The Not-Outcast

by Tijan

Then I heard against my neck, his breath tickling me, “I love you, too.”

I had no idea why it mattered. It shouldn’t. It was so long, so trivial, so minute, but… it did. It mattered.

He had noticed me.

I was already trying so hard to be so fucking perfect and no one got it.

“I came to apologize for how I treated you.”

I never thought that I was hurting a child needing help, that perhaps you had been brought to us for a reason. I turned my back on you, and I’m very sorry for that.”

I felt like scum, like the byproduct for what they did to her. They did it to me, too.

I felt like a victim. I hated feeling like a fucking victim.

I’d like to say that we had a happily ever after, but that wasn’t true.

But I can say that we laughed. We laughed a lot. I can say that we loved. We loved so hard.