Numb

There was certainly a horrified look in Darcy’s eyes. She was at the department store with her mother, Meredith, and her mother insisted that she had to try on this dress. It was a pink, tulle monstrosity that certainly would drag behind the small girl, but her mother did not care. She wanted to get solo shots of Darcy when they did their family portraits besides the family shots with her mother and father. There was already a hideous white sundress for that set of photos, even though it is early December and everything about these photos were drastically out of season.

Meredith attributed Darcy’s behaviour towards dresses and other girly things that she personally grew to enjoy to the fact that Darcy is a ‘bratty’ fifteen year old. She honestly made sure to go the extra mile to put Darcy in hyper-feminine clothing to hopefully bring out the girly-girl side of Darcy, she was fully convinced that it just needed to be coaxed out, even if it was by force.

Meredith scowled at her daughter, “You are actually the most ungrateful little brat I have ever witnessed, do you realise that? I am actually horrified at your behaviour right now.” She hissed at the girl, crossing her arms and closing in on her child, cornering her into the empty fitting room.

Darcy frantically looked around, hoping to find some person to get her out of this, literally anyone would do at this point. Alas, there was not a single person in sight on this level of the department store. She reluctantly took the dress into the fitting room as her mother followed her in, practically slamming the door in annoyance.

The dress fit almost too tight on the top section, every movement feeling borderline suffocating. The skirt was wide and fluffy and very itchy, irritating the skin on Darcy’s legs as its rough fabric brushed against her. The dress was much too long, but Meredith was insistent that Darcy got these “darling little heels” that would allow her to not drag the dress carelessly as she walked. At this point, she did not even try to contest the outfit situation, she knew she wouldn't win and she knew that she would be forced to wear this godforsaken thing out in public.

As soon as her mother smiled and nodded with approval, the dress was off. It was almost instantaneous. She hates dresses, especially the overly pink and pretty ones. She would honestly rather wear trousers and a top, a statement she actually uttered a few days prior, which nearly caused her mother to faint. At this point, Darcy wanted to get home and shut herself in her room. She knows that she will probably have to endure some bullshit when she gets back though, she knows better than to look at anything her mother picks out for her in distaste. She doesn’t even have to speak of her annoyance of the peace, the pure disdain in her eyes is enough to set Meredith over the edge. As she slips back on her sweatpants and hoodie, her mother is walking out of the changing room to buy the dress so they can get back home.

Darcy looks into the scratched up dressing room mirror and sees her reflection. Her long brown hair is in a tight ponytail that falls to the left side of her, she has dark circles that seem to be permanent and her lips are chapped and fading from their usual color. She has her football warm up gear on even though she is currently ditching her normal Sunday goalkeeper practice to shop with her mother. She momentarily considers quitting the team as she looks at her tired reflection and feels the aching of her back and legs from their particularly difficult training yesterday. She plays for Kent United’s girls side, she's considered a star goalkeeper and she is on track to hopefully go to the United States for university to play for one of their teams. Football is currently her out, she doesn’t really enjoy the sport anymore but it gives her an excuse to not be around her family, and she takes anything she can get. The best part is that she usually has to take the train right after school to get to practice since her parents are working, meaning that most days, she's alone from the moment she buses to school until she gets home, and half the time her parents are nowhere to be found. This is the way she likes it.

Darcy walks out of the fitting room to find her mother, the abrasive dress in hand which is wrapped in cellophane, her hand on her hip as she scowls at Darcy. “Car. Now.” she growls. Darcy obliged, the quicker she got into the car, the quicker she would be home, the quicker she would be screamed at, the quicker she would be sent to her room without dinner, the quicker she could put on her headphones and blast music.

Despite her initial predictions, the yelling started in the car. Her father drove them to the department store and he began to complain about how long this trip had taken and how much time was taken away from him doing something productive, like working on his projects for his clients. She tunes a lot of this out, staring out the window at the passing buildings and shops, the groups of friends chattering, the loving families holding their young children's hands as they walk down the sidewalk. Darcy was almost jealous of these people, they seemed to be having a better time than she did, hell, the world seemed to be having a better time than she did. Years of practice prepared her for the frequent occurrences: parents telling her that she is a failure, that she doesn’t do enough, she isn’t smart enough, all that jazz. She knew how to skim through their piercing insults to respond when she needed to, she knew how to tune out certain parts so she would be less likely to cry and to change her facial expressions to not offend them. She needed to feel the right emotions on the outside when they expected her to feel those emotions. They went on and one, not stopping for so much as a breath the entire car ride home. They pulled into their driveway and they all exited the car, Darcy being the last inside, locking the door behind her and sighing.

