Only Differently Designed // ODD

13. Only Presentation Day

"Heather, please, you have to take Laura's place!" Scarlet begs.

"What? We didn't... plan on this."

"But Laura is down with a cold, her voice is barely audible."

Seriously? Laura is yapping all day every day and just when we actually need her to be talkative she can't speak?

"What about–"

"Massa is absent, some horseback riding race."

"Jenna?"

"In your dreams sister," Jenna snaps her fingers. "I made it clear I'm not going up there even if my life depends on it."

"We need at least two people up there." Scarlet's forehead creases. "We worked so hard on this project. We can't just let the final presentation go down in flames!"

"What's taking you so long girls?"

"Just a minute, sir!" Scarlet calls out to the professor before turning back to me. She looks up into my eyes and whispers urgently, "Please, Heather?"

To avoid her gaze I glance at Jenna, who is twirling a strand of her hair disinterestedly. At Laura, who is coughing and rubbing her red nose with the back of her sleeve. Then at Massa's empty seat, as if she might materialize right there if I stared hard enough. Finally I look back at Scarlet's pleading eyes. My chest tightens and before I know it a word I would soon regret slips out of my mouth.

"Okay."

"Yes! Thank you, thank you so much!"

Scarlet wraps her arms around me in a hug. I freeze awkwardly and remain standing upright, as still as a plank, arms glued to my sides. Scarlet, though, doesn't seem to notice my lack of enthusiasm towards her one-sided hug.

I have nothing against hugs really – I'm just not sure I have a clear picture of how they're supposed to work or why they're necessary in the first place. They don't seem to have any use besides pressing you unbearably close to another human body.

Why would anyone even want that?

After the hug she drags me by the hand to the front of the class. She plants a set of notecards into my palm and whispers to me saying that everything I needed to say was on there. "You're a history whiz after all, it shouldn't be so hard."

What does she know about hard?

Slowly, carefully, I allow my eyes to travel from the notecards to the class before me. Desks, too close or too far away from one another, strayed out of order, twisted sideways, overflowing with papers, books, folders. The ground is rich with cluttered pencils, pens, erasers, highlighters and rulers – as if it had been raining stationary.

And the worst part – the humans that own this clutter. Short, tall, skinny, fat, bored, chatty. They all mind their own business until the teacher claps twice, firmly, and asks everyone to pay attention to the presentation. Every eye in the room stares at us.

At me.

Isn't one eye enough? Does every person have to have two of those ogling organs?

I shift uneasily. The notecards in my hand are already soggy with sweat. Isn't it enough that I came up with the project idea and plan? Do I really have to be thrown into a situation like this? Scarlet nudges me. I have to start. I don't have time to curse the fact that I had agreed to this.

Determined not to mess up, I glance down at the quivering notecards. The inked notes are smudged and uneven. I decipher the first few words. I utter them with a voice far smaller than I had imagined.

I stutter, I repeat.

The heat on my cheeks is unbearable. My belly is ice cold and yet my armpits are on flames. I plaster my arms to my sides hoping to hide what I imagine would be puddle-sized sweat stains.

What do these people watching think of me? What is a girl like me to them? The anti-social weirdo? The mysterious loner? The one who, for the love of God, can't manage a few decent words for her presentation?

I continue reading off the cards, bit by bit.

My fingers tremble harder. They will see me tremble and they will smirk behind their sleeves. They will whisper words of mock and scorn to one another. In their spare time they will come up with the lamest nicknames and imitate me. They will shake in an attempt of parody until they drop to the ground like a dying fish. They will –

I look up at them and the moment I do my voice abandons me completely. I can't even force a stutter. Beads of sweat trickle down my face as I strain to push to the syllables out of my mouth. But as if I am underwater, the more I try to speak the more I am struggling to breathe and the deeper I sink. There is something blocking the air in my throat, a burning sensation, a stubborn lump. And then it's hot and cold all at once and I'm fighting to move forward amidst a snowstorm but also preventing myself from completely melting.

My sweater seems to be shrinking in on me, growing tighter by the second, more stifling – until it envelops me entirely, taking away the struggle.

No more trembling.

I can no longer feel the contradictory temperatures of my body. Far away, there are voices. But I have no fear because the darker my shadow is the farther away they are. I allow this haziness to take me to a place where snickering voices and goggling eyes do not exist.

I stumble, I fall.

The shock of it strips off the giddiness, brings back the light, the sound, and the sensations. I am not in the class and I can breathe again. I sit on the staircase, visibly still but inwardly breaking, shaking, crumbling, and teeming with shame. I want to blame my peers and their dumb eyes but I can only find hatred for myself. All I had to do was read a few damn words. Everyone can do it. So why can't I?

Why, why, why?

Something touches me from the side. I flinch violently before I realize it's Scarlet.

I feel like a lost, terrified animal – vulnerable. I don't want her seeing me like this. I don't want her pitying me, asking me if I'm okay, if I feel sick, if I need to see the nurse. Or worse. Demanding an explanation as to what just happened, what went wrong. Because then I really wouldn't know how to reply.

But she doesn't do any of that. In fact, she doesn't speak at all. She only fastens her arms around me tightly and forces my head onto her small shoulder. I want to break free, but I can't, because the ground is steady in her embrace and it's shaky everywhere else.

So we just sit there and eventually, without really thinking, I allow myself to relax. I let Scarlet hold me and stroke my hair until the ugly summersaults in my stomach die down. I still feel ashamed, weak, but the feeling is numbed by something else. Something new. A simple feeling of safety I never thought I'd need. Especially not from someone else.

Is that what hugs are for?