They all heard the veiled whispers about her. Sat behind her horn rimmed glasses, Sarah was purported to be the genius. The problem with being a genius is that people set themselves apart from anyone who falls outside of the norm. She was lonely, isolated, ignored. Her tears went unnoticed. No-one saw the way she longed for normality. No-one wiped away the tears from her tear stained cheeks, as she lay awake while all others slept. She longed to be like everyone else, though knew she never could be.
Her parents made sure that would never happen. As soon as she displayed unhappiness, her parents had taken her to a shrink to find out why their baby girl was different from others. Once diagnosed as genius, nothing would ever be normal. News soon hit the classroom that Sarah was absent because of appointments with the shrink. News like that travels fast and no-one was surprised, least of all Jennifer who lived next door.
Jennifer knocked at the door, but she didn't want to be Sarah's friend. She just wanted to get inside that house and stare at this freak everyone talked about. As Sarah's mother let her in with an encouragement which was almost overwhelming, Jennifer looked at the freak's house. It was filled with certificates. On the wall of the hallway, there were lines of certificates, where other people had photographs. Another thing she instantly noticed was the silence. Most kids of Jennifer's age had music blaring from their bedrooms, but not Sarah. When she entered Sarah's room, true to form, she was sitting on her bed with a huge textbook, her spectacles balanced on the end of her nose. Hi, said Jennifer though Sarah knew why she was there. They made fun of her in the canteen. They poked fingers in her direction when they thought she wasn't looking, though she was.
What Sarah wanted was to meet someone who would just let her have fun. Often, she had seen girls walking down the corridors at school arm in arm and had never experienced that warmth. Falling asleep in class didn't help, and certainly the reputation of straight A's made her street credibility zero. In this neighborhood people didn't get scores like that. Only Sarah did. Jennifer asked Sarah to help with an algebra problem, though she didn't want help. She just wanted to hear that complex explanation that came out with an enthusiasm in language she didn't understand. After all, that added fuel to the fire that Sarah was a freak.
Growing through the awkward stages of puberty, Sarah tried to fit in. Even in this moment of doubt, she was open to friendship. She offered Jennifer a drink, and asked if she wanted to go the Mall. After all, wasn't that what normal girls did? Of course Jennifer declined. She certainly didn't want to be seen in public with the nerd. Hers was a mission. She was there to find something else they could poke fun at. Sarah asked if she would like to hear her records. It was almost too good an invitation and Jennifer was curious to know what nerds listened to. Passing her Chopin's Nocturnes record to Jennifer was a mistake, as and soon as Jennifer looked at the front cover, Sarah knew she had misjudged the situation and had blundered.
It wasn't easy being gifted. Often in the quiet of her room, Sarah prayed to God to take that gift back. I just want to be normal she would pray, and wondered what it felt like to be the girl who kissed boys or smoked the odd cigarette. What made it worse was that everyone expected her to be perfect. Her mother expected nothing less than excellence. Her father didn't give her hugs. He gave her literature. Even her grandmother gave her book tokens instead of computer games. They all assumed she wouldn't respond to normal love, and were wrong.
The sad fact was that no matter what Sarah did, she was not likable. Something pointed a huge finger at her, and she often looked behind her to see if some label had been placed on her back in fun. It always felt like it, though in actual fact, no-one ever got close enough to do that. Childhood wasn't a voyage of discovery, other than discovering the discomfort associated with trying to make friends.
Now, in retrospect, life is better for Sarah. She has a great job, a boyfriend who understands nerds, and a home to be proud of, left to her by her parents. The certificates are gone, and have been replaced with family pictures. As puberty turned into adulthood and independence, so her character developed, and she learned to love who she was, instead of being reminded that she was somehow different. The early twenties is a time when a girl does a lot of self seeking, and in the middle of the Mexican desert, Sarah found that she actually liked the person she was, and life changed.
Jennifer, on the other hand, went through that same life changing experience of seeking self worth, and didn't much like the face which looked back at her from the bedroom mirror. Shallow and meaningless were words which sprang to mind. She had been popular at school. She had friends, though none of them wanted to know her now. It had been fun in school, though now she had a dead end job, friendships which were fleeting and an envy for me, the genius next door. Suddenly it wasn't so bad being Sarah.