Midgar High School

I don't know what I'm doing anymore, I really don't.

I can't do this. I just can't. I'm not allowed to do things like this, to be like this...I'm just not allowed. If Mom and Dad found out there would be more than a little hell to pay, and I can't have that. I can't step out of their bounds or - or I don't know what will happen. I've never done it before, never taken the chance. They have their reasons for being like this, and I'm not going to begrudge them the little satisfaction they can still find. Even if it's not with me, but with the things I can do.

Mom is thirty-four this year. I'm eighteen. It's not difficult to do the math and figure out why they're pushing me so hard. It's not their fault that they want me to be better, it's not their fault that they want me to be everything they weren't. It's just...they're brilliant. Geniuses. I had to get it somewhere. I think this would be easier if they weren't as smart as me.

If they weren't as smart as me then maybe I wouldn't have to make secret compartments in my drawers to hide my prized posessions. Maybe my Sliver deck wouldn't be sitting, covered in dust, under a dozen pairs of identical socks. Maybe my Dungeon Master's guide wouldn't be bound in the cover from my freshman Sociology textbook. Maybe...maybe a lot of things wouldn't be how they are.

I want to go to Elena's and join in the campaign against the Orcs. I really do. I've had the character sheet for a druid tucked away in my diary--it has a lock, thank you--for almost two years now. Ever since mom and dad went to that lightweight plane convention and left me alone for a week. Oh, that was nice. I actually got to pull out my dice and roll a good half-dozen decent characters in the dining room. I was actually thinking of doing illustrations--even though I suck at drawing--when they called to say they were coming home early. So Thieral Havaruun and all his friends were folded up and hidden away. I haven't looked at them in almost a month.

I thought I was getting over it, finally growing up, but I guess that's not the case. Not that I'm not growing up, but that maybe growing up won't change how I feel and what I enjoy.

Gaea, but I envy Elena. She's so...so something. Something I'm not. She's real, and I'm not. She gets to be who she really is and it doesn't matter to the people she's friends with. I'll bet her parents were proud when she told them she was playing as a dwarf.

After school, in the library, she helped me roll myself a dwarf to play as against the Orcish Horde. Ralmun's going to need some excercise before the attack, but Tseng said he'd be more than happy to host a few mini-campaigns in the library during lunch to level him up. Oh yeah, I'm playing as a male dwarf. Like Gimli from Lord of the Rings, like Flint from Dragonlance, like Ghim from Record of Lodoss War. I always liked them, thought they were strong and that makes them great. They aren't as pretty as elves--like Legolas or Tanis or Deedlit--but they're strong.

I want to be strong. Strong enough to tell my parents I don't want to go to Junon University, to tell them I have a filled-out application for the Gongaga College of Technical Arts in the back of my DM manual, to tell tham that it's my life and I should be able to run it for once.

I envy Elena her strength so much. She plays with guys, for Bahamut's sake, and they treat her as an equal. I've never been treated like that before. Ever. I'm smart, and somehow that makes everyone seem to think I'm worth less than other people. Intelligence isn't worth anything, it's the kind of person you are underneath it.

I'm a great person underneath it, but the problem is that even I have to dig to find her now. She's been buried under so many Advanced Placement courses and scholarships that she's suffocating.

I'm suffocating.

I'm suffocating and I don't know how to save myself.

But...I have to admit that Elena's started to pull me up. I wish there was something I could do for her in return, but I can't even let her come over to my house. If my parents found out I was friends with someone like Elena they would lock me in my room until graduation.

They're okay with me liking Cloud, though, because he hangs out with Sephiroth. I like Cloud. I really, really do, but it's not because he's mock-popular or anything my parents seen in him. It's not because he's a physically perfect--blond hair, blue eyes, a decent tan and deceny build--according to my parents' strict guidelines, but because he's...nice. There aren't very many nice people.

But I don't think I deserve someone that nice. Someone who, apparently, would catch a girl about the same size as himself falling from the rafters in the gym. After talking with Elena in the library I was thinking about just giving up--she deserves him so much more than I do, and she's more likely to catch his attention anyway. She's strong and great, like her dwarf.

I'm jealous, and I don't want to be. I want to like Elena without thinking of how much better she would be for the guy that I like. I want to be able to wave at Cloud in the hall without wondering if he even cares. I want to do a lot of things.

If I were strong enough--if I were honest about my feelings--if my parents weren't so smart--

But that's not how things are. I doubt it's going to change any time soon, either. That's just not how things happen. It never has been, and it's never going to change. I don't know how to make it change.

I'll bet Elena does.