The smile on my face is fake like plastic. I walk in this world like everything is always fine, everything is always okay. But nothing is always okay for anyone.

These people I associate with leave me with scars deeper for medicine to fix. I wander around thinking why would they pick me for such a degrading role; the victim.

It’s not like this is new to me. I’ve been playing the victim role for a while.

Even when I was a little kid I remember people walking all over me like I was some type of human rug. I was a little kid who just wanted someone to play with.

I’m still that little kid.

But this little kid is going to kick over sandcastles bigger than ones she’s ever faced before.


I’m with my “friends” at the café we always hang out at. Everyone’s there, so we’re there.

Everyone’s talking and nobody’s listening.

It’s just like it always is.

I’m sitting in the corner with my ears shut down and my eyes plastered on a blank spot on the wall.

I’m lost in my own imagination. It’s the only place where I’m safe.

That is until she calls me by name.

“Grace?” The ringleader of my group singles me out. Of course, this can lead to no where pleasant. “I wonder, how do you do your hair in the morning?”

“Straight-iron, and things like that.”

“Yeah, are you sure that’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“I would highly doubt it since what I’ve seen about the people of your kind.”

A screeching chord is struck inside my body.

“People of my kind?”

“Yeah, don’t you know? There’s all these weaves and products and all this other crap you people use. Don’t you wish you had hair like me?” She waves her hair around like it’s spun from gold. She gets up from her seat and walks right behind me. “See, I don’t even know if this stuff is real or not.”

She takes one big chuck of hair and tries to yank it out of my head. Her little minions laugh like everything is so funny. Everything in life must be so damn funny.

I’m about to laugh at anything. Something is set off in me that I’d never felt before. I have reached my breaking point. Before I could figure out how to reply, I was already making a statement.

“Listen. I’m not going to deal with your crap anymore. None of it. I’m tired of always being the one you vultures sink your teeth into. I’ve dealt with it already for way too long, and this is me taking a stand against people like you.” I turned to her minions “And every single one of you. So, don’t ever talk to me again. As if you’ll ever miss me. Just think, it’ll be like you never knew me.”

A rush of excitement streams through my veins. I am on top of the world and nobody is going to kick me off of my high horse. Before I left, I gave her one last goodbye present.

“And we all know your hair isn’t real after all.” A stream of synthetic hair slips from her scalp and falls to the floor.

She looks at me if I had set the world of fire.

And I looked at her like I did it and was damn proud of it.

With every step I took out of that café a new found confidence comes over me. It’s something I’ve been searching for all my life. And now that I’ve found it I wasn’t going to let it slip from my grasp.