Rainbow Loom

Michelle Fang

edited: Saumik Sharma

Ever since I started kindergarten, I had always been surrounded by friendship. I never thought about it, but I always knew exactly what to say and what to do. I seldom wondered what others thought about me, because, frankly, I did not have to. 

This all changed once I started second grade. 

There was a girl in my grade that had Harlequin-type ichthyosis; a rare genetic mutation that caused scale-like plates to form on her entire body and the water lines of her eyes to turn out. The boys called her cruel names like “zombie” and “monster,” while the girls acted as if she was contagious, screaming and running away if they ever brushed arms with her. During recess, she would sit by herself working on a rainbow loom (tiny rubber bands people used to tie or braid together to make all sorts of jewellery) earning herself another nickname, “the spinster.” 

When I saw she was in my class on the first day of school, I was scared. I had seen her a couple of times before and every time I laid eyes on her, a shiver ran down my spine. What would I say? What would I do? 

As fate would have it, we were sorted into the same table group. In some places, it seemed her skin was peeling off, and the cracks in her skin were so deep I could see her flesh. The two boys on our table grouped off, leaving us alone. We sat there awkwardly until I finally broke the silence. 

“Where are you from?” 

She replied with a short answer: “Hong Kong.” 

“Nice… Me too!” I smiled. “Obviously she’s from Hong Kong! We live in Hong Kong!” I thought to myself.

Then, a silence so crushing ensured that I had no choice but to continue asking clumsy questions to keep the conversation alive. “Do you have siblings?” “A younger brother.” “What’s he like?” “Nice.” 

Despite the awkwardness and discomfort, she seemed nice enough. 

By the end of the day, I learned that her name was Eloise Li. As the school year progressed, I got used to Eloise’s face and no longer had trouble looking into her eyes. Our conversations became less forced, and soon our teacher had to separate us because we “talked way too much during class.” 

As Eloise and I spent more and more time together, I learned more about her condition; it caused her skin to grow too fast, which was why it looked the way it did. She had to care for her skin every day so it would not grow too thick or get infected, and she could not play in the sun or she would overheat. I noticed that she gazed at her skin a lot, and after each glance, her eyes would grow red and watery. 

One day, she asked me to help her with her rainbow loom during recess. I agreed, and when my friends asked me to join them in our usual games, I shook my head with a smile. Then, I followed Eloise into the giant auditorium steps of the playground, ignoring the bewildered looks my friends exchanged. She taught me how to make a single loop. Take one rubber band, twist it once and loop one side on your pointer finger and one side on your middle finger. Take another rubber band and loop it on both fingers without twisting. Take the bottom rubber band and loop them over the top one. Then, keep adding rubber bands on top. One side then the other, over and over. Red dancing with green, blue with orange. Eloise and I started working on this rainbow loom “rope” every recess. I would turn down my old friends, and then find a place to sit with Eloise. We sat facing each other, knee to knee, pulling, looping, and gossiping. 

We tried to do more complicated designs, but it always ended in knots and giggles. At the end of every recess, we held the loom at each end to see how the distance grew between us, and soon we were able to stand at opposite ends of the playground. 

One recess, I finally gave in to my friend's pleas to play soccer with them, and when Eloise walked up to me holding the rainbow loom rope, I declined. The game was fun. I quickly fell into the good old rhythm of the girls versus boys soccer game I was used to, clapping and laughing whenever my team slipped up and screaming and laughing whenever we had a victory. Smooth arms and legs brushing up against each other, smiling cheeks tinted red, and crescent, lidded eyes. Just like normal, it seemed. While I was standing beside the goalpost, waiting for my turn to play, a boy came up to me and tapped my shoulder. 

“Are you close with Eloise?” he asked. 

“Um… Kind of?” I replied, not so eager to talk about Eloise at the moment. Soccer had nothing to do with her; soccer was for typical kids. 

But, the truth was that I was closer to Eloise than I had ever been with anyone before. She was my best friend - but that was my secret. 

“What happened to her? Not to be mean or anything, but isn’t it like she's from a horror movie?” he asked. His voice had a mocking edge as if he had made a joke and expected me to laugh. 

I turned away.

The next day, I returned to the steps with Eloise. 

“Did you have fun yesterday?” she asked. 

“Not really, I don’t think I will be playing with them again,” I replied with a shrug, remembering my conversation with the boy. 

When my eighth birthday came around, I did not hesitate to put Eloise’s name on my list of invitees. However, when I showed it to my mom, she stopped when she read Eloise’s name. “Are you sure you want to invite her?” She asked, crinkling her nose. I was surprised, my mom was the one who told me to be friends with everyone. 

“She is my friend,” I said. 

My mom sighed, “It’s just that… She’s going to be a black hole in the photo.” Sorry darling, I’m sure she is amazing but…” She just shrugged. 

But, I was stubborn. I invited Eloise anyway, but my mom’s words resonated with me. After my birthday party, looking at the photos taken that day, it was true; all I saw was Eloise. Her face was paler than everyone else, her eyes wide and glistening as if in perpetual pain, her smile always crooked. No matter where I looked, my eyes were always drawn back to her face like a moth to a flame. 

One day, my mom came to read a book to the class. When I got back from recess, there were only two seats left — one between Eloise and my mom, and one next to Summer, a girl I used to play soccer with. Eloise patted the seat next to her excitedly. I smiled at her, but I couldn’t bring myself to approach her. Instead, I went to sit next to Summer.

“Sorry,” she said, blocking the chair with her hand, “I think you should go sit next to Zombie,” she whispered, quiet enough to be out of the teacher’s earshot but loud enough for all my classmates to hear. 

I stood there completely tongue-tied. Everything from the school year I had been trying to ignore came surging back; the stares I got when Eloise and I walked down the halls together, how my friends no longer asked me to play with them, and the stupid smiles teachers gave me whenever I paired off with Eloise during class. 

I hated it. I hated everything. It was like all I was, was Eloise’s friend. She was like a void, sucking me into her and destroying everything about me that wasn’t associated with her, just like my mom said - a black hole. I couldn’t take it anymore. 

A tear rolled down my cheek, then, another, and another. I cried until my cheeks and nose glistened with tears and my eyes shone blood-red. I could not stop. Every time I managed a breath, another wave of tears came over me. I felt everyone’s eyes on me, with Eloise’s stare piercing into me the most. 

That night, after my mom tucked me in, I lay staring at the ceiling. I could not fall asleep no matter how hard I tried. Everything that happened made me feel like screaming. I liked Eloise - she was a great friend - but I just missed being “normal.” I missed being seen as something other than “Eloise’s friend.” I missed fitting in. I missed it so much. 

That night, I fell asleep praying that the next day, Eloise would wake up with skin as smooth as everybody else’s. 

I wonder how many times she’s done the same thing.

The next day, we were both trying to ignore what happened the day before. Eloise talked to me as if nothing was wrong, but she was hurt. I could see it in her eyes. Looking back, she probably felt like she was a weight dragging me down; the only reason I was friends with her was that I felt sorry for her. That, of course, was not the case, but I did not do anything to reassure her otherwise. 

During recess, we worked on the rainbow loom in silence. I stared at the soccer field, where the boy that had asked me those questions was dribbling the ball towards the goal. He was laughing and smiling, his friends cheering him on. I felt frustrated and angry. Why was he the one having fun? Why was I the one being excluded? 

It was too much to be Eloise’s friend. The punishment of association was too much for me to handle. 

In third grade, Eloise and I were sorted into different classes and, to be honest, I was pretty relieved. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. 

We would smile at each other as we walked through the halls and that was it. Eloise tried to hang out with me during recess but I was always busy playing tag in the sun. “Maybe tomorrow,” I would tell her. 

There was never a tomorrow. 

I made new friends. I was no longer seen as “Eloise’s friend". I was me. 

As the days went by, Eloise and I grew more and more distant until we did not even glance at each other when we passed each other in the hallways. From the outside, you would have no clue about our past friendship. And, to be honest, I was starting to forget about it too.

At the start of middle school, I became close with a girl called Heidi. She was sarcastic, awkward, and kind. We fit like puzzle pieces. We discussed math equations and essays over lunch. We complained about the Chinese class during reading time. We took art lessons together on the weekends. Our only arguments were about whether the violin or clarinet was the better instrument (the clarinet is superior, so there was no real competition there). 

Smiles and laughter filled my days once again, a gentle reminder of my friendship with Eloise. 

After the first few weeks of school, Heidi asked me to sit at her lunch table. After paying for my food and sitting down, I realized that Eloise was sitting right across from me. 

Of course, Heidi was friends with her. 

I looked down at my food, embarrassed, and all my memories of Eloise flooded back into my mind. 

It was strange like that first day of second grade when we were seated at the same table where we did not know when or how to talk. It was like our entire friendship had never happened and we could only sit there awkwardly fiddling with our silverware. Suddenly, I noticed she was wearing a rainbow loom bracelet. Its patterns and design were much more complicated than the strings we used to make haphazardly. Eloise discreetly moved her arm below the table when she noticed I was looking, and finally broke the silence. 

“Hey.” 

“Hi.”

It all came back as if the rainbow loom we had worked on all those years ago was unfurled and stretched across the playground again, and all the memories of our friendship that had been hidden away were now in full, vibrant technicolors—if the elastic bands that had been meticulously drawn in and out and through each other were as complex as our friendship. 

There was a wound in our relationship that could never quite heal. I knew that, but the fear of getting hurt again reminded me of all of the past caution and divide that had left an indelible mark in my memory. Clumsy rips stressed the rubber-bands of our past, but the elastic bands of our rainbow loom still managed to hold together, although close to snapping. The tail of the weave remained loose with the potential to grow longer and longer, to stretch far beyond that middle school playground.

It’s been three years since I transferred schools, but I still cannot help but wonder if she still has that playground-length rainbow loom.

← Edition Menu