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Hello, everyone! This is my first story on this platform. While I usually prefer not to write short stories, this idea has been stuck in my mind for a few days, and I wrote it in a hurry. In this story, you may find hints or reasonable answers t...
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The next day, she tried again, adding a little more detail, adjusting the features, putting hours into perfecting each curve.
Each time, her hope dimmed a little more. She stopped showing her work, keeping her sketchbook tucked close, its pages filled with the dreams she no longer dared to share.
In the days that followed, their laughter seemed to linger, wrapping around every page she filled. She tried drawing flowers, animals, anything softer, anything that might be "pretty." But even her best efforts seemed to warp into something else-a beauty just out of reach. After countless nights spent erasing and tearing sheets, she finally broke, her pencil scratching across the page in angry strokes. This time, she didn't hold back.
The result was... hideous. Dark and heavy, strange creatures took shape on her paper, almost growling up at her from the depths of the sketchbook. For once, the word "ugly" came to her mind, and it felt satisfying.
One afternoon, she sat alone in the library, sketching quietly, when a group of bullies snatched the book from her hands. Her heart skipped as they flipped through the pages, laughing at each one. "What is this? A self-portrait?" one mocked, holding up a page where she had tried so hard to capture her features.
Everyone around her laughed-everyone except the few classmates who used to tell her it was "nice." They fell silent, saying nothing as they looked away. And she realized they couldn't defend her drawings because, this time, they actually were ugly. A strange relief washed over her. This time, the laughter didn't sting; if anything, it was freeing. She realized she had, in a way, chosen this ugliness, made it her own. She found herself unmoved, as if their laughter had lost its power. That day, when she sat back down, she picked up her pencil again. The lines came rough and wild, sharp and raw-unapologetically ugly.
This time, she drew for herself. And somehow, in these twisted shapes and heavy shadows, she began to feel a strange sense of freedom. The laughter no longer mattered. She had made the ugliness hers, and, in a way, found her happiness in it.
So, she kept going. More creatures followed, each "uglier" than the last. There were elongated faces, crooked smiles, and fierce eyes, each one filled with her rawest thoughts, her own little army against the world that had looked at her with judgment.
