Ugly

Chapter One

So I am ugly. So I do not look like a Glamazon and I do not like to starve myself, or make myself vomit every time I eat something. I do not like being bitchy or mean, I don’t throw myself at every hot guy I see, I don’t –

“Charlotte would hurry up, you are taking forever.” My BFF shouted through the dressing room door, dragging me out of my reverie.

“Mollie, I hate this dress, I have told you that so many times. It makes me look fat,” I replied sulkily.

I actually loved the dress. The long full skirt of the red dress reached just to my ankles and the lovely deep red of the velvet bodice was made into a nice intricate pattern of roses.

“I’ll be the judge of that, Mollie replied.

“Mollie I am not coming out of this dressing room with this stupid dress on. I look like a child playing dress – ups,” I tried my hardest to get out of her seeing me in the dress, but Mollie just wouldn’t give up.

“I’ll just have to come in then,” she quickly replied, before slipping through the curtain covering the dressing room doorway. When she entered the room, her face changed from annoyed at my stubbornness to absolute amazement as she saw me standing awkwardly in the corner furthest away from the mirror.

“OMG! You look fabulous! You are so going to rock the party tomorrow night. All the guys are going to go crazy to get one dance from you,” she gushed in her over – excited voice.

“Mollie, calm down, there is no way I am going to the party tomorrow night wearing this dress, I have already told you that,” I whisper screamed at her in the dressing room.

I turned my back on her before tugging at the zip running the length of the bodice down the side, before practically ripping the dress of and shoving it back on the hanger. As I turned around with the dress in my hands, and was moving towards the curtain Mollie whispered so quietly I had to strain my ears to hear what she said.

“Charlotte, why do you think you are so ugly? Did you even see what you looked like in the mirror?”

At her comment, I deflated, and leaning against the wall closest to me, I said into the empty air,

“Mollie, you wouldn’t understand. You are perfect. You aren’t looked at like you are a freak, you are so popular and that is the only reason why I am even able to go to the party tomorrow night. You can get a boyfriend in five seconds if you wanted to. Your life is so perfect. I on the other hand, am the complete opposite to your happy ever after fairy-tale. I am nowhere near popular, I am a freak to everyone but you and I couldn’t get myself a boyfriend even if I had blonde hair, blue eyes and double - D boobs like you. I am not perfect and a perfect dress cannot change that.”

I turned and flounced from the room before she could respond, put the perfect dress back on the rack, and went over to another rack, and picking out the dress I had seen earlier, grabbed it and returned to the dressing room to try it on. When I entered the dressing room I was in earlier, Mollie was still there, but she was crumpled in the corner, her face hidden in between her legs but by the way her shoulders were shaking I could tell that she was crying. As I hung the dress on a hook, I walked over to her and crouched down beside and, while wrapping my arm around her, I said softly to her,

“Hey, hey its ok, it’s gonna be ok. Mollie it was just a dress. It’s not going to end the world. It’s when you can’t get the right shoes that the world will end.”

As she brought her head back up, and started laughing at what she always told me when I was upset, she raised her arms to wrap around me, but I grabbed a hold of one before she could recoil.

“Mollie, where the fuck did these come from,” I said shocked, as I saw her complete underside of her forearm covered in tiny, long cuts. As I tried to get a grip on myself, I started the conversation again.

“Mollie, when did you start again?”

“Last night, after - .”

 At that moment her phone bleeped her text message jingle and she pulled out her iPhone 5 to see a text from her boyfriend.