3. “I’m such a little monster”

Delicately, I run my palms over my face, searching for any unwelcome signs of pimples. I'm not sure if it's a genetic thing but whenever I'm in a new environment, my face tends to breaks out.

"Nope. You're good." I confirm confidently with myself.

Now Jada, why do you talk to yourself? How about getting a real friend?

I just took a hot shower and applied moisturizer along all the necessary areas. I put on underwear and head out in the room to drag on some Adidas sweat pants, hoodie sweater and Nike shoes.

As I head back towards the bathroom, I can't ignore the burning, uncomfortable feeling of being watched. The intense stare down brings my steps to an abrupt halt, glancing over to my right. She is sitting on the edge of her bed, neatly dressed with her legs crossed and her hands on her knee. A friendly smile dances away at her face.

"Why are you watching me?" I shrug in question.

"I was.. I was waiting for you?" She shrugs with a sheepish smile.

"I'm sorry....uhm.." I ramble.

"Mariyah." She finishes my sentence, realizing I have no idea what her name is. "I was wondering.. maybe we could.. hang out? I'm not used to being around a lot of people my age. You see, I was homeschooled all my life.."

"Uhm.. Mariyah.. you're gonna be fine. After that shit I pulled yesterday, I'm sure no one will mess with you again." I retreat to the bathroom and she follows me.

I remove the scrunchie from my long, curly, mixed hair.. letting it free of the hold, it hangs down my back, rocking from hip to hip until it's still. I begin to brush it into perfection, letting the curls coordinate and align. I would say I'm significantly pretty, with light skin, more like caramel.

My mom is Australian, she's white with blonde hair. Paige gets most of her physical appearance from her, while my dad is of African descent, Nigerian even, and that explains why I'm mixed.

I snap out of my rare trance of self admiration when Mariyah's voice interrupts.

"It's just that.. I'm so different from everyone. I always draw attention to myself.. from the wrong people." She rambles, the nervousness and dubiousness clear as crystal in her tone.

I roll my eyes prior to turning around and immediately walking towards her. Placing both my palms on her shoulders, she hugs her body, biting at her lower lip and I instantly know that's her tell when she's nervous.

"Mariyah? When you're different from everyone, the good thing about it is that.. well, that you're different from everyone. Don't ever.. ever try to be like them or discredit yourself for the flaws they find in you." I pause to take a deep sigh. "You're only a bother to people that are insecure with their own selves. Being different is why they give you a hard time, because you're unique and they're not." I can tell her what she needs to hear but the heart to heart moment isn't my thing so I turn away the moment a smile begins to form on her lips as she stares at me.

I grab my bag, throwing it over one shoulder to head out.

"Jada!" She yells and I glance around at her.

"I.. I saw your name on your time table.. over your bed.. we uhm.. we have the same class right now. Can we.. go together?" Nervousness obvious in her tone.

Damn, get a grip mama.

Why do I make people nervous? I'm such a little monster.

I take another good look at her then shake my head and look away. "Alright." I give in raising one hand and plopping it down on my thigh.

"Great!" She squeals and on that note, we head to class.

Mariyah dresses so decent like a British high school student. Pleated skirt with oxford shirt underneath and tie.. and jacket over it. She even wears stockings and a heeled shoes with expensive leather. It's almost as if she's wearing a uniform.

I mean, loosen up a bit Einstein.

Her hair is in a high messy bun and I cannot help but notice that she's so gorgeous, it's next to insanity. Her silky caramel skin complexion is next to perfection, highlighting the naturally long lashes, so long that they're almost hiding her eyes which makes her even cuter. She's mixed as her hair has deep curls, almost like mine.

Zinh? -"approved."

Okay, Zinh is my robot imaginary friend. She's silver and is about 4ft tall. She was sent to me from a Chinese factory when I was very small. She mostly uses one word replies, she almost never speaks in full sentences and harshly honest. In her robotic tone of course. For example...

Zinh, how do you think I did on the test? - "failed."

Zinh, what's that smell? - "garbage detected."

Zinh, what's my sister like? - "a brat."

I know it's weird, but I am who I am. I know I'm growing up, but I've grown attached to her, even loving her more because of her excess rudeness and blunt outbursts which is normally the truth, she reminds me of myself.

I created this illusion in my head from a very tender age so it's kind of hard to get rid of now. The only persons knows about this are my parents and a therapist I saw once. I'm trying to wipe away this part of my mind for the sake of turning into an adult and being a normal person but I don't see that happening soon. Well, just not now..

Well, she is me.. and I am she..

I'm never the type to do friends but Mariyah seems so nice in a really weird way that peaks at my curiosity and she is also very polite and sweet.

On lunch, I search for a gazebo that is empty. As I spot one, I walk over to it with my food in one hand and my phone in the other.

I take a bite of my donut then begin to watch a cooking video on YouTube. Apart from political science and business, I've always wanted to be a chef but it's not my main goal.

Wow Zinh, how do you think that tastes? - "yummy." I giggle to myself.

"Wow, you like Italian food?" Mariyah's voice breaks the air as she sits beside us with her lunch.

I glance over at her and then back to my phone. Just when I thought we were alone. "Yeah." I say.

"I love food, especially pastries." She beams as I force a smile without responding. "Where are you from?" She asks again after about 2 minutes of loud, uncomfortable silence.

I hold up my head from my phone, looking straight ahead of me and then looking over at her. "Small talk?... No." I calmly say, then redirecting my focus back to my phone.

"You don't talk much, do you.." she flashes an amused smile.

