The thing about being the only girl in the family is that I can get away with anything, short of murder, and everyone just chalks it up to me “being a girl”
I get dressed quickly, admire my new high school uniform for only five minutes instead of the usual ten, and amble downstairs.
The thing about being the only girl in the family is that I can get away with anything, short of murder, and everyone just chalks it up to me “being a girl.” It’s annoying at times, but it does have its perks. My brothers are tiptoeing around me as I fill a bowl with cereal, as if I might accidentally explode, and Daddy has checked in on me during the night a total of three times. The only one absent from my pity party is Ma, and I’m assuming that’s because she was hurt by my reaction. I can’t blame her, I was in full-on brat mode, but it was just a lot to handle.
It is a lot to handle.
I’m 14 years old, I just started high school, ballet is amazing, I have my own (tiny) room, and Shayna said I can pick the recital theme this year. But now, my long-awaited trip to Eretz Yisrael has been sidelined. And I earned this trip. Straight B’s in math last year. In math! Numbers make no sense to me. I listen in class, I really do, but before I know it, the formulas have all formed one giant numbers pyramid, and I’m doodling pointe slippers on my page with my mouth open in boredom.
And I’d gotten Bs! For me, that’s like climbing Everest. In ballet slippers.
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