Redefining Beautiful

Chapter Fifteen: Solve for 'x'

I spent the weekend before the first football game of the season with Casey. Friday night, we laid in my backyard on lawn chairs while she showed me how to operate my Canon Rebel XSi in low light. I was really starting to like Casey because she was so outgoing and loving. Nothing seemed to bring her down.

“I’ve never been asked to a dance,” She said, and my jaw dropped because Casey is beautiful. She has looks and personality. Maybe she’s not “sexy” beautiful like how guys want and doesn’t have a squeaky clean personality that girls expect, but she was perfect to me. “I always thought something was wrong with me.” Casey settled into her lawn chair, and gazed at the stars.

“Thought?”

“Yeah, I used to think something was wrong with me and then I realized there isn’t anything wrong with me.” She clarified, staring at the stars like she was watching an inspirational movie. “Guys overlook me because I don’t give them what they really want to see.”

“You mean, you aren’t selling your vagina around campus basically?” I joked.

“It’s high school anyway.” She sighed. “We’ll graduate in four years, and the memories will stay here when we’re off in the real world.”

I liked the way Casey thought about life. She saw the bigger picture of everything. I only hoped I could somehow feel sane when everything was falling apart. “I wish I thought like you, Casey.”

“Like how?” She rolled onto her shoulder in her lawn chair, her green eyes twinkling in the patio light.

“You’re so laid back. I mean, everyone is itchy to know who’s taking them to what dance and what they’re going to wear to it and you’re right here thinking of today...right now. You’re just playing it day by day,” I said to the stars.

“I kind of have to play it day by day.” Casey rolled onto her back. “What’s the point in making plans when God just laughs at you”—she shook her head in a daze—“and pursues his plans? I kind of sit back to see what he has in store because it always turns out better that way.”

The two of us laid down in silence, gazing up at the stars and listening to the crickets sing their lullabies to us. The September night’s air kept me warm as I made up constellations of random things inside my mind.

Casey made a lot of sense. I could really learn a lot from her, and that’s why I think I should hang around her more. I’m starting to comprehend a lot now since my weight loss. Just because I lost weight, doesn’t mean I gained anything besides health. I mean, I feel comfortable in my body, but I still don’t know how to talk to people because I still get these self-doubt thoughts. Roebuck told me once during the summer that just because I’m physically strong, doesn’t mean I’m mentally strong. How do I fix that? How do I wake up one day and things bounce off my chest like I’m bulletproof?

Am I the only person who feels as if they have a heart made of thin glass? I’m wondering if people like Casey Brooks, Megan Peters, Madison O’Neil, Malia Hevener, Alyssa Rose, Desiree Garza, Maria Garcia, and Danielle Sanders ever get self-doubt thoughts like myself. Casey admitted to thinking something was wrong with her because she has never been asked out, but I wonder if the thought of nobody loving her lingers in her head. I learned from Emma that smiles sure hide a whole hell of a lot.

People as sincere, generous, humble, and life-loving like Casey shouldn’t doubt their beauty for a second. If they do, it’s a shame because nobody deserves to feel like they mean nothing.

“You’re beautiful, Casey,” I said. “I just want you to know that.” But she was already sound asleep. I pulled a blanket over her, said goodnight, and fell asleep on my lawn chair.