 |
daria is smowl.
Daria was really little when she started feeling… things…for other kids in her class. She wasn’t that old. Hell, she was what? Five? Six? All she knew was that boys were icky and they had cooties. At least that’s what she and her friends chanted when they held hands and ran around in circles during recess. You know… the whole “boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider”? That was her favorite part of the rhyme. She didn’t like the boys, but she often found herself hanging around them. She wasn’t afraid to be a tomboy. She wasn’t afraid to get dirty on the playground; fingernails brown underneath from digging holes in the mulch so they could find earthworms. She smiled when her and the boys chased the girls around with worms dangling from their thumbs and index fingers. “AHHHHH!” she’d hear them scream in shrill voices as they tried to hide their faces or run away. Daria didn’t really like the worms herself. They kind of gave her the heebie-jeebies; but she liked the reactions from her female classmates.
When it was lunch time, they were asked to stand in a single-file line and to grab a partner. They had to hold hands so that everyone was accounted for and no one got lost on their way to the cafeteria. She held hands with the boys sometimes and when they got to the lunch room she’d wipe her hands on her pants–trying to get the sweat from their palms off of her along with their germs. It wasn’t like that when she got to hold hands with a girl, though. She’d lace their fingers together and there would be an automatic smile on her face. She may have even blushed. It felt different, but she didn’t know at the time what it would all mean for her until she got older.
She remembered one specific time in kindergarten when one of her friends, Isabel, had been really quiet in class. Usually her and Daria got in trouble because they talked behind the teacher’s back. They always got caught even though they tried to whisper softly and read each other’s lips. Daria was getting good at it. Izzy (that’s what Daria called her and she was the only one that called her that), had missed school for a few days and everyone was wondering where she went, especially Daria… because that was her best friend. Their teacher said something about private family matters. When Izzy came back a few days later, she didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood. Daria even tried to tell her their favorite jokes but not even that would crack a smile.
Daria’s five-year-old self didn’t understand things like fathers dying. She guessed that’s what their teacher was talking about when she said Izzy needed some time with her family. Daria didn’t like seeing her so sad. Sometimes Izzy would start shedding tears in the middle of class and the teacher had to stop and pull her outside in the hallway, away from everyone. When they both came back, Izzy’s cheeks would be pink and she’d wipe the last of her tears from under her own eyes.
The next time it happened, Daria had noticed first. They were in their work books doing a color-by-number section and she heard sniffling coming from across the table. There were a few other kids sitting with them, but they didn’t pay her any attention. Daria didn’t know what to do or how to feel; all she knew was that she didn’t like seeing her best friend cry like that. So, Daria did the only thing that she thought would make her happy. She dug through her own crayon box and she pulled out a purple crayon. It was Izzy’s favorite color. “Here.. you can have mine.” Daria whispered and her little fingers handed it over to her. Now Izzy had two purple crayons and Daria saw how she began smiling through her tears–so she kept doing it. Whenever the teacher wasn’t looking, she’d steal purple crayons from her other classmates' crayon boxes until Izzy had enough to have her own box of twelve purple crayons.
She’d never forget the smile on Izzy’s face and how she scooted her chair to the same side as Daria so that they could color together. They both were inseparable since.
|