I, Carolyne A. Williamson, am officially invisible. And now I don't mean literally, I'm not crazy. I mean socially. It's not like I'm a hermit crab who holes herself up in the house all day either; yet somehow I still remain on the outside. For all the people who acknowledge me in the hallways, you would think that one of them would remember me once I walked out the front doors of the school. So here I am, once again, the weekend having just started and of course me being the social butterfly that I am, have no plans.
My older half-brother Tye wasn't home yet, my parents had date night after work and being in the empty house was just reminding me that I had nothing to do. I changed into shorts and a tank-top, to go for a quick jog. I checked for the hide-away key on the porch, turned on some music and started off down the street.
I ran for a while just focusing on the music, but soon my mind began to wander. I started to wonder what everyone was doing for the evening, that maybe I should take some initiative and call one of them and maybe have a girl’s night. I was reaching for my phone when one of the girls on my field hockey team drove by, her car covered in streamers and exclamations of congratulations. It was my co-captain Maya. She honked and waved. As she passed me I remembered that she was throwing a party tonight. We had won the game against our rival team yesterday, and her parents said that she could throw a chaperoned party. I waved back and smiled, I slowed down a little bit and pretended to be catching my breath. I was secretly hoping that she would roll down the window and invite me. I know that the whole school was pretty much invited, but as silly as it sounds, I wanted to be told by Maya, seeing as I was her co-captain, not just going because everyone else was be going.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. My raven black ponytail whipped me in the face. I smiled as I twisted it up into a bun. No matter how often I was tempted to cut my hair I knew that I never would. It was the one thing that connected me to my birth-mother. She was my father's high school sweetheart; they eloped the last day of senior year. My grandparents had a fit when they got back home, but they loved my mom, and they came around to accept it. She died giving birth to me. My father could hardly handle it. As I got older he would tell me how much I looked like her. Once I started to ask questions as a toddler, my Father explained as best he could to a three and a half year old. While I may not have understood the whole story the one thing that i did understand was that I wanted to be just like her. As a way to keep that promise to my three and a half year old self, I let my hair grow, and I refuse to cut it aside from the occasional split end trim.
I was so deep in thought that I ran right past my house. I back-tracked back down the sidewalk, and checked the mail as I let myself into the house. It was nothing to interesting, just bills and coupons and random junk mail. I threw them in the mail basket on the entrance table, and walked toward the kitchen, taking of my shoes and tossing them in the hall closet. I slid on my socks around the island and opened the fridge. I zoned out a little bit, hand on my hip, absent mindedly chewing on my bottom lip.
"There might be something better on a different channel" I jumped and the voice. I clutched at my chest, and whirled around terrified. It was my step brother Tye
"You scared me half to death!" I shouted at him, emphasizing my last word with a gentle smack in the arm with the water bottle that I retrieved from the bottom shelf of the French-door stainless steel refrigerator that was the pride and joy of my stepmom's kitchen. My step mom Theresa is an amazing woman. Her and my father met my first day of kindergarten. They got into a car accident, not a bad one, but they were both so worried about leaving us on our first day that they weren’t paying any attention. It was really kind of cute. When they gave each other their information for the insurance companies, Theresa gave him her number too, in case there were any problems. My father never filed his claim; He asked her out instead.
