"Who do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be beautiful, like you!"

The woman smiled. She motioned with her hand, like shooing the compliment away, like she got it a thousand times a day. Perhaps she did. But she flushed just the same, flattered nevertheless. She loved doing it, flattering her mother, seeing the blush on her cheeks.

The woman smiled, bending down, reaching out and tucking a lock of golden hair behind Glory's ear. "Your hair is beautiful. Girls should always have long hair." She paused. "Maybe when you're a little bit older, I'll introduce you to my world."

It sounded beautiful, this women's world, when though she knew nothing about it. And she loved every single part of her, to her fashionable clothes to her pale face. It made her cough when Glory kissed her on he cheek, the powder and the cream- but it was a part of the woman, a small piece of something before she left months at a time.

"You're beautiful," the woman repeated again. "That's all that matters."

Those were the happy times, innocent times, full of laughter and hope.

It didn't last.

~

☆Glory☆

I dyed my hair rainbow the day the girls came up to me in fifth grade and asked why I didn't wear makeup.

"Your eyes are big," one of the girls, Alice, said. She wasn't bad herself, I remember- she had those pretty blue eyes and light dirty blonde hair. She also became famous for that one time she picked a fight with Deathbringer (when they used to date) about why she couldn't sit with him in lunch, although she had no way of knowing it then. "Your hair is pretty, but it would be prettier if it were longer."

"I can give you a lipstick if you want. It's just a couple dollars," one of Alice's friends said.

I refused. And I started dyeing my hair. I dyed it black, and then red, and then green, and then blue.

Deathbringer always seemed excited to pick out the color. And I always did the one he picked.

Nothing else much happened in fourth grade, except that one time in school. Deathbringer and I were holding hands, because that's what we did back then so we couldn't get lost in the lunch line. We were talking about something- something related to my hair color- when the kids stopped us.

"Why are you holding hands?" The boy asked suspiciously.

Deathbringer held it even tighter when I tried to let it go in embarrassment. "Why is that any of your business?" He challenged, clenching his other hand into a fist.

"Oooh," the girl next to him said. "Deathbringer and Glory are daaaaating."

"No, we're not!" I shouted in anger. I managed to shake his hand off, ignoring his hurt expression. "We're holding hands so we don't get lost in line!"

But it was too late then. Everyone was butting in, wanting to know what the fuss was all about. "Deathbringer and Glory are DATING?"

I opened my mouth to say we weren't, to prove them wrong, to list all the girl friends Deathbringer had, how we were just friends- but just as it was about to tumble out, something stopped me.

"But if they like each other and kiss, would Deathbringer get cancer too?" One of the voices said. "Why would someone like him date someone like her?"

That stopped the river of words I wanted to say to prove them wrong. I stood there in disbelief and time seemed to stop, and I was just staring at the girl, wanting to ask her what she meant.

I couldn't. I was too scared of the answer.

So I just ran away from the whole scene, running outside, slamming the door behind me, running to the tree, ignoring everyone's shouts.

What is someone like him and what is someone like me?

What's the difference?

Gender? Face? Personality?

Cancer?

I wasn't trying to, but I was sobbing, under that tree I loved so much, crying until my shoulders shook. I fell face first, and I was sobbing like a little baby, hoping somebody would comfort me. I don't know how long I cried, but it didn't seem to stop.

Then he came like an angel, crossing the line I had made in the sand of our friendship, scared that he would hurt me. We hadn't been true friends before then, before he carefully crossed the line and made another. And we were closer. That was the first step.

He walked up to me calmly, rested a hand on my shoulder. He didn't say anything. He just sat there, letting me know what he was beside me, that he understood, that he was sorry, that he was my friend.

"Maybe we should stop being friends because they're making rumors about us and you would be better off without me and a lot of people would like to be your friend and I don't want to cause trouble," I said in one breath, trying to dry the tears that kept coming.

"That's all true," he admitted. "But who cares what they think?"

"I don't care what they think," I said defensively.

"If you never cared you would have kept your hair long and stop dyeing it because everyone gives you weird looks," Deathbringer argued. "You're rebelling because you care."

I couldn't say anything against that. Then my young self pondered over the question. "Do you think I should grow my hair?"

He looked at me suspiciously. "So you can have more friends?"

"No. I want to let it go." I wiped my tears with my sleeve, something my grandmother would never approve of. "What you say is true. I'll stop rebelling and I'll stop caring."

"I never minded. Who cares about the length of your hair or the color of it? You're you, and that's what I like. I don't mind the rest. And I don't care what everyone else think."

"But you know...you don't care because you have nothing to lose," I contradicted. "You're loud and bubbly and you have a lot of friends no matter what. You never care but you're what everyone like. You just fit right in. Some of us have to make ourselves into what people want."

He just stared at me. I knew he didn't get what I said. He did later, he told me- but he didn't get it then. He had always fit right in, couldn't imagine not fitting in. That was how he was back then.

Somebody like you and somebody like me.

We were different. We had always been different. We didn't quite understand one another then. We didn't know each other's stories, our secrets.

No. But we shared a link in that moment, a step to understanding each other, erasing one line, getting closer, drawing another. And someday we would get to the point where we were just together, with no line separating us. Hopefully.

"You know, I-" He stopped. Then he looked at me. Then at the ground. "Let's get back inside."

"Okay," I said.

"Okay," he said with a grin.

"Okay," I said, punching his arm playfully. Soon after, we were running to lunch.

Maybe okay can be our always.

We could have held hands, but we didn't. I could tell he wanted to. But he respected my choice.

The truth was that I was scared, that I didn't know what was somebody like him and I didn't know what was somebody like me.

We never held hands again in school after that.

☆