All The Things I Hate About Me

My name is Aria Veyne.

I was fourteen years old.

At school, I had plenty of friends. I laughed with them, joined in their conversations, and, to everyone around me, I seemed like an ordinary girl simply living the way a girl my age was supposed to.

But no one knew that whenever the final bell rang, something heavy seemed to settle inside my chest.

I wasn’t afraid of the road home.

I was afraid of where it led.

Of the door I would have to walk through. Of the house waiting for me on the other side.

I wished the bell would never ring.

I delayed going home for as long as I could. I slowed my steps, stopped in front of shop windows, watched strangers pass by, and invented little excuses to steal a few more minutes.

Anything…

Just so I wouldn’t have to go back.

I didn’t like the way I looked in the mirror either.

I saw a pale, overweight girl, her face marked with a few blemishes, her eyes carrying a weariness far beyond her years.

I didn’t even like my own voice.

The way I answered too quickly.

My awkwardness.

The way I laughed.

I agreed to almost everything, finding it difficult to refuse anyone’s requests, as though the word no were simply too heavy for me to say.

I used to think that if I could make everyone laugh, if I could be kind enough, perhaps they would love me.

And maybe…

Maybe I would finally feel loved too.

But every day, I discovered that trying to please everyone only made me hate myself a little more.

Then came that morning.

It was far too early.

I picked up my bag and left the house, thinking I had managed to escape the first few hours of the morning without trouble.

But I hadn’t gone far.

He was there.

My father.

At first, I didn’t understand what was happening.

Then the moment turned into pure fear.

His grip around my arm.

His raised voice.

The anger in him that I could find no reason for.

Then I felt something cold against my neck.

The world froze.

I could hear nothing but the violent pounding of my heart.

I was trembling so badly that every word disappeared from my mind.

And in that moment, I understood that fear could make a person smaller than their own voice.

Too small to defend themselves.

Too small to scream.

Too small even to cry.

Afterward, I ran to my mother.

I broke down in her arms, desperately searching for something that felt like safety.

But there was no safety there.

She was living beneath the same fear.

From that day on, home was no longer a home to me.

It became a place I returned to because I had no choice.

A place where I watched every step I took, every note in my voice, the time I left and returned, even the number of words I allowed myself to speak.

The next morning, I sat on my bed arranging my books.

I watched the hands of the clock.

Not because I was waiting to go to school…

But because I was waiting to escape the house.

And when the time finally came, I left.

For the first time, the road to school felt like freedom.

Like survival.

But I didn’t know that something else was waiting for me there.

Something I would never be able to run from…

Myself.