Phoenix Risen-Dawn of Change

Chapter 18

Im getting better! This isnt like a three month time span between me writing, like a few of my other chapters. Soo....I hope you enjoy my work on this one.

Onward!

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Getting ready the next morning I find myself in a cheerful mood. The usual grogginess is suprisingly missing from my usual routine, leaving me with extra time to spend on myself. I run a brush through my hair, enjoying the tingles spreading across my scalp as the bristles lead a path through my hair. Then a slight pulling sensation as they escape the snaired ends.

Deciding to step of of my norm, I start to gather a portion of my hair and begin separating the strands to weave in an intricate braid. A light tuft of fringe is all that is left unbraided out of the woven truss and fits discretely behind my ear. Staring at myself in the mirror, I build my courage up as I decide to wear my contacts for once. My mother had gotten them for me months ago in a vain hope to draw me out of the mousy dowd phase I'd been in. I mean, how many people get up out of bed and decide, hey I'm going to change everything about myself just by wearing contacts? Really, no.

I'd never even given the idea a chance, most of my time was spent in a depression over my fathers dissapearance, and worrying. What did we do as a family to push him away? Did he not love us? Were we not enough for him?

I couldn't have cared less what I'd looked like, I had more important things to concentrate on.

Now, I seem to have hit some sort of epiphany, knowledge that I don't have to waste away in the wake of my fathers decision to leave us. I could still be me, no matter how I look.

Drawing in my breath I concentrate on holding steady as my finger nears my eye, my instincts scream at me to close them. After a couple failed tries I finally acheive both objects placement in my eyes.

The image in the mirror wavers, and I blink to clear my watering eyes. I barely look like myself, and instantly have to reasert control, to not balk and take the contacts back out.

Why did I come up with this idea anyway? I start to have a mini panic attack, just thinking about what people will think at school. Will they even recognize me?

This thought both terrifies me and gives me hope at the same time.

Maybe they won't recognize me...?

Could I just blend in, not have to see the sympathetic looks at me as I pass in the hallways?

After my fathers dissapearance my appearance had changed drastically, and the first reaction most people I knew gave was suprise, and eventually, a haunted look of  seeing something that was no longer there took over. The old me was gone...

Picking out clothes today I took effort to choose something that could really enforce the whole, "not me" persona.

I almost had to laugh at the childish hope that nobody could see me. Like it was a huge game of hide and go seek, minus the seek. There's hardly any hope that this could actually work.

But I felt unusually light, after the fact that I didn't have to be the person everyone expected me to be today.

Grabbing my school bag and a light jacket I head out the door before I can change my mind.

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Arriving at school, I get a couple of strange looks but other than that everything runs smooth. I start to pass by Prescilla as she's terrorizing some kid. (as usual)