the girl on the bench

A young girl sits on a bench, surrounded by kids her age running around together on the playground. There are stains on their khaki shorts from the chopped-up tire mulch, their hands are blackened from it, and the smell of rubber in the August heat fills the air. The girl wasn’t placed on the bench for a form of punishment, she had just seen it when she walked outside and felt it a nice place to sit. She feels as if it were where she belongs. She recognizes a few faces from her class, can recall a few names, but she doesn’t know anyone - not really. She sits, observant and content. Her new pink tennis shoes swing back and forth above the ground. Her teacher is worried for her, though, and says she should find someone to play with.

Wanting to be respectful, the girl simply smiles and nods, leaving the safety of her bench. She walks a few laps around the playground, mulch shifting with each step. She doesn’t like the way it feels underneath her feet. She doesn’t like almost getting hit in the head by a ball whizzing by, even if it is only foam, and even if the boy wasn’t aiming it at her. She doesn’t like the strange looks a few of the other kids are giving her. It’s all just a bit too much. The sun bears down on her almost like it’s trying to melt her into the ground. Her cheeks heat with a flush of embarrassment. What kind of kid walks laps around a playground? Things were much better when she was sitting on the bench. No one could see her on the bench. Her bench was safe. As she comes round to her bench again, determined not to make eye contact with her teacher, who is surely disappointed, the young girl sees two others in the corner of her eye.

She doesn’t know how she missed them before. She sees them smile at each other and laugh, and she feels a distinct pull in her heart. She’s not afraid of them like she is of the kids on the yellow monkey bars or the ones sitting under the slide. She sees the two girls sitting on the sidewalk and they aren’t laughing at her. Their words seem kind and lovely, not at all harsh and surely to be critiquing her choice in footwear. She can’t walk right over to them – she'd be cutting across the playground. Cutting across the playground would surely earn her harshly worded comments from her classmates.

Besides, cutting across the playground would have her walk directly past the group of boys and girls who were brave enough to fraternize with one another. They weren’t afraid of how it would look. They didn’t worry if other kids liked their shoes, and they surely didn’t need a bench to feel like they belonged. So, no, the young girl will not walk directly to the other two. She’ll follow the path she’s taken around the playground until she gets to them. She’ll pass her bench, pass the bent-in green wire fence that kids are sticking their hands into, and she’ll pass the gap in the fence that’s grown more and more appealing as a form of escape since she’d first seen it. She wouldn’t actually go through the gap in the fence, because she’d not know her way home and get lost, and then her parents would worry about her. Really, she’s just better off staying where people put her and doing what they ask of her. It’s easier for everyone that way.

By the time she’s weighed the pros and cons of running away from school again and landed on “mmm, best not” as she always does, she’s reached the two other girls on the sidewalk. She stops, standing a few feet away from them. She’s not sure what to do. She’s never introduced herself to anyone before. Her dad always says that a strong handshake is extremely important, and he made sure she had one before dropping her off at school the first day. She runs through the checklist from her father’s instructions. Big smile. Statement of name. Firm handshake. She tries to remember what he’d told her would happen next. “And then BOOM, you’ve got yourself some friends!” he’d said, a smile wrapping around his face. It doesn’t seem so hard when he says it like that.

She takes a deep breath. All she has to do is what her dad said. The two girls are both sitting down, so a handshake might be a little awkward. In this situation, a wave might suffice. She can tell her dad her hands were dirty when he asks about the handshaking, because they are. Somehow the mulch had stained them, even though she can’t remember touching it, but she’ll just wash her hands before they go back to the classrooms. She walks forward a few feet, smiles at the two girls, raises her hand, and takes a deep breath.

“Hi! I’m Persephone.”