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Once, there was a little bird.
She was a happy little bird, with lots of friends who she hugged and sang to every day, and a lovely family who loved her dearly. She sang so that she could share stories that made her happy and make other birds happy too!
But eventually, her family had to move away to a new flock.
She never quite understood why; a nicer nest, maybe? Maybe it was for the newest hatchling? Whatever the reason was, she was sad to leave her old friends, but she knew she could make some new ones, and she was determined to make the best of her time with her new flock!
Except… the other birds didn’t like her.
They were mean. They laughed at her and yelled at her and talked about her behind her back. They hated it when she sang; it was ‘annoying’ to them, even though it made her happy.
After a bit, she thought she had made some new friends! And she liked them a lot; she liked everyone in her new flock, even if they didn’t like her. Her friends were nice and included her, even if they didn’t like her singing as much.
But then she learned that one of them was only pretending.
She didn’t want to make her friends uncomfortable, so she left, and tried to make new friends, but was again met with failure when they broke her wing.
She couldn’t fly, she was scared of the others, and so she ended up walking around and singing to herself, trying to find any sort of the comfort she had once felt when doing so.
She couldn’t. They may have broken her wing, but what hurt more was her heart.
Her family noticed, and moved to another new flock. The birds there were all kind to her, but this time, she didn’t want to be friends with them. Of course, she still wanted to have friends, but why should she try if they all were going to hate her once they got to know her?
She didn’t want to be hated.
But as they kept trying and trying and insisting on being her friend, she eventually started following them around more and more, until they did become her friends. And her new friends were really nice!
But… they were going to leave her eventually, weren’t they.
She’d learned to be cautious of everything and everyone. She knew that they’d get sick of her once they knew what she was like. All her other friends had either left her alone, or she’d had to leave them alone, or they’d hated her. She bet that her new friends didn’t even like her songs.
And so, because she didn’t want to make it uncomfortable for them, didn’t want them to be the ones to leave her, she tried to leave instead.
But she just couldn’t.
She tried and tried and tried again, but she kept coming back. It was as if she couldn’t live without them. Pathetic, she thought. She knew that trying to be closer would just be a fruitless endeavour for her.
But she did try to get closer. And she did get closer. And she knew she drifted apart from some, even though it was only in her mind. She became a difficult friend to have, at least in her head. She became what she thought was a burden, and while she wanted to make more friends, she knew she couldn’t.
Because even though her heart had healed, her wing was still in ruins.