WATTPAD BOOKS EDITION
Can she be herself in a one-size-fits-all world?
Lori Palmer is the new girl at Bay Water High, where students prize glossy hair, beach bodies, and school spirit above all else. She misses her old school―where her talent as an...
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Leonardo da Vinci once said that when you looked at your work in a mirror and saw it reversed, it would look like some other painter's work, and then you'd be a better judge of its faults.
I stood, feet anchored to the ground like they were sprouting roots into the carpet beneath me, and glared at the mirror in front of me. It glared back. Flat, shiny, and unrelenting. So utterly bloody unrelenting that I wanted to toss something at it just to break its icy stare. Shatter it, like it was so fond of shattering me.
When I couldn't take it a second longer, I turned my back on the thing, pulled yet another T-shirt off, and tossed it to the floor. My previous school was easy; I'd wake up each morning and slip on our black and white uniform, no mirror needed. But everything was different now, and it wasn't just the lack of a school uniform that made it that way. In fact, it couldn't be more different if my mother had decided to uproot the family and move us to one of Jupiter's far-flung moons.
I'm a city girl. Born and bred. And up until seven days ago, we'd lived in a penthouse in one of Johannesburg's cool, newly renovated downtown areas. My school, the Art School, where I was studying fine art, was only a few blocks away. After class, my friends and I would walk the streets lined with coffee shops, art galleries, and vintage clothing and record stores, and hang out in our favorite place, the smoky, laid-back jazz café, Maggie's.
At night, I'd sit at my window and watch the city below spring to life. I loved listening to the frantic symphony of the city. A soundscape of honking taxis, shrieking police sirens, rushing, shouting, pushing people. Everything so alive. Everything pounding, blaring, screaming, and growling at you.
I'd gaze at the brightly colored lights of the Nelson Mandela Bridge that took you right into the thumping heart of the city. Johannesburg. Joburg. Jozi. It's called many things. But my favorite name is its isiZulu one: Egoli, Place of Gold. Which is exactly what it is when the sun dips down and the city lights flicker on, casting that warm, molten glow across the tops and sides of the skyscrapers.
Gold's my favorite color, by the way. But there's no gold here. Looking out of my bedroom window all I could see now was blue, the massive sea stretching to the horizon, reaching up into a never-ending cloudless sky. An infinity of it.
Blue . . . it's such a simple color, really. A primary color.
Gold, however, well, that's another story. It's complex. Layered. Much harder to create, and it's also so much more than just a color. Gold contains a certain magic, an extravagance, a mystique.
I tried to sigh but the breath got caught in my esophagus. I turned my back on the window now too. I've never liked the sea. Too much water. Too much sand. Besides, I'm not exactly a bikini kinda gal. I haven't been beach-body ready since, well, forever. How ironic then that I've landed here, in the middle of bikini-Barbie, thigh-chafing hell.
