Love Me Anyway (A student-teacher relationship)

Chapter Three

Am I uploading again!?!?!? Yes, I am. Just finished another chapter. Love me for it

The song on the side is actually a pretty good description of Cynthia's character, I think :)

Picture of Nicole

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I was back in the bathroom. I don’t know how long I had been standing there, just staring at my reflection. His words were on a loop in my head. Was it just a casual remark from a smooth tongue, or was he being serious. Was I really beautiful?

I didn’t think so.

I stared in the mirror, trying to will it to tell me the truth, but, unfortunately, I was not to the stage of insanity were inanimate objects would speak to me. I was on my own in this.

I was pale. That much, you couldn’t argue. My skin was completely white. My hair was a bit longer than average, parted to the extreme left. I never spent enough time on it to keep it straight, so it fluffed out like a mane around my shoulders, not necessarily in an unruly, messy way though. It was a pale, white-blonde. My bangs, which swished off to the right, half concealing one of my eyes, were died black. My eyes, which were looking up at my reflection at the moment, were an almost black shade of brown. My face might not have been so bad if not for the tapering scar that ran across the bridge of my nose between my eyes. No matter how hard I tried to cover it,. I could never hide it from sight. It’s been there since I was six, and I had the feeling it always would be.

I looked away from the mirror, down at the rest of myself. I edged my sleeves up to my elbows and splayed my fingers out on the air. My wrists were crisscross with white and pink scars that ran up to my mid forearm. In some places, they were so thick I couldn’t even see the original skin. The fleshy pads of my hands were marred as well, along with the fronts of my fingers. I had more scars, concealed by my clothes, on my hips and the backs of my ankles. Even thinking about it made me burn in shame. Every time I did it – cut myself – I said it would never happen again, but it always did. Blades singing across my wrists provided comfort. It was the only thing in my life I had any real control over. These scars on my wrists were the only things that reminded me that I was my own master. Not my brother, my step-mother, my father, or even whatever twisted kind of fate there is.

The rest of me was boring. I was average in height, build and form, and could probably afford to lose a few pounds. I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t toned or anything like that.

I wasn’t pretty. Was I even plain?

But that amazing guy had called me, less-than-plain Cynthia Michaels, beautiful.

The bell went off in the hall, causing me to practically jerk out of my skin. This was the period I was supposed to return to class and meet up with Nicole, but I wasn’t going to. I was feeling overly self-conscious as I ducked into a stall, roughly pulling my sleeves back down.

Periods passed, and I still didn’t go to class. I hung around, playing with apps on my phone and listening to music. I went to lunch when the time came, just to apologize to Nicole, and tell her about Josh. I needed someone to talk to, and Nicole was the only person I had. She wouldn’t understand, but she would listen. I sat down at our table, without bothering to get any lunch, and waited for her. At the same time, I was slyly looking around the room for Josh.

Nicole interrupted my search when she finally appeared.

“Where have you been!” she ranted, exasperated.

“Around,” I mumbled.

“Sorry,” she said, suddenly looking guilty, “It’s just that you’re really the only person I have to talk to.” I smiled softly at her.