Dark and Dirty Like You've Never Seen

Buses and Bathroom Stalls

I looked up at my front door and let out a long sigh. The two story white house with the blue shutters has been my home for as long as I can remember. From the road, you would look at the house and think it was a beautiful home and that a nice family must live there. As you approach the house, you'll notice the peeling paint on the shutters and the dirt and grime building up along the sides of the house. That's kind of how I viewed my home life. From the exterior, people would say "Oh, what a lovely little family you have!", but once they are able to approach us and get a good look into our home life they will see that it is slowly falling apart.

I trudge up the steps and pushed the front door open slowly. Maybe I can get past them I thought to myself. I laid my backpack on the couch and started to walk up to my room. I breathed out a sigh of relief when I got to my bedroom door. I thought I was home free when I started to turn the door knob until I heard my dad yell up the stairs at me.

"Stop leaving your stuff in the living room!" My dad boomed.

"Don't yell at her like that!" My mom yelled back.

Great. To avoid hearing them fight, I went back down there, grabbed my stuff and ran to my room. I turned my radio on and popped in a mixed C.D. I sat at my desk and turned on my laptop that I bought by myself with the money I earned at a summer job. When the screen kicked on, I went to check my email. I had one email from Lacy. Lacy and I had grown up and went through all of school together up until I was transferred. Although, with a little pouting she was able to get her parents to let her come to St. Patrick's as of this year, but for some reason we turned out nothing alike. Lacy is extremely annoying and never knows when to shut up. She is very materialistic and flirts with any guy in a ten mile radius. I liked to think of myself as laid back and more of a listener then a talker. My family has never had a lot of money so I didn't really care for the material things. As far as the romance department, if any guy is brave enough to come up and try to talk or flirt with me, good luck because I sure as hell am not making the first move and have a hard time telling a guy how I feel about them discretely. Knowing this about Lacy, I sighed as I saw her user name pop up on my screen. I clicked on it to reveal the message.

Sub: Hey!
To: G0p1@yintr@ffic@aol.com
From: OmG_i_LoVe_YoOh@aol.com
Fwd: /
Body: Hey, girly! How was school? My day was pretty cool. Like, oh my gosh, I so got to talk to Sam today. He's such a cutie.

I rolled my eyes. I scanned through the message to get through all her mushy details of how yummy Sam was and what she would do to him. I finally got to a part of the message that actually looked worth reading.

... So, I totally saw you with that new boy. Lucky girl. He looks kinda cute; a little scary looking with all that metal in his face, though. Either way, I want details! Write back please! Love you! Lacy.

I felt my face heat up slightly. I shut my laptop, deciding to write her back later. Besides, there aren't really any details to fill her in on.

I walked over to my closet with the mirror on the back and looked at myself for a little bit. I'm not what you would call a looker. I wasn't fat but I definitely didn't think of myself as skinny. Not as skinny as I would like to be. I've always had this bad self-image of myself. No, I've never had an eating disorder. Trust me, though, it has crossed my mind before, but I would never be able to do that to myself. I have naturally dark brown hair, like the color of dark chocolate; not quite black, not really brown. My eyes are a dark, solid forest green. I looked myself up and down slowly. I stood at a measly five foot flat. Some days I actually like how I look; today is not one of those days.

My hair was slightly messy and my school uniform was starting to wrinkle from wearing it all day. I shuddered and pealed of the unflattering outfit. I turned away from the mirror when I was down to nothing but my underwear. I really don't want to see what I look like naked. It just makes me upset. How do guys find this attractive? Do they even find me attractive at all? Does Frank think I'm attractive? I shook my head at the thought. Of course not; he doesn't even know me. All he did was give me a ride home. Sighing, I realized I'm not exactly sure the last time I had a real boyfriend. I breathed out heavily at the thought and slipped into an oversized t-shirt and basketball shorts, and threw my hair up into a messy bun. I had nothing to do for the day, so it looks like another lounge day to me.