Her Name Was Mallory

Her

My heart skipped a beat as soon as I heard him speak. This was something new to me, and new things and feelings were never my favorite. I remained still, until I realized being silent for too long would be odd. I turned slowly, and when I faced him I noticed how much more beautiful he was in person than in my mind. Still, I had to respond to his greeting.

"Um, hi Christopher" I said, my voice trembling slightly.

"Call me Chris, everyone else does" he said and pulled his guitar strap off his shoulder. He walked out of the room and having nothing to do in the closet, I followed.

"How was your week?" he asked and I was not sure whether to say that it had been normal, without any interesting events or to be honest and tell him this week had been a rollercoaster.

"It was decent, nothing too special" I went with the simple response.

"Same, well actually something sort of unexpected happened" he said and I had enough courage to ask what had happened.

"Oh, what happened?"

"You are standing here, talking to me. It's strange" he said and I could feel my pale cheeks fill in with some rosy color.

"I don't understand..." I wanted him to explain himself better, because his lack of explanation left a lot of curiosity in my mind.

"Last week, when you first got here you did not speak at all. In fact, I would say that you completely hated me and now look! You are here, in front of me talking to me and smiling"

I had not realized I had been smiling I suppose because this time unlike others, I was not faking a smile. Everything seemed to come natural to me now, everything seemed so natural with him around.

"Sometimes it takes me awhile to open up and start socializing" I said and took a seat in front of him. He began to set up his guitar and started to run sound checks on the microphones.

"So tell me Mallory, what made you move here?" he asked, and my body froze once again.. Not because he made me feel nervous but because talking about why I moved away from Seattle was hard for me to talk about.

"Personal reasons" my lips remained in a straight line now, and I was sure he had noticed.

"Oh" he responded, not trying to make me feel uncomfortable.

I suppose he felt bad for making me feel tense. Throughout the rest of the time we were alone we did not speak. He began to practice the songs for worship and I did nothing but sit back and listened. I looked down at my dress, and wondered if he had noticed my tiny effort in changing. Perhaps now I would not seem so gothic as he had once insinuated. Something deep inside of me wanted him to keep talking to me, but the other part of me wanted this silence to continue. I knew that if I were to talk to him again I would not know what to say, or I would stutter. I wanted him to look at me and tell me I was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

That would be impossible. My whole life, with Elijah reminding how disgusting I was at every given opportunity, I had never felt beautiful. There had been so many times where I had tried my best to please others and change my appearance but nothing had seemed to work. Everyone for some reason, thought of me as invisible. Now, being fourteen I knew that being beautiful was one of the most important things to girls. However no matter how hard I tried I knew it would never be good enough.

On the contrary, I was good at first impressions. The preoccupation in Chris' voice when he bumped into me, the way he tried to help me when I wanted to avoid everyone, it showed he was caring. I had created this idea in my head that he could, maybe...just maybe, like me back. Because I could not stop thinking about him, I decided to give up and admit that I had developed a crush on him. Not that it would matter, he was gorgeous and I was a monster. I did not want to give on the idea however, that perhaps he could look at me for more than the outside. If that were to happen it would be a wish come true. No one else had been able to see me for me, but rather they saw me for the spots on my face, the fat on my stomach, the dullness in my hair and so on. I could go on forever but there was no point. Though my mind kept reminding me of who I was, my heart managed to keep making scenarios in my head of how it could be if only he gave me a chance. My soul fluttered at that thought, and without noticing a smile peeked onto my face. However, there was also something I had not noticed. There, capturing all of Chris' attention was a pretty, petite girl with arms around my Chris. She was dressed in a baby pink colored dress, her makeup was done perfectly as well as her hair. The dreams and wishes that I had created would never see the light of day.

Because she was perfect, and I was not.  

"Hey Mallory, this is Corina. My girlfriend" he said and I did nothing but greeted her back.

It was her, Corina, who would end up taking from me everything I had ever wished for.