Real Life
Hermione sat, curled on the couch in the den. Both of her parents were at work, and she had turned all the lights off, leaving the blinds open so the grey sunlight could soak through. She watched the characters talk onscreen, listened to their loud American laughs, took in in their strange American hair. She wondered what it would be like to have a metal detector at school, to be able to wear whatever she wanted, to dress like the girl with the big eyes who ran around Claire Danes with a lollipop in her mouth and a gay boy in tow. She wondered what it would be like to have a boy she could take into the bathrooms with her, just to talk, and not have anyone care. Or, rather, to not care that anyone cared. She imagined having a girlfriend who would make her over, dye her hair, put makeup on her, and tell her that yes, that song that he wrote was totally about her! and O.D. at parties. Parties with drugs instead of teenagers full of junk food. Hermione wished the ghost of a gun was the biggest threat her school had. She wished for her very own Brian Krakow, someone to commiserate with about lurking beneath the girl you liked's window. She wanted a girl to like. But mostly, she wanted a Rayanne. Someone who could show by example that you could be cooler than everybody else just by deciding you were cooler than everybody else, and someone to not notice when she clutched her books a little close to her chest to hide what was growing there.
Hermione watched the DVDs and wondered what it would be like to be real.