7. Arabella. New girl.

I feel empty most times, deserted, alone. The feeling of emptiness in me is sometimes so huge that i fear that soon my heart won't be able to take it anymore.

But my heart does adjust to the pain, over and over again.

I fear pain you know, i really do  but again and again my heart absorbs the trials i face and moves on. Sometimes I start to ask myself if there is anything my heart cannot take.

My tolerance for pain stretches on and on that it amazes even me all the things that I can take.

Maybe it's a classic case of you don't know how strong you are until you have no choice but to be strong.

Other times I feel detached from my own self as if things aren't bad enough i feel like i don't even have myself to begin with. Like there is no one with me not even myself.

It's a feeling I have had for a long time, a feeling I have gotten used to. It hurts. It always has but I have learnt to live with the pain. It was not like I had a choice in the matter anyway.

Why am i telling you this you may ask, well i don't know. Maybe i just desperately need you to understand me better than they have and i figure that you cannot understand if i do not explain. I desperately need someone to understand, hopefully you.

I want to let you in on my deepest secret which is the pain i feel in my heart. If i should tell you my story without explaining how i feel sometimes, you would read with a misconception about me just like the misconceptions most people tend to have about me.

When people don't know or understand the pain you feel they get jealous of you, worst still sometimes they end up hating you wrongly assuming that you have it all.

This was the case with the people in my former school most especially the girls not leaving out even those i called my friends. You know with some friends you don't need to have enemies.

Have you ever been in situation where your friends hate you more than the people you call your enemies. I have and it's not a pretty feeling to finally come to terms with the truth that some people who hug you do so only to get close enough to stab you in the back.

It's sad but i do sometimes try to understand why they do the things they do

They thought that i had it all. Maybe because i acted like i did but it was a mask that i put on, one they were not ready to see passed. So they judged me based on the mask of happiness and strength i wore and then hated me because they thought the mask to be my true face.

They didn't know of the pain i felt and they didn't try to know or maybe they did try but their efforts weren't good enough to force me out of my shell.

Sadly, i wasn't brave enough to take off the mask i wore so as to let them see me for me. I endured their hate, their jealousy and also their love with a straight face on, chin high and shoulders up, always.

I couldn't show weakness, i was too scared to. Most of them did keep their hate hidden just like i kept my fear hidden. So it was all good. As long as the feelings we had remained deep inside and hidden then the after effect of them could remain almost non existent.

When i went for the competition, the one where the winner gets to be awarded with a scholarship to study in the prestigious Pristine high.

People were surprised. Why would i want to go to the school for the rich?

They wondered why I would want to leave a school where i was queen and was worshipped by thousands of people seeing that it was a government school.

They asked you know since they couldn't on their own make out why i would even want to go to Pristine especially after the rumours we've heard about the school.

That is, the bullying rumours and the crime rumors but i figured out that the rumors were made by those who wanted to go to pristine high but couldn't. So in other to assuage their disappointments at the fact that they couldn't go they found it better to spread rumors about it to make it seem like they didn't in fact want to go.

But every teenager knew the truth which was, everyone teen wanted to go to pristine high. It was after all the most expensive school in the country. The school for the wealthiest of the wealthy.

Who didn't want to go to the school for the rich where everything was beautiful and special. The only school in Nigeria modelled after the highschool in foreign countries.

I did want to. So did most of my friends even if they hid their interest. I knew that although most wished me luck more than half of the people who did wish me did in fact pray that i didn't get the scholarship.

But, God doesn't answer the prayers of the wicked so here i am in Pristine high on my first day of school looking all afraid and tired but again with a brave face on.

Today I'll be starting my senior class in Pristine high school. The school for the wealthy not just the rich.