Tragedy ✔️

Chapter One ( Part Two )

Chapter One, Part Two: Scars Are Beautiful
Sophia Crawford

After my shower, I walked over to my full-length mirror. “You’re going to be fine.” I tell myself in the mirror, faking a smile. “You’re going to be just fine.” I watched my lips move and I heard the words leaving my mouth, but even my own words sounded so foreign to my own ears.

I repeat the same words over and over again until I almost believed them and picked the brush up from my desk. I start to brush through the mess that was called my hair until I was satisfied with it. I get dressed into a denim jacket over a plain tee-shirt, a pair of baggy jeans and a pair of my favourite slip-on sneakers.

My brown hair flails against my back and I let some waves fall to my face to cover the scar I have on my cheek. “I can do this.” I whisper, smiling at myself in the mirror. The smile disappears. “I can’t do this.” I shake my head slowly.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

Why did I agree to go to a new school? I can’t face the new students who would do nothing but laugh behind their hands and whisper about how I look like to their friends.

I don’t want to be the talk of the town, but with this scar, that would be inevitable. They want something to gossip about, and this is it.

I close my eyes tightly, and start to chant: “In and out.” I breathe out. “In and out.” I breathe in. “In and out, Sophia. You can do this.” I exhale sharply. I repeat the same process until the knots in my stomach untied themselves and until the nausea in my stomach has settled.

I leave my room with my school bag slung over my shoulder and a fake smile glued onto my face. I cannot let the negative thoughts fill my mind.

I need to do this to make my grandmother proud. She is, after all, the only person in the entire world who loves me and she believes in me, too.

I have to do this for her, to make her proud, to show her that I can do this.

I find her in the kitchen drinking a cup of lukewarm coffee. Mine was pushed toward my plate of scrambled eggs, greasy bacon and two slices of toast, resting on the acrylic kitchen counter just waiting for me to dig into it.

I throw my schoolbag down onto the ground and sit down on one of the chairs.

The backrest of the chair was wobbly and I fight a smile remembering that I was the one who broke the chair in the first place when I leaned back on it. The backrest broke and my father had to repair the chair. My mother wasn’t too happy with me. She grounded me for a week that summer and she made me sit in the living room alone while the three of them ate in the kitchen.

And now it was only the two of us.

My grandfather passed away when I was born, so my grandmother was alone for most of her life. My parents rarely came to visit her before but now that I’m here, they don’t visit at all and I’m somewhat grateful for that. I never liked to be in my mother’s company anyways because she always found a way to make everything about herself.