1

You don't need the approval of others.

I don't clearly remember how it happened. All I remember is that I didn't dream it. It was real, as real as the burning sensation when you brush against a flame, mistress of heat.

I remember getting up like every morning, getting dressed and applying makeup with a line of eyeliner and mascara.

I then went down to the common kitchen for breakfast.

My mum was different from other mums. We didn't do these mother-daughter activities. I couldn't remember our last shopping trip or our pancake afternoon, had it only happened once before?

When my mother was on her good days, she didn't provoke me in the morning.

His first words were crucial, decisive because they determined what kind of day had just begun. And the more time passed, the more savoring a coffee in silence was a rare thing.

- What is this outfit? You go to school, not prostitute yourself.

I glanced discreetly at my outfit. My lace-up sweater showed only a tiny patch of skin, almost competing with my black jeans and my Federation of Nuns approved Derbys.

So I didn't bother to answer him and shoved a slice of bread in the toaster, almost to avoid giving him a spicy reply.

Over the years, I had learned not to respond to his daily remarks. Anyway, even the few times I tried to make her understand that I cared more about the color of Lady Gaga's nail polish than her opinion, she didn't want to hear anything.

My mother was a tenacious woman, a bit like dirt. Maybe I got it from her, my badass appearance.

"Come here let's fight."

Yet I had to keep my head high, the pain was there. Hidden deep in my chest, and each of his words was like a needle.

Sharp, precise and tangy.

When the browned piece of bread popped out of the machine, I vaguely heard him comment on how many calories a toast had.

You should know an important thing about my mother, although she has an incredibly inexhaustible stock of remarks, her favorite subjects remained my diet, my weight, my style of dress and my dating.

Go figure why it seems she particularly itched to remind me every minute of my life how much better I could have been.

I put the knife aside once

my piece of bread topped with slightly melted butter and bit into it eagerly.

Which obviously earned me yet another comment.

My lunch gobbled up faster than recommended by the diet channel in the background, I grabbed my school bag and slung it over one of my shoulders.

I left the house without even turning to the mistress of the place who, without much surprise, did not sketch the shadow of a smile.

She could have pretended for once.

I walked quietly to my school which was not very far from my home.

She could very well have led me, but I confessed that I was not so masochistic as to want to stay locked up in an enclosed place with her.

This little walk was in a way my minutes of respite between home and school.

Arrival in front of the establishment, I stopped, waiting for my best friend at the usual place.

Yet today something was not like the other days. The same routine stuck to my skin for six years. I knew at the fingertips all the adventures that punctuated my week from Monday to Friday.

On Monday, Carren skipped the first hour of math.

On Tuesday, a student would still cause a scandal because his girlfriend stuck to him too much.

Thursday, Daisy told us about her Wednesday.

Yet today, something upset my routine.

Black cars with tinted windows were parked on the sidewalk in front of the establishment.

Later I remembered that I should have been careful. But I didn't worry. Soon

Damen arrived and I returned at the same time as him.

- SO ? Does he ask me

- As usual, I shrug my shoulders.

He didn't have time to answer that we had already arrived at the height of our band. Friends since childhood, Daisy, Kristal,

Joshua, Damen and I never left each other.

- Hey ugly ones! I exclaimed, tapping Daisy on the shoulder.

- Speak for yourself, replied the latter.

- Come on D assume you're ugly, laughed Joshua.

Daisy pretended to groan and I took her in my arms.

She was already freezing her face with that same expression when I refused to play hopscotch.

- Go it does not matter D the ugly ones can be happy.

- Well yes, look at Elijah, she lives perfectly well, laughed Damen.

I laughed with my friends as I joined the class for our first lesson.

A few hours later, I came out of this huge building alone and was about to go home morally exhausted by the resumption of classes.

Damen used to ride with me, he only lived a block away.

His perfect family had not resisted the summer heat and he now had to take the bus every other week and go to another town to join his father.

I descended the few steps from the porch.

In the distance I still saw the same cars as this morning but this time men were leaning against them, watching like predators the students coming out of high school.

One of these men finally looked at me and leaned towards his sidekick, nodding at me.

I have become paranoid.

I choose the moment when they all got up to come in my direction to recite a prayer all the same mentally.

It was at the moment when they surrounded me, like a ring of fire, without my foot having moved a millimeter yet, that I realized that I must not only be very slow on the trigger but also really in shit.