She sat on the picnic table, gently peeling a scab from her knee. It was a slow process, and she hissed as it lifted away, revealing a bubble of red blood. It was almost off her body, and by the time she finally held it in her hand, there was a fine crimson trail dripping down towards her dollar store flip-flops.
She stared at her stick legs, her knobby knees. Her mother had spent much of that summer reaffirming that soon those stick legs of hers would begin to curve and become more shapely. Her narrow waist, pencil thin arms and flat bottom; all these body parts of hers would begin to mature into a more womanly figure, and then of course, she could forget all the angst of prepubescent life, and slide right into those troublesome teenage years that invariably were linked with the many boys that would flock to her.
Her mother never mentioned her shoulder blades at all.
Shoulder blades. It sounded like some weird sport accessory, but they were the latest cause of her concern. She reached a long, bony arm around her body, but the movement did not allow her to feel one of the sharp angular bones that she had recently been teased about. Yet, she knew that if she were able to see around herself, there they would be, jutting behind her like a stunted pair of wings.
Christian Mercer called her the Bird Girl, and told his pack of followers that she was going to take off at any moment, “Just watch.” he had smirked.
She had shot him one hard look before hurrying away to her locker, and it took everything in her to not hunch her shoulders in, to try to make them disappear.
She stood up from the picnic table, and stepped onto the long, splintery bench. She took another step up, onto the flat, wide surface, and looked up into the sky. It had bled too, blending vivid red into a bruising purple color. As the sun disappeared, it began to get chilly, and she wrapped her sweater tightly around her.
She wished she was the Bird Girl, and that her malformed wings would support her, and carry her off to some place different, some place where the happy ending wasn’t just a flock of boys, but an open sky, a gentle breeze, and a warm sun to dry both tears and blood trails away.