Luckily, since they had yelled at her for the entire twenty minute ride home, she only had to stand in front of her parents while they threw verbal daggers at her for about twenty more minutes. In those twenty minutes, she was expected to look directly at them, stand right in front of them and not break position. If she even slouched, they started to get angrier. One day after football when they had gone through this ritual of verbal abuse, she started to lose balance due to the pain in her legs and her father went as far as to shove her to the ground. It was rather intense and she put up with it at least a couple times a week. It got to the point where they were tired of looking at their “fuck-up daughter,” sending her to her bedroom and telling her that she wasn’t allowed out of it until tomorrow morning. If Darcy could, she would skip up those damn stairs since it meant avoiding them for the entire night.

Once she got in her room, she shut and locked her door and plopped on her bed, opening her computer and instantly going to Spotify. She looked for the right playlist, settling for her usual playlist and hitting shuffle after sliding her earbuds into her ears, blaring Numb by Meg Myers. She slouched on her headboard and opened her phone, glancing over a few missed texts from coaches letting her know to get better soon. Her mother must’ve lied and said she was sick in order to get her out of training. She sighed as she opened Instagram to scan over her DMs, noticing that her group DM with her friends titled ‘The Bitches’ has 54 unopened messages.

To make a long story short, her friend Lena wanted them all to hang today. Lena is like the leader of the group and the rest of them are always quick to follow right behind her. Her other two friends, Robin and Macie agreed and then the rest of them essentially kept trying to pester Darcy to hang out until they ultimately gave up. They always seem to forget about her constant football training just to get pissed off that she cannot make it to many hangouts. Darcy sighs and exits from the messages, knowing she will get a ton of shit for it tomorrow before school. She reads through the rest, mainly just individual messages from Lena, Robin and Macie asking if she’s busy and why she isn’t answering. There is one message that sticks out to her though, this one came from Tara Jones, the girl she sits next to in form and a couple other classes. She opens it and reads it: hey, it’s tara, did you do the homework for maths?

Shit. There was maths homework?! Are you actually fucking kidding right now? It’s like the universe hates her. She quickly types back fuck no, is that a shock? And sits up, grabbing her bookbag, dragging it onto her bed and she finds the notebook she uses for class, turning to the pages she bookmarked on Friday. Thank god Tara reminded her about it or she would’ve missed yet another assignment, earning her another yell session from her parents. She starts working on a problem when her phone pings again, another DM from Tara. Darcy opens it to find a photo of the homework. Darcy scribbles the answers down as quickly as possible and throws the work back into her bag, texting Tara back:

Darcy: holy shit, you are actually a lifesaver. thank you bunches x.
Tara: it’s no problem, i know you usually forget and you have practice all weekend, better than watching you suffer in the class.

Right as Darcy is questioning how Tara Jones of all people remembered she had practice instead of her own best friends, she remembered complaining about the extra training sessions that were loaded onto her already busy schedule a week prior. It was honestly shocking Tara remembered that conversation or to text Darcy with the work so she could just copy it. It was honestly the sweetest thing anyone has done for her in a while, and that’s saying something.

She decides to turn off the main light in her room and switch on her fairy lights instead after about an hour. One hour has passed and all she has thought about is the time she WOULD have spent struggling to comprehend year 10 maths homework. It was kind of ridiculous when she thought of it in depth. As she stared at the ceiling with White Noise by PVRIS playing, she just kind of over thought about her life. What the hell was she doing anymore? She wasn’t just stressed about her parents and the yelling and the perfection in football. There were other things, things that would turn her into a social pariah at Higgs, like the fact that when a very pretty girl walked her way, she couldn’t help but stare. Or the fact that when another girl is close to her, she can’t help but wish the contact lingered. Or when a girl calls her pretty, she gets butterflies in her stomach, or maybe that is just the feeling of her being sick with stress as she represses these emotions as much as she physically can.

She knows that she is different, but she wouldn’t dare say a word, no matter how awkward it felt when her friends tried to pair her up with boys like Sai Verma or Ben Hope. These boys have no sort of appeal to her. No boys have any appeal to her. She knows that she is a lesbian, but will she ever say anything? Not while she’s in Kent. She knows that she could never, her parents would probably kick her out and she would be an outcast at school, not that she fully cared about popularity, she just didn’t want to be alone. Thinking about this pulls her into a panic attack, the thoughts suffocating her as she tries to steady her breathing. Tears started to fall from her eyes as the emotions she should have been allowed to feel as the day went on resurfaced. This is a common occurrence for Darcy unfortunately.