REBELS

Episode 2

Mia Rouse

I always thought that each person had a story to tell, because each one of us hides something, it can be something simple or, like me, something much more complicated. Likewise, I never thought I would need to tell my own story...

It was early morning when we left our house to go to the airport in Russia. Again we had to move, it was always the same, with each problem that I caused that led to a new house, and not exactly in another neighborhood, much less to another city, my parents directly decided that we would move to another country.

I never had any friends until a year ago we arrived in Russia and that's where I met Abby, a girl who discovered my secret and didn't run away like the previous acquaintances I had. She didn't try to run away or accuse me, she just smiled and told me that everything was going to be fine when she discovered me in my abnormal state.

My hair was on fire at that moment, my eyes were a color similar to fire and tears of anger did not stop flowing from them. I was burning with impotence, I was so upset at that moment, but mainly upset with myself. Since what had triggered this had been the offensive words of a classmate. She hated me for falling for her game and for not being able to control myself.

I did not want to change in front of my companions, I despaired when I recognized the approach of my eruption and I did not wait too long to flee towards an area that I thought was safe: the bathroom. I wanted to calm that feeling, "don't feel, don't feel" he had told me calmly, but suddenly my mind was already being attacked by screams, hatred and fury made a perfect combination managing to take me.

I surrendered to that emotion, it was inevitable for me to stop it. I ended up approaching the mirror and detailed the tears that slipped down my cheeks. And then my hair began to be consumed by fire, the color of my eyes looked like two balls of fire wanting to end it all, because even my look became different, I looked dangerous. But I felt the opposite. I didn't want to look at myself, and I didn't, just looking straight ahead when a sound caught my attention. And it was too late, I couldn't hide because she saw me, she discovered me.

We looked at each other, both expressing similar emotions.

I thought I would scream and run and tell everyone what I just saw, but I was wrong. Instead of doing that, after closing the door, she had approached me while I backed away in fear, I know that things should have been the other way around, but at that moment I felt afraid. I didn't want to be considered strange, even though I already knew I was, but I didn't want others to tell me my truth.

"Everything's going to be okay," she'd told me, her voice calm enough to be true. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. I just want to help you.

After realizing that his intentions were good, I allowed him to do it, I tried to calm down and I succeeded, my hair returned to normal, as if nothing had happened because the fire that I had was just an illusion, although if I wanted that it could be real.

I didn't know that power until I was twelve years old, before I didn't know that I could control it, I could only prevent it from being real and keep it as an illusion if I thought it fast, but nothing more. Every time I got angry I couldn't stop my hair from going up in flames, but I could keep it from setting off the fire alarm by making it just a fantasy.

Abby had been genuinely surprised to see that my clothes hadn't been burned and that I was perfectly fine, healthy; without any burn. She had been really interested in what she had seen, she promised me that she wouldn't tell anyone, and I believed her.

So I told him what only my parents knew, and the only thing I read in his expression was wonder and interest. She did not consider what she had an anomaly, rather, she defined it as something difficult to understand and absolutely wonderful. Since that day I have never been alone or felt alone again, we became very good friends.

Whenever someone made fun of me by calling me "the lonely one with no friends" she would always defend me by saying that she was my friend and that I didn't need anyone else. And it was true, with her it was enough.

Everything was going pretty well until one day she did not attend classes, I had to go only because I had an important exam. Almost at dismissal time, the math teacher had left the classroom, leaving us unsupervised. I was fine by myself in my corner of the room until some girls came up to me and started verbally attacking me. I tried to ignore them, as I always had, but their insults escalated more and more, getting a bit of an effect on me.

And they managed to cross my limit when they started insulting my friend saying how she could be so stupid to be my friend, change them for me, a silly and unfunny girl. Abby was my only friend and I just wanted to defend her, as she had done for me on so many occasions. But instead of those girls shutting up, or at least lowering the tone of their voice, they raised it, with each insult they said to me and my friend, an intense flame was fanned inside me.

I pushed one of them to run away from there because I already knew what was coming. But they wouldn't let me go, instead one of them had grabbed my arm, preventing my escape. All of them, who were four in total, cornered me while one of them did not stop talking, making fun of me. I got so angry before his words that, right there, in the middle of the room, in the presence of all my classmates, my hair started to catch fire, I couldn't control it, I didn't have time to at least take a deep breath and think about making it just an illusion.