Personal Narrative: Elaine Mackay

Elaine MacKay stood out like a sore thumb in the midst of the manicured nails of Phillips Academy. Short, overweight, with a flat face that only a mother could love. Elaine held herself high with pride as the only student at Phillips to have Down Syndrome. The rest of us avoided her. Why would I, a member of one of the most popular cliques in the school, ever stoop down to her level? She had created her own level of the food chain, one that many of my fellow classmates called the ‘Retard Zone’, but was nearly indifferent to the levels above her. She tried to befriend everyone she came into contact to, which I assumed was to make herself feel better. But to my surprise and disbelief, she would successfully change my point of view on her strange ways, and in a way I never expected.
A nickname that I was given by my mother at the age of 3, nonetheless, but it was better than being called Richard. I didn’t stand out in the crowd. At least, not like Elaine. 5’10” with a wiry frame, I held myself in somewhat of a high place in my group of friends. My looks weren’t enough to send girls swooning when I walked in the room, but I was working on it. My daily trips to the gym were helping. Some said I was crazy to put myself, a tall and thin teenager, in the middle of the noisy, cramped man cave of the city gym. But crowds were one of my favorite places to be. I wasn’t afraid of the hustle and bustle in the halls of school or in the local mall where my buds liked to scout out chicks. I enjoyed standing in the middle of it all and admiring the river flow of bodies, all with somewhere to go. One particular day, I got out of class a bit early at the end of the day and stood in my normal place by the bathrooms to wait for my friends. Elaine, to my surprise, came strolling out of the restrooms and walked right into