See Me

48

"You didn't drink yourself to death, right?"

I forced my eyes open, instantly feeling the uncomfortableness in my body from the way I had slept. I couldn't remember how I got here, my legs thrown over the arm of the leather couch. The upper half of my body was almost off the couch altogether, my head pointed towards the ground.

"Guess not." Austin chirped out at my movements. He was standing over me, grinning.

"What's happening?" I asked him, pulling myself back onto the couch, stretching my neck to one side in hopes to relieve the built up tension.

"What's happening?" Austin chuckled, pushing my legs so they fell off the couch, and taking the unoccupied space. "You drank enough to knock out a horse, and then passed out on my couch. I thought about waking you up and asking if you were planning on going to school, but from the looks of you, I don't think you would have made it there."

"Probably for the better." I muttered out. I should care about school. I know I should, after the way my dad just laid into me. "You have a bathroom I can use?"

Austin nodded and pointed to a door down the hallway. I groaned as my stiffened joints stretched out when I stood on my feet. Once I was safely in the bathroom, with the door closed behind me, I sat down on the toilet with my head in my hands. I felt tired. But not in my body. I felt tired in my mind. I felt tired just simply in my existence.

I stared at myself in the mirror as I stood up.

Beauty. It's all I could see. I was almost blinded by own beauty, sometimes.

One thing we all have in common. We all seek it in one way or another. Some of us seek to display it, some seek to possess it. Some want to collect it, some want to harness it. It can be the downfall of us all, or the saviour. Some take it without asking. They steal it.

Now as a teenage girl, beauty is one thing we're all desperate for. No doubt due to the nonstop propaganda shovelled to us our whole lives. Can we even go a day as a young female without something reminding us that beauty is better? They tell us that everything will be better when we're beautiful. I believed them. I believed it when they told me that beautiful people are happier. I mean, what problems could a beautiful woman truly have? They tell us that harnessing beauty will allow everything to fall at our feet. They tell us that even when we're handed shit cards, if you're a beautiful girl it doesn't matter. A man will save you, if only you bat your long eyelashes at him. He'll save you if your waist is small enough that he can grip his hands around it with ease. He'll save you if you pout your perfectly shaped lips at him.

And I mean, they might be right. It worked for me.

There's always been a boy willing to save me.

Zane tried. He tried to save me. Even Austin tried, in his own way. Carter, Cain. They tried.

The problem has always been, what happens when they're done saving you?

They forgot to tell us about that part. In the stories, and the shows, and the movies, the books... all of them are the same. The equally gorgeous boy plucks your from your silly, miserable problems simply because you're beautiful. They can't resist the way your light coloured eyes twinkle and the way your hips sway. They whisk you away into pure bliss with them, save a few speed bumps along the way. Once they have you, in the stories, why of course you have an equally charming personality that keeps them on the hook once your beauty fades to them. Once you're just you again, instead of a pair of perky tits and a sweet smile.

They start to love you, for you. Right?

That's what they told us.

You know those beautiful girls I'm talking about. I bet you can picture one in your mind right now. The girl that stands out from the crowd, always noticed. Maybe she doesn't even understand her own beauty, but I really doubt that. That's another thing they say in the books. The girl who's so beautiful, but for some reason she just doesn't know it. It's bullshit. The girls I'm talking about, they know they're beautiful. They know because they've been told, over and over, for years.