Reckless

Ride Along

        As I stepped into the car, two guys bared huge smiles and were acting rather uncomfortably awkward.

"Hi, I'm LJ", one of them said through their teeth, his smile ceasing to fade. If they were in any way attempting to impress me with smiles, it certainly wasn't working.

    LJ grabbed  a bottle of water off the dirty car floor,drank from it, then offered me some.

"No thank you..", I replied politely. He only shrugged and gulped some more down. Dax definitely had some weird friends. It's not that I didn't appreciate it considering I am too but they were painfully nice. Too nice.

    There was another person in the car besides LJ  glancing at me from the car mirror in the front seat. Once he saw I was returning the stare, he broke out into a smile and waved. I too waved and darted my eyes at LJ who was now singing to a Childish Gambino song, blubbering random lyrics to the lines he didn't know... which were most of them.

"Yeah, I got a beeper and I like Pia Mia!'', he gestured me to sing along with him, his phone masquerading as a microphone. 

     Since I actually knew the song, I guess it wouldn't hurt to sing for a little.

"She wanna ride up on my stallion. See my stylin', I'ma ride out. Hit lihue when we drive to hide out'', I found myself grabbing the phone from LJ and intensely singing into it with all my might. Everyone suspects me to be a soft-spoken,amiable girl. And I get it. I'm barely 5'2, does not have many friends, and gets good grades.

      Judging by my appearance,you would expect that out of me just by looking at me once. It's time to prove them wrong. I sang 1 more verse before clearing my throat and handing the phone back to LJ whose mouth was agape,leaned forward in interest.

I don't really receive those kind of reactions from people...ever. I must have  sucked horribly.

      Huy let out a small laugh from the driver seat, his eyes still planted on the road. Not so reserved am I ? Without hesitation,everyone started clapping and LJ even unbuckled his seat belt and tried to stand up.

"Sit your ass back down", judging by what his friends call him,Danniel the guy in the front seat, yanked LJ's sweater causing him to plop onto the seat. He was still clapping, unaffected by the sudden force.

      "You're good Aicka".

Oh am I now? His eyes fluttered close as he slouched against the seat, a smirk on his face. Puzzled, I quickly poked him and retracted my finger when he scrunched his face.

      "You know, DJ never told me about how cool you are. Of course he blabbed on about every single detail but not this.'' I stared at the roof of the car trying to absorb the given information. Apparently Dax talked about me -That's a first. I really am average. There's nothing special about me or so I thought.

Nobody had really complimented or acknowledged my features, mainly because I was unknown. Nor has anyone really liked me. When someone happened to indeed like me, I would instantly doubt it. What exactly was there to like? My flat nose? My non-existent ass? 

      I was usually the person that people went to to take them feel better about themselves and I would always end up ranting on how uniquely beautiful they were when I,myself, had a hard time believing I was. Hypocritically, I'm a huge believer in positivity and how it's necessary to fulfill a healthy life yet I failed to follow the tips I suggested to others. 

It really is hard to persuade yourself into seeing the good things about your flaws are freckled throughout your body.

     I looked at LJ who was motionless in his seat.