The Perfect Girl

7

"Cause she's a perfect girl, She's a happy girl, She's a foolish girl,"

I remember, after all the perfect people left, I walked back and forth by the pool as I waited for Jana to change.

It was a queer sensation. Mostly, I felt like I was my body, like my hands and skin and eyes and face were a part of me. I felt as though I were this body that was contained inside a room. But now, I felt like I was stuck inside of my body which was stuck inside the room.

I wasn't sure why my thoughts had gone so insanely wild so quickly. I figured it had something to do with being around the people I had been around today, and something to do with how late it was.

Whatever it was, it had caused a dark, heavy emotion I would later identify as self loathing to settle in me, cloud my mind.

It is a strange thing, to be bullied by one's own self. Worse, by far, than being bullied by someone else.

When you are being bullied by another person, and exterior force, you have options. You might ignore them or slap them or tell a teacher or change schools or cities or countries or even continents.

When you are being bullied by yourself, you are both the bully, the teacher, the school, the city, the country, the continent and the world. The only option would be to step outside of the world, and once you leave the world, you can't breathe, and not breathing is not an option.

I will not say that it hurt, because it did not. It was more of a dull, repetitive hum than a sharp stab. A hammering of sorts, maybe. You are not enough, they are all enough, you are just not good at anything, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

When I look back on it, I wish there was someone who knew exactly what I needed there. What I needed was a sharp slap to the face to snap me from the thoughts that clogged my mind.

The scariest part of the whole thing wasn't even that I had these thoughts, that I despised myself so much, but that I let myself wallow in it. I didn't even attempt to distract myself with happier thoughts. I just let myself believe it.

If I were smart, I would have said, stop, Hiba, stop, Hiba, you are worth it, please don't, snap out of it.

But I didn't.

I'd never hated myself like that.

I'd disliked myself, looked myself in the mirror and not liked what stared back at me.

But that type of loathing, the way I despised myself, the way I wished I could pull myself to pieces? Never.

I don't know how long I paced there, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It couldn't have been long, because how long could it have taken Jana to get out of the changeroom? But it felt like at least half an hour.

In the end, it was Jana that, unknowingly, probably saved me.

She snapped me from my thoughts when she returned and began talking. I didn't speak a word the whole way back to the room, but I was grateful for Jana's chatter. When we said salaam outside of my door, I stopped. I didn't want to go in. My mind was a mess, and having to deal with my family wasn't going to make it better.

I stood like that, still and unmoving, just trying to form commands, to form thoughts to tell my hands to move and open the door, my mouth to begin calling out a salaam, my lips to smile, but I couldn't.

"As salaamu alaikum," said a voice behind.

I turned quickly, thankful for the jolt, for the surprise that had forced adrenaline into my mind to save me.

"Wa alaikum us salaam," I replied, and my voice came out broken, tired.

There stood Khalid, just looking at me.

"Where are you coming from?" he asked, voice soft like he knew I needed it.

"The pool," I replied, trying to force energy into the syllables.

He nodded, "You went with Jana?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." the word was less of an acceptance, more of a filler.

"I'm gonna go," I said, and angled my head towards the room door, "As salaamu alaikum."

"Wa alaikum us salaam."

And I opened the door, pried open my mouth, spoke as little as I possible, and went to bed.