we’re more than spectacles.

That we’re real. Humans who are different and varied and special and unique and so much more than you make us. ”

I feel a sense of relief washing over me. I don’t have to do this anymore.

“But some people will always want the circus,” I add. “They can’t love a smart, proud thing when it’s free. They can only love it when it’s chained up, doing as they want it to.”

I rip off the last strip of the skirt and dump it on the other scraps of fabric. It makes a nice little lavender pile at their feet.

163 “I don’t want to be your friend anymore,” I tell the three of them calmly. “And you were never a friend to me.”

And I leave. I walk out, leaving scraps of a dress and lots of bewildered faces behind me. As I step out into the cool December air, ignoring the shouts from bemused teachers, I hear footsteps running to catch up with me.

Txai and Niamh. They take up their places. One on either side of me. They hug me. We sit down on the steps, huddled together. The three of us.

And the wasps start to go. One by one. They slowly leave my head. And I realise that it’s okay to be hated by people who don’t really know you. As long as you’re loved by some people who do.

“Aeriel!”

We turn as one, a little amoeba of three people who have become a united force. It’s Jaya. She’s here alone and her eyes are wet.

“Aeriel, I’m sorry,” she tells me, her voice weaker and more fragile than I’ve ever heard it. “I don’t know why they did it, I didn’t stop them but I also didn’t–”

“It doesn’t matter, Jaya,” I say quietly, because it doesn’t. “It’s over.”

She stares at me and there’s a wild sadness in her. 164 “I’m not like this.”

She’s begging me.

“I’m not,” she insists. “I just… this is all like sleepwalking. I hate it. But it will be over one day and then I won’t look back. But I am sorry. I mean it, Aeriel. I really am.”

Maybe none of us are like this. Deep down. But I’m so used to being dehumanised. I’m used to being a punching bag for all of their feelings.

“Your autism is nothing like my son’s!”

“You’re disgusting for telling people it’s okay to be autistic, it’s a terrible disability!”

“You should talk more about how you like being autistic, sometimes it seems like you don’t always like it and that doesn’t make you a very good role model, it’s a superpower remember!”

“Kids like her, they’ll never write a poem. Or go on a date.”

“You should smile more!”

“You should talk about people who are more autistic than you!”

“You should be better at looking into the camera!”

Should, should, should. None of them would last a minute. Not one minute.

I turn away from Jaya; I have nothing to say. Niamh gives me a thumbs up and a thumbs down, asking 165 me in her way if I am all right. I nod and give a gentle thumbs up.

“So,” Txai says, leaning against me so I stay warm. “Tell me all about elephants, Aeriel.”

And I do. They listen. Niamh tells us about the elephants she saw in South Africa. Her tablet has pictures as well. Then a comfortable silence falls.

“We should go back in,” I finally say.

Txai and Niamh look at me in surprise.

“You want to go back in where they are?” Niamh asks via her aid.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “They don’t get to win. They don’t get to take this night away.”

So we go back in. The cameras and the film crew have all gathered together at the entrance to the building. They leap into action at the sight of me and I suddenly see them for what they are, just as I saw through my supposed friends.

“You guys are weird,” Txai tells them, his voice dripping with disdain.

“Yeah,” I agree. I hold up my hands and their chattering quiets down. I know they expect something profound; I have nothing left. It’s all left me like the air leaving a balloon. So I settle for something plain.

“People who follow other people around and take 166 pictures of them without permission are scummy. You guys should find something better to do with your time.”

“Come on, Aeriel!” barks one of the older men. “Behave, be nice, girl.”

I turn to Txai and Niamh. “Shall we be nice?”

“They’ve not been particularly nice,” Niamh replies.

“Correct,” Txai agrees. “I say we give them the one gun salute.”

I’m feeling brave, but I’m not sure if I’m that brave. “I’ll definitely get in trouble.”

Txai shrugs. “I think you’ve put up with enough to earn it.”

We make our way inside and just as we reach the door to safety, I turn.

“One gun salute?” I ask Txai.

He grins. “Legionnaires. Salute!”

The cameras flash as we raise our middle fingers into the air, knowing it will send a stronger message than any speech. When it’s over, the three of us run into the dance hall. We eat sugary things. We laugh. We start a conga line.

We have fun and I come to the most brilliant realisation.

If you’re friends with the right people, every day can feel like a Snow Day.