Every day is the same. Every single day of my life is the same hell, as if my world is stuck on repeat. Sure, each time this movie plays, there are new details added. Perhaps it isn’t a movie, but a thousand revisions to a novel, with a never-ending editing process. Things are tweaked, but it always the same.

It seems that just when I fix myself so they can’t taunt me about something, they end up finding something new and interesting to talk about. My hair: dyed. My skin: concealed. My voice: perfectly trained and pitched to be high and perky like theirs. But they always find new flaws to poke at, new wounds to open.

Dignity. It seems like a foreign word that I’ve long since forgotten. Pride. That’s gone as well, right along with my hopes of normalcy, of fitting in.

Today, I sit here at a lone table in the cafeteria. Most of the other students have gone outside to sit with friends and bask in the sunshine. I don’t personally care for sunshine, nor do I have the friends to sit with. A small group of others sit at the other end of the room, watching me with dark glares.

I know that they’re not interested in me for anything other than staring or scheming some nasty prank. I watch them from under my messy blonde-from-a-box bangs. They don’t even eat, worried about their image. It’s disgusting how boney some of them are getting. They’d started off the year normal, looking healthy and beautiful. Over the course of two semesters, they’d become monstrous little things.

Of course, I’ve changed too. They try to achieve perfection. I strive to fit in. We are the same. Will my next step in fitting in be to look like that as well? The thought sickens me.

I realize something. They aren’t outside like everyone else. That little group of five used to be the socialites, always going with the rest of the crowd, following along. But now they’re here with me. They too have been exiled. Their goals of perfection have brought them down to this level—to being outcasts.

I wonder for a moment: if we’re all the weak, pitiful exiles, what would we be if we worked together? Surely, there are others here who have been pushed aside to the borderlines of society. I scan the room. A lone pair stands in the shadows of the corner. I know them—the Morris twins. They lost their parents to a fire, and have burns all over their bodies. As I look around me, I find more and more of us.

We are the outcasts. We’re weak alone. We have no power when we are all separated. But if we joined forces, if we were allies, we could win this battle. If we all worked together, we could topple the ‘in crowd’, outnumbering them. Their empire of sorts, their queen bee, would fall.

We could be strong.

We could win this war of hatred.

Slowly, I stand, walking towards the small group that has been staring at me. The twins follow close behind.