Two
My mom told me I should pay more attention to the boys who stared at me when we walked around in the super market. Not because they were older, but maybe thinking that by realizing that people took notice of my existence I might become a bit more self confident than I was.
I told her that I didn't want them to stare, and that I was sorry that skirts looked extra short on my long legs. Each time she made this comment I would instinctively pull down the bottom of