Not Unique

Reason

My chest went up and down and I could feel the rumble under my feet as I ran down the slope. I could feel the cold sweet sweep of fresh air that brushed my hot body, caused by my internal temperature and the sun. This was the best feeling in the world too. 

The dried autumn leaves rasped as I slowed down my pace to descend down the slope and waited for my partner. I see her coming down, head hung low and legs wobbling as she descended. Oh poor her! She was doing it all wrong. I'll have to explain to her after this. 

"We can walk now, the others have gone far by now but it's fine," I tell her as she whizzes past me. She was ignoring me, I knew that. Probably angry at me for supporting the coach. But we were already heading back to school and were just a few hundred meters from reaching.

She slows down and stops to catch a break. I smile.

"You know, I can say you're improving more than any others, I couldn't even run a one-point two-kilometer on my first try, did you do some running before?" I say as we head back and take a sharp cut to the right. I know she didn't do any running before this, she was simply horrible you tell from a glance but it's small talk.

"Yeah, I did some baseball for my dad for practice" She uses the head of her clothes to wipe off some sweat.

"Ahh...baseball, I...never really understood it, why don't you join the baseball team?" We cross a pride flag crosswalk. Our school was the second worse, not the worse but still. There was no baseball team

"That's my Richard's hobby, I just love to help out" Her voice strained but I wanted to know more. 

"But I see you go to the boy's baseball team practice every Wednesday and you always talk about baseball" I state. I always see her around the sports complex when I go for my running. she looks at me with a surprised look, I tilt my head in return. Is something on my face? Oh, was she looking at the boys and not the baseball?

"I'm surprised you noticed" she says softly. Her voice is sweet. 

"That you really love baseball? It's obvious, your eyes glow when you talk about it" I sigh as I see my team up ahead. I guess she was looking at the baseball then.

"No, not that. That you even know me or my interest, you're like those popular pretty girls in clique shows, only that you're actually good at everything, you have a happy family, I'm just here because my parents want me to lose some weight or something" She spills out, I shoot her a questioning look. "I think baseball isn't all that great, I don't even like sports really, but my parents..." She says with this depressing sigh as she looks down at her feet. "But I can't do anything, this is what they want so I-" I cut her off at this. Excuse-moi

"No, do what you want, find what you like, and don't let your parents rule your life" I begin to frown.

"But they are my parents-" I shake my head

"They are not you, stand up to them" What a good hypocrite I am.

"But they know everything in the world, I'm just 17, they have 3 times more experience so-"

"So you'd let them tell you what to do with your life? Life is about being...you...just yourself, not what others expect of you, and if they don't like the real you then maybe you gotta rethink your friend choices"

We walk in silence, and I like the silence now. We meet the group and no one says anything about us being late so we just walk back to school.

We see an old lady, halfway on the sidewalk, all hunched over a bright orange scarf and not moving. Worry spreads through me about a car coming so I look around to check for any. This is America, and we don't really have patient drivers. I walk up to go help her but I see Kale with his slides go help her. Oh, he was slowing down today because he wore the wrong type of shoes to run. He's so silly.