Page 11 of Searching for Beautiful
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Eyes follow me all day.
Whispers, but no one actually speaks to me. There’s an invisible force field around me, keeping anyone from getting too close when I walk down the hallways. All my female teachers hug me. All the male teachers look at me awkwardly.
It’s not like it is in the movies. People don’t put signs on my back or shove mean notes in my puke-green locker. They don’t cough while muttering “slut” under their breath or trip me in the hallway or anything like that. Mean girls and bullies would almost be better, because right now, it’s like I don’t matter enough for anything. I’m not worth the time to pick on, but I’m still the black widow no one wants to get close to. Silence sometimes hurts more than anything.
For the first time in my life, I’m an outcast.
I used to be Ellie and Diana’s best friend—the girl who kicked ass at pottery. I was Ian’s girlfriend. Runner-up to Diana for sophomore winter formal princess. I had friends. Tons of them, and now, just like with Dad, people struggle to look me in the eyes. No one knows what to make of the girl who got knocked up by the small-town baseball star, only to lose it all. Lose my baby. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out the pain.
Unlike with Jason, it was always a real baby to me. I lost my baby… The thought makes my heart hurt but I struggle to ignore it.
I spend lunch in the bathroom. Yes, the bathroom. Only in southern Oregon would it rain the first day back at school. We usually have more time before the deluge starts, but I guess it’s fitting. Since we have a closed campus, the whole student body packs into the cafeteria. There’s no way I can be in there. Feel that many eyes on me at once.
Because I’m not desperate enough to actually eat in here, I shove my lunch into the trash. Like this morning, I look in the mirror, waiting, hoping to see something that isn’t there. When I hear the door creak, I push away from the sink, scramble into a stall, and close the door. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it. It’s easier to be ignored in a classroom of people than by one or two girls in the restroom who will be scared to talk to me, but unable not to look at me.
“I can’t believe summer is over already!” Diana’s voice mixes with the sound of the door opening.
“Right? I’m so not ready to be back in school,” Ellie replies.
I listen as they talk and laugh, probably while putting on their makeup. We used to do it all the time. I started telling the boys it was our time to rejuvenate, and soon Ellie and Diana began calling it that, too.
A smile pulls at my lips with the memory.
Decide to be friends with me again! Decide I’ve suffered enough. Decide to talk to me. To believe me when I tell you the truth. Or, at least, say you miss me. Please, just miss me…
More laughing and talking and then another creak of the door and I’m alone again. Anger rushes through me. I’m not even sure where it comes from, but it’s there, building higher and higher.
I miss them. Miss them so much it hurts. I know I told Dad I could do it, but I can’t. Not today.
The second I stumble out of the room, I run into a cloth-covered wall. A pair of hands grabs my elbows as I fall.
“Whoa, speed racer. I’m pretty sure you just ran a red light there. ”
I freeze, ridiculously wishing I could stay in this moment because it’s the first time someone has spoken to me normally in months. No accusation. No questions. No pity. No anger.
And it’s beautiful.
With no mirror, no roadblock, his eyes meet mine, crisp and clean, the bluest blue in the whole wide world. A cloudless sky. The ocean in Corpus Christi where we went on vacation one year. Like a fresh coat of blue paint on a newly fired piece of pottery. And familiar…somehow familiar, though I can’t place him.
Burnt-brown hair, a couple shades darker than his creamed-coffee brown skin. It’s kind of long. Long enough that it curls behind his ears so it doesn’t get in his face. For some reason, I want his hair to fall forward. For those too-blue eyes to look at me through the silky strands instead of dead-on. I’m not sure I’m good enough to be looked at with nothing between us. Maybe everyone else has it right and this boy who doesn’t put a buffer between us has it wrong.
“You good? If I let you go, you’re not going to bulldoze through me, are you?”
Normal. He’s talking to me so normally. His voice rattles me a little, squeezing inside me and passing barriers, like it’s a road traveled before.
I smell something slightl
y sweet…sugary but twined with a light scent of Irish Spring soap. Jason used to smell good, too. I’m sure that was part of his plan, just another way to lure me in. Though I guess I can’t really blame him when I let him do it.
“Can you speak?”
I jerk away from the guy when the bell rings. As though the sound opens the dam, a flood of students automatically fills the hall around us. I can imagine what everyone is thinking: Oh, now Brynn’s going to try to hook up with the new guy. Does he know she’s been pregnant? That she screwed an older guy? I’m sure they’ll tell him soon enough.
I can’t handle it. Without a word, I turn and rush away. I don’t even have to push through the crowd because it parts for me, everyone sitting back to enjoy the show.
Chapter Eight
