Short Story: The Inheritance - Part three

When I was going through school, I knew just how she felt - not really fitting in. I never did either. Perhaps I was fey like her, although I didn’t know what it meant back then. Ours is a small community and perhaps it was just that folks knew I was related to her and they didn’t like that; although that wasn’t something I could help. Perhaps it was just the color of my skin – I always was a little darker than most of the other kids, like I’d been out in the sun too long. Just like her. Either way, throughout school, I had more than my fair share of hair pulling, being tripped up in the corridors and having my lunch box snatched.
I guess I can’t blame the other kids for not wanting to be friends with me, half of them had relatives who’d gotten sick back then or so they said. It was hard though, desperately wanting to be a part of a group who wouldn’t accept you. I was marked out from kindergarten and it only got worse as we’d all gotten older. I can remember looking with envy at the girls who used to hang out with the popular guys, the ones who were the jocks, the sports heroes – the ones who used to call me a freak. They were the girls with the blue eyes and long fair hair, or so it seemed to me looking at them out of my own eyes - eyes as dark with resentment as the rocks on the mountains outside our back yard.
I’d like to say my life changed when Alex walked into it and I guess it did for a while. He was different from the rest. His mom and dad had moved up there from the city. “My dad’s a writer,” he’d said dismissively. “He wants the quiet to finish some book or other.” Alex didn’t take too kindly to the move. “Where do you guys hang out?” he’d said. Where are all the coffee shops and malls?” There weren’t too many of those on our island. I suppose he had us all marked down as country bumpkins. The moment I clapped eyes on him though, I knew I wanted him and the feeling seemed to be mutual. In a way, I guess he saw in me the same things that my grandfather had seen in my Gran – in his eyes I was exotic, different from his slick city friends. Of course the other kids soon filled him in about me but it didn’t seem to make any difference and soon we were an item.