I'm Pretty

I rubbed at my eyes, trying to make them look even.

"See?" I asked my reflection. "I'm beautiful. See?"

Growling at my many past and future attempts at making myself look nice, I pulled the rubber bands from my hair, dragging out long, frizzy strands of brown after it.

"Okay, hair. We can do this." Carefully, watching to mirror the whole time as I worked, I fixed up my mop of hair to the best of my abilities.

The pigtails still looked hopelessly uneven and weird.

Who where's pigtails in seventh grade anyways?

Me apparently.

I scowled, turning my face away from the mirror so as to not have to witness my face crinkling up. I had ten minutes until I was going to be late for school, which meant four minutes to hurry the fuck up and be pretty.

"Nancy," my mother called from the door. "We have to go." Her dead voice did nothing to reassure me, despite the fact that she was probably trying to think of something to reassure me. My mom doesn't seem to have any motherly instincts though.

I nodded, and with one final scorned look at the mirror, grabbed my backpack and swung it over my shoulder.

The car ride was, as you would guess, full to the brim with SILENCE, so as nothing actually happened, I won't embellish you on all of the fascinating details.

***

Class. Mr. Whatshisname. Nancy Fucking Drew who happens to share my name. The horrible spot by the vent that makes me always smell suspiciously like whatever is in the vent. That new kid in the back who won't. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

|Seriously. That kid needs to quiet down. Even Nancy Fucking Drew is getting annoyed with his constant stream of chit chat.|

"Owen, will you please be quiet. You're disrupting the class," Mr. Whatshisname said, his voice breaking through the aching silence.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Sure."

Brushing off all the stares he got from his classmates, Owen, or whatever just sat back, his big, green eyes swiveling around the room to survey the class. I shook my head, trying to pawn off my annoyance. With Mr. Whatshisname providing the white noise that was filtering through my head and that guy, I could never focus on what was really important: surviving the day.

After class, Owen of all people was the first person to approach me in my life and tell me I was pretty. I told him to go fuck off. After he left, I stood by my locker, marveling in the fact that this guy called me pretty and the fact that I had lost my English notebook. I mean, neither was really good, as Owen wasn't even cute (he looked like a normal boy), but the fact that e had called me pretty made me want to hurl. And in that moment, I decided that I hated him.

Yeah, this wasn't a good idea. This was a really bad idea. I hate little notes like these. Eh. PRACTICE.