Once upon a time there was a girl and her shadow. Her shadow followed her everywhere, quietly clinging to her feet with each step as she grew. The girl was never afraid of her shadow, it was something she always had and never seemed to hurt her. But one day heard a whisper in her ear "you're going to fail". The girl stopped what she was doing at the moment and looked down at the the school project in front of her. Disgust contorted her features and she pushed the project away from her. It was awful, but it was all she had. She glared at the material for a bit and eventually gave up and pushed herself from the table and and wondered into the kitchen to grab a snack. She wasn't really hungry, she was just hoping that maybe taking a break would give her new eyes for her project.
She was halfway through her apple when her father came into the kitchen; he stood in the doorway and looked back at the table where the abandoned History project laid before returning his attention to his daughter. "Why aren't you doing your homework?" He asked, his blue eyes narrowing slightly.
"I'm just taking a break daddy." The girl said as she swallowed a piece of apple.
Her father rolled his eyes a little and shook his head, an action that would have gained her a slap across the face and a grounding. "You're just procrastinating! It doesn't even look halfway done! You're going to fail!" Her father's voice raised a little, and he shook his head again "I'm disappointed in you."
The girl shuffled in her stop in the middle of a large square of tile, she looked away from her father and let the rest of her apple drop away from her mouth to her side. The voice had been right, she was going to fail; even her father thought so. She started to walk back into the dinning room when her father stopped her with an aggravated sigh, she cautiously looked up at him to see him stalk further into the kitchen and empty his lunch box.
"You might as well finish the apple because you're going to forget it and then leave it on the counter and it's going to rot there."
She wasn't sure if it was intended by her father or not, but she felt physical pain in her chest after he finished talking. She put her hand over where she thought her heart might be and rubbed through the fabric, hoping to quell the pain. The gesture never worked, but she tried anyways.
To avoid anymore digs at herself she quickly finished her apple, packing her mouth with the tangy white flesh until her cheeks and lips hurt from trying to hold it in. She then threw out the apple core and shuffled back into the dining room to finish her homework.
"You know, she's only a little girl. She's not a machine like you."
The girl swallowed the rest of her apple and turned around in her chair to see her mother with her arm crossed over her chest. She was glaring at the girl's father who was glaring back with greater intensity. The girl had learned very early on that she was NEVER to question her father, and she got scared every time her mother did it.
"She's not going to get it done if she doesn't sit there and do it! And then she's going to start crying and you and I are going to end up finishing it for her."
She winced at her father's comment and turned back to her history homework, but she couldn't concentrate over the yelling. The girl pushed her small hands hard against her ears in an attempt to block out the yelling, but found it futile. But despite the yelling in the next room, she managed to make out the tiniest of whispers "This is all your fault."
--
She never knew what had made the whispers when she was younger, but as she grew the whispering grew louder and more frequent. Some days were quieter than others, and those rare days she found herself not having to force her smile as much. But there were some days where the whispering started as soon as she woke up. Everything she did those days were forced; eating, walking, smiling; even her breathing was labored.
The girl became afraid of her shadow because she couldn't escape it, and she became afraid of being happy because she knew it wouldn't last, and she knew when her happiest fizzled out her shadow would become darker.
Her shadow grew louder and the girl grew sadder, but she couldn't bring herself to talk to anyone. They didn't want to hear about her sadness, people had their own problems to worry about. When people started telling her to "cheer up" that she had "nothing to be sad about" she started forcing her smiles more and more. By then the whispering was a constant in her life.
"You see, they don't really care. They don't really want you to be happy because they don't care to ask what's wrong, and even when they do, it's just because they'll look like bad people if they don't act like they care."
The girl tried to ignore the whispers and prove them wrong by opening up to a close friend... But the voice was right.
She lost that friend, that friend didn't want to be bothered by the girl's petty problems.
So the girl closed herself up and painted on a pretty smile for everyone else. Some days it faltered and cracked, so on those days she lied and said she was feeling sick. It got so bad she started believe that she was sick. She was lethargic and pale. Half the time her eyes only open half way and she couldn't see any beauty in herself. She was an outsider in her own world and she always felt alone.
"But you're not alone."
A whisper came one day.
"I will always be there with you... no matter how many people leave you, I will be there."
At first the girl was comforted by this whisper, but then she listened more carefully.
"I will always be there to tell you how ugly you really are. I will always be there to point out your short comings. I will always be there to laugh when you fail, and I will always be there when you think you are happy so I can remind you that you will NEVER be happy."
Despite the whispering's negative intent -with the world always changing- the girl grew comfortable with the one thing that would never change.
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