"I talk when it's necessary."

She shakes her head and simply chuckles at my socially awkward personality.

~~~

As I scroll through random stuff on my phone, I sense the presence of someone else walking up and sitting across from me. Seriously, I only wanted to have a decent lunch alone and now it's 2 of them?

I roll my eyeballs upwards without changing any of my body's posture. My vision settles up on a guy with his nose all bandaged up.

My eyes finally find his annoyingly beautiful, deep brown eyes. So beautiful that for a moment I only saw his eyes and not him. Is that even possible?

"Hi.. Uhm.. I'm glad both of you are here. I'm sorry for what happened yesterday. I was a total dick, we got off on the wrong foot." Hmm. Does he sounds sincere?

I now lift my head completely, looking at him directly, knitting my eyebrows. Mariyah stays awkwardly silent, suddenly pretending she's interested in the surroundings. I suddenly feel the need to laugh. My face swells up, holding in the laugh.

"Tariq, right?" I ask.

"You remember." His lips threaten to flip into a smirk but he resists the urge and oh I'm so glad he did.

"Do you have a mother, Tariq?" I'm already getting annoyed.

"Uhh.. yeah?" His eyes become squinted eyes and knitted eyebrows.

"And she's alive?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm. You prolly have a sister too."

"Yes?."

"And yet, here you are.. going around being a pig to females." I place my elbows on the surface and lean forward in to him, his body shifts uncomfortably at my close proximity.

"I'm not usually like this.. it's just that, Shane is my cousin and I don't know what had gotten into us. We're just anxious about our second year at college and we had a bad misconception of what the freshmans would be like.."

"I don't give a shit. You are wreckless, pathetic, disrespectful, abusive, arrogant... you are just.. full of shit. You're a whole bag of shit." I hear a snorty laughter escapes from Mariyah and she tries to conceal it by covering her mouth and nose.

"Well, I guess I deserved that." He tilts his head downwards, playing with the material of his clothing.

"You're out of control dude! You owe Mariyah an apology too."

"You're right. Shane and I owe both of you an apology. He's not in today so I'm going to speak on his behalf. We were complete assholes and I promise that's not who we really are. We were out of line and I'm truly sorry." He says to both of us.

I could've sworn I just sensed a little sincerity in him just now. When I actually look through the barriers of him being an ass, he could almost pass for a decent human being. I mean, I give him credit for actually coming back to apologize, especially after that nose job I gave him.

And further more, he's pretty darn easy on the eyes. Tariq is tall, he wears braces over his already perfect set of white teeth which makes no sense to me, he's about 5"11.. shit, probably 6ft or over. His silky, chocolate dark skin goes perfectly with his glistening dark brown eyes.. his body looks hard beneath his clothing, probably an athlete or some shit.. he's just very good looking and handsome if I should admit.

His head is faded around the sides as his hair is long, curly and styled with twists that is laced with beads at the ends laying down in his face and around his head from in the middle. He's covered in designers. Mariyah steals a glance at him and bites her bottom lip, then looks at me in sympathy.

"I accept your apology." She smiles at him.

"Good. You can leave now." I shew him with a hand.

"But.. do you accept?" His eyes are visual evidence of his desperation.

"Goodbye." I continue to shun him away with my hand.

He holds his hands up in surrender and gets up to walk away. Tariq and his cousin were wrong. But although they wronged us, Tariq came back and made it right. I have to give them credit for that. Maybe they are actually decent guys who just wanted to poke their pathetic egos.

He turns again and looks at me with squinted eyes, like he's trying to figure out something. I guess squinting his eyes is a habit for him.. a very cute one at that.

"You look so familiar, Curly." He holds up an index finger.

"If you don't leave right now, Tariq.. I'm going for your jaw bones this time." I warn and he puts up his hands again with that annoying smirk. I give him the finger and he leaves.

I wouldn't want to be forced to dismantle such perfectly sculpted jawlines of his though.

"Oh my God, Jada. That was so cool." Mariyah squeels and I smirk while looking in my phone.

We stay silent for another 5 minutes and just when I thought I escaped the social torture, she starts again.

"Well, I don't wanna.. annoy you. I mean, I'm 18 now.. it's just that my parents really want me to make a friend, well.. they got me a therapist and it was actually her idea. You're my roommate and you broke a guy's nose for me, why wouldn't I want to be your friend?"

I hold my head up again with my brows knitted in question.

"Your parents hired a whole therapist just to tell you that you need a friend?" My confusion is obvious.

"Ugh. Sometimes I feel like they care too much. I mean.. I didn't have much friends because I was.."

"Homeschooled." I say finishing her sentence.

"Yeah!"

"Why would they homeschool you up until you're 18 and then force you to make friends now?"

"Because.. they're very high profiled and they've always wanted to protect me. They would introduce me to their rich friends kids but I just didn't click with them at all. They're just too... prudish."

"You're prudish." I say in a bored tone and she avoid the urge to feel offended, as if accepting the fact that that's just how I speak.

"Exactly. That's why I want friends that aren't... prudes."

"Well, your parents level of overprotectiveness is just insane.. I mean.. their profiles can't be that high."

"Trust me.. it is." She forms an unreadable look on her face.

"Try me." My interest slowly sparks up a little more.

"My correct name is Mariyah Dé'Neilio."

My eyes widen in shock and she folds her lips inwardly at my reaction. I cough. Is she really who I think she is?

"Dé'Neilio, as in.. the president's daughter.. Dé'Neilio?" I try to reconfirm, just in case I was hearing bullshit.