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She thinks that maybe it’s the bone structure.
Her face was odd, and it was odd in the way that it didn’t seem normal to anyone else. It was something different, and she didn’t like it.
Once, she waxed her eyebrows off entirely. All the way gone. The clock on the bathroom wall showed that it was late, a bit too late to be up. Good. Eye bags would diminish exceptional beauty.
She never got eye bags.
She had panted in front of the mirror, eyes tearing up, but smiling all the same. Finally, she wasn’t perfect. Finally, she felt she could match how pretty she was on the outside with herself on the inside. After so long....
She felt like she was crying happy tears, despite the constant twinges of pain, and it was glorious to feel individuality, as if she could choose what happened! Like she belonged in her body, after trying so long.
And then it grew back in the morning.
Flawlessly shaped and full.
And nothing she ever did changed anything.
God, it was so depressing to think about.
Nothing she did changed anything. Nobody took her seriously, nobody ever looked at her and wanted to see her any less beautiful. The best thing she could be was pretty.
And she didn’t really feel like she matched it, really.
Her body was different from her brain, her face didn’t match her heart - and she didn’t feel like her heart was even that great! She wasn’t super brave or smart or nice or anything, she was just pretty.
She wished she was ugly.
People whispered about her behind her back, and it wasn’t the kind that usually hurt feelings. Normally, nobody would be offended by being called gorgeous or beautiful or hot or cute or whatever adjective English could produce! Normally it would be accepted, craved, even!
But she wanted nothing more than to be wanted for being less than perfect, less than desirable. She was starving for genuine affection, and was getting superficial attention. She didn’t know if unconditional love was real. Isn’t that what a mother should feel?
Does her mother feel that, if she let this thing be her daughter?
It was like a drowning man being showered with money and being told to buy his way out. It would be helpful in any situation other than the one she was in.
Just once, she wished to shave her whole head and wear the ugliest jumper in the history of mankind. Sing like a tone-deaf monkey and break a glass, and have people act horrified and scandalized. She wanted to walk down the street and not hear anything but the cars roll by, and go to a coffee shop without getting five different numbers, maybe enjoy her black coffee for a change.
Anything but perfection.
She wore the loosest hoodies and sweatpants, littered with holes and frayed edges. Her hair was long and smooth. She kept it in a low ponytail, under her hood and away from sight. Nothing she did changed how people saw her. It was like she didn’t matter.
And then she had a brilliant idea; the kind of idea that deserved a light-bulb above her head and sparks behind her eyes. Something new and unexpected, something that could help her be her and not pretty -
A mask.
A mask! What a genius invention, the mask! Something not made to hide beauty, but to disguise an unwelcome face, perhaps. No matter. She wasn’t one to be proper.
She would wear a mask, and maybe people would listen to her words and not her bone structure, or whatever it was that everyone was fascinated with. It could also be her eyelashes or something.
And she got a mask. And went to school.
“Hi,” said her teachers.
“Hi!” said the boys, hoping to get a date.
“Hi!” said the girls, hoping to get a date.
“Hello,” said her friends, who whispered behind her back every time she turned around as if she was deaf.
“Hello!” said everyone passing by her in the hall.
It didn’t change anything.
Dear god, it didn’t change anything-
Nothing she did mattered, did it? She could scream to the high heavens that she’d had enough, and they’d smile and say hello. The holiest demons in Hell had blessed her with ugly beauty, and it was so terribly evil. She wasn’t sure if anyone ever saw her real face. Could she see her real face? Was she being tricked?
She was hiding in the bathroom. Sitting on the floor with her knees curled into her chest and her arms hugging her knees too tight and restricting her lungs so that they screamed louder than the thoughts in her head. It was smelly, and weirdly sticky, but she didn’t care. She was tearing out her hair, or was that even her hair?
The air was being stubborn and hiding from her nose, so she sucked in deep breaths through her mouth, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. It was so hot in the room but she was so cold, and her throat was so dry and parched that her tongue felt like rubber on sandpaper.
Breathe.
Breathe. Was this even her nose?
Breathe.
It didn’t matter, she didn’t think.
Was this even her brain?
She didn’t care.
She smiled up deliriously at the ceiling. “Hello,” she said, and she knew it sounded like honey in December, but all it felt like was February rain.
It was too cold for her here.
Way too cold........
She wanted to just fall asleep.
...
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the world would let her not wake up?
She hated that fairy that had given her mother the boon of the most beautiful child.
She wished she could be ugly. She wished that when she cried people didn’t whisper about how beautiful she was. She wished that her anger was horrifying. She wished her ill manners were repulsive.
She wished she could be ugly.