3037

Chapter 1~ A New Year

As I come back from winter break, I label my papers with the year 3037, not 3036. It takes me awhile to get used to. Last year, it took me till April to stop writing 3035. But the break was fun. I went to Arabella Rose Towers. It was past down from Ivanka Trump when her dad gave it to her in his will. His assassination was abominable. When Pence took office, the history books don't really go in depth of his term. Anytime I ask someone about it, they either don't know or would rather not speak of him. The party was quite extravagant though. Everyone was in beautiful bright lament dresses and ties. It was surprisingly cold for New York around this time. Usually when my friends and I travel up there, it's somewhat in between 25 and 27 ℃. I heard from Constance's mom that when her great grandmother was younger, it'd be below 21 ℃. That's absurd in my opinion. It's almost like you would need hand covers of some sort. There used to be a thing called "snow" that Penelope's grandmother would rave about. I've always loved hearing about it. "It would sometimes crunch under your feet when it was soft. And when you would have school, sometimes it would get cancelled because of it. But there was all types of snow. Icy snow would make everyone fall or cars slip. Slushy snow was everyone's least favorite. Especially when you'd fall in it. The ice would sometimes scratch you." I've always wanted to feel the ice scratch my legs.

The next week at school was strange. It had been the first time I had ever seen someone with such porcelain skin. It was like the ivory of tusks. Her hair was straighter than a pin naturally. Her eyes weren't brown like everyone else's. They, they were, like passed out grass. Almost mint. Just like everyone else, I'd never seen hair the color of sand. It was like caramel. When we asked her her nationality, she said she was Polish. Constance, Penelope, and I never heard of a pure Polish person. Her name was spelled "E-w-a" on her papers, but said like "E-v-a". She asked Penelope why everyone would stare at her in the halls. We had to explain to her that she was different. "In a bad way?", she asked. "No, not really. It's just everyone is mixed her. Like, here, Emma, she's Irish and Jamaican and west African and a little Canadian." I nodded in agreement and added "Since the borders had been closed for some many years, nobody is really 'pure' anything, like you. Nobody's skin is of white like yours. It was the first time for anyone to see such mint eyes. Or light hair." Ewa had said that her country became more diverse after America had closed its borders. There was a mix, but not too much. There was pure people everywhere. She had said that it's weird to see everyone the same. Maybe not exactly, but everyone was a mix of white and black. Of course there was shades, but not as bright or dark as her land. It was interesting hearing about it. When we walked into our human body class, our teacher had taken a second look. I could tell he saw what we saw. I guess he found it convenient to talk genes that day. He expressed how black is dominant. He then brought up a genetic mutation called "albinism". It's when you don't have any melanin in your skin pigment. He was mainly glaring at Ewa. Ewa had raised her hand in class, Mr. Stewert had picked her quickly. She asked "Because I'm pure, and if I were to have a kid with someone here, would that make the child lighter?" Mr. Stewert explained yes, and how and so on.

I can tell the boys liked the question. A lot of them thought how beautiful she was. They'd never seen a girl like her before. Girls were jealous of Ewa because of that. Ewa was kind, spoke another language nobody had ever heard and still had an accent on some words that sounded immaculate on vowels. She was meticulous when it came to math. Ewa would walk through the halls and boys would just look at her unique beauty. Her skin was milky, smooth. I could never get over how perfect it was. 

When my friends and I would sleepover each other's houses, we would talk about how we want her to be hated. We wanted boys to like us, not her. She was just a little too perfect and a little too pretty. We were destine to find something that wasn't good about her. Was she insecure? Could we use her insecurities against her? It was our life purpose to find something wrong with her.