Chapter Text
Marlene had always known she wasn't like the rest of her family. Ever since she could remember her life had been a long game of trying to fit in no matter where she went. It was a fight to make friends with other people her age - in primary school, she would tend to befriend the boys her age but she was always told it wasn't “ladylike” and her catholic school had a strong belief that the boys and girls should be separated at this age, even though none of them dared to think about a relationship because it was “unholy” or not how God intended young girls her age to act. As she got older, her parents started to scrutinise her behaviour more. Marlene believed in expressing herself through style, but her parents saw it as rebelling just because she liked dark clothes and stared at the girls in magazines in awe of their coloured hair and edgy piercings, wishing she could be as cool as them.
Every Sunday, when it was time for chapel, the McKinnon family would dress up in their best clothes and their neat hair just to show off to everyone at the service. Every week like clockwork she'd be told off. “Oh Marlene,” her mother would sigh “can't you just wear something normal like the rest of us?” And if she hadn't been told that, there were still glares being shot and whispers exchanged through the congregation. It was almost like the entire town thought of her the same way as her parents - a troubled young lady who “needed guidance”
Even though she was only 11, Marlene had big dreams to leave her town and live her own life with no rules or restrictions. But for now, she just had to keep her head down and be the good catholic girl her parents needed her to be, even if that meant wearing boring clothes and being friends with the girls and praying every night until her knees felt as if they were about to give in. Surely soon she'd just be able to fit in and go with what her parents said. Maybe once she starts high school she can find a group of friends and fit in somewhere for once but what are the chances? Everyone she knows thinks of her as some sort of alien and she assumed nobody would even look her way unless it was to judge her or compare her to someone else. When you live in a small town like hers, there's nobody different. Everybody looks and acts the same no matter who they are or what family they come from because individualism is somehow seen as wrong. She thought maybe living life as a “sheep” instead of herself was just what she was missing, and maybe then she could make some friends that she was actually allowed to speak to and stop getting glares during mass.