TANGLED PLANS

5

I'm going to kill him.

He was the reason I went up there in the first place. I'm sitting at my spot on the table with my eyes set straight at the surface. I couldn't dare to pick my eyes up. My hand is set on the table as well, and I'm adding pressure to it so as not to feel the embarrassment of the rejection come to me.

That was humiliating. I couldn't wait for lunch to end. I wanted to get away from here, but I couldn't. Not when I had to put up a good front. I think back to the interaction. At first, he was nice about not knowing my name, but when I told him I liked him, he said no. I knew that it was a hard launch—I went straight to the point—but I didn't think it was too much of a problem.

The problem wasn't that he rejected me. 

The problem was that he had glanced at my body and then looked at it as if it were trash before responding with a no. I wasn't even mad at him for having that reaction; I knew that I wasn't the best-looking girl that someone could get. I knew that my body wasn't one that guys would stare at all day. I knew that hiding it behind sweats didn't make it any better either.

I just wish that, despite knowing it, it didn't hit too hard.

"It wasn't that bad," I hear Max say from beside me, and I try not to glare at him. Instead, I nodded softly, as if my heart were breaking at the fact that a guy couldn't look at me and think that I was attractive.

🌼

I'm still thinking about the fact that the guy I got rejected by earlier today glanced at my body with distaste. I'm still thinking about how quick his eyes had to stare at the length of me before he could make a decision on whether he liked me or not. It was a quick one, and his response correlated with his initial reaction to my body.

I pull the sweater over my stomach as I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I knew that I had a little bit of fat and that it hung over, considering how skinny I was. I didn't think that it would suddenly make me feel this down right now, though. It wasn't much; I knew that, but looking at it now made me want to cry.

I study my chest in the mirror after I pull down my shirt, and I try not to be discouraged at how it's not too big either. I knew that I wasn't flat either, but the idea of me not having a similar size as the other girls in my school makes my heart clench in my chest. I'm about to turn around to check out my butt that was finally coming in when the door flies open.

I press myself to the mirror and brace myself for the weird look my brother was going to give me. Only, it's not my brother; it's a dramatic Max that walts into my room and plops down on my bed with a long sigh.

I'm self-conscious, and I turn to him with my legs crossed and my hands behind my back. Max places his chin in his hand and looks back at me. When our eyes meet, I wonder if he knows what I have been doing before he walks in here. I really wished that he didn't. He sighs again, and his mouth turns down in a frown.

"Your brother went grocery shopping for your dad and left me here all alone," he complains to me with his eyes on me. I stopped making eye contact with him and have been focusing on the freckle underneath his left eye. It was a small one, but I thought it looked good on him. "Entertain me, Daisy. Tell me what's the next step."

"To what?" I ask him with a soft, soft voice, and then clear my throat for how dumb I'm sounding. I put my chin up and looked at him. Max rolls over on the bed and looks back at me upside down. I'm more self-conscious now that his eyes can see my body first, then my face. It made me push myself back against the wall more.

"Daisy, what's happening with the blonde?" he asks with a raise (upside down) of his eyebrows. I shake my head, not knowing what he could mean by that. His eyes widen as if he cannot believe what I'm talking about, and he rolls over on the bed again. This time his shirt pulls up just the slightest, but even with the small inch of skin I see, it makes my cheeks heat up.