The Classix

*preface*

But sooner or later it hits. It always does. Hate is the most unwelcome gift on the birthday you never really wanted nor asked for. You don't always remember the first day you really knew somebody hated you. We, as humans, tend to block it out of our minds or let time take it away for us. But every year, that fatal day passes you by, as casual as the notions that slip from your memory when you fall asleep at night. It is a birthday nobody celebrates, the day you first were hated. It exists nonetheless.

Somewhere in my first or second year of attending school, I started believing that my real birthday and this awful one had likely both come on the same day, within the same establishing moment. The doctors and nurses must've hated me the moment I came into existence, the second they saw my eyes and realized they were supposed to be brown, not that unnatural, icy blue. My family, despite their best efforts to hide it, must've hated me too as I grew from an infant and my completely incorrect dark hair began to grow in with me. There I was: Something I shouldn't have been. Something they didn't want. Something to be hated.

I would've liked to have known hate before Carstan van Horne hated me. I always resented my family for keeping that from me. Carstan's hate came as a surprise. When he an his gang of littler boys took turns pushing me into the wood chips on the playground, I didn't know why I deserved it. When they chanted over and over that I was an abomination, I didn't know what the word meant.

Soon enough, however, I learned. I had to learn; get used to it. Soon enough I expected hatred from everyone I met, because they all showed ms that same shocked face, and vacs those same curt responses, and had that same pressing thing they needed to get to that made them have to walk away from me so quickly. I knew why they had to walk away. Over time, I grew to presume a person hated me by default, and if they were to tolerate me, I'd have to first win them over.

But had my mother let me know beforehand that the kids would hate me, maybe I wouldn't have been so miserable. Maybe then I would've been more like Cora Loress, my old friend who went out of her way to be different.

Maybe then I wouldn't have bat an eye when Carstan van Horne let me have it. Maybe I would've shrugged. An abomination? Not news to me, I'd tell them. I've been waiting for your hatred.

But as it turns out, being calloused would have been to my detriment––to my downfall. When I joined the Famoux, the battle to not be hated became a battle for my life. Lucky for me, I had a lifetime of living to please under my belt. I knew how to nod, smile, and concur. I knew how to mold my interests to fit anyone around me in desperate hopes of them looking past my appearance and wishing to be my friend. Growing up, malleability was a defense mechanism––I mean, how could I possibly afford to be anything other than agreeable? How could a glitch like me have my own opinion?

Norax probably saw these tendencies in me before she approached. She knew I wasn't like Cora Loress. No, I didn't want to be different at all. If Emilee Parvenu had it her way, she would've fallen right in line like the rest of them. And Norax knew this––that all I needed was the right hair, the right eyes, the right shape, the right skin, and I'd be unstoppable. A blank canvas. A perfect storm.

As of today, actin I am one of the most loved Famoux members, if not the most. Why? Because I am everything anyone could ever want me to be. I am a singer. I am an actress. I am a model. I am dating the most popular nonFamoux member in the world. I am the right amount of relatable while also remaining untouchable. I have all the right friends and all the right clothes and all the right opinions. I have never had an overwhelming scandal like Kaytee, have never spoken out of turn like Till has been known to do in interviews, have never dared walk past a fan on the street without stopping for a photo like Race, no matter how big the crowds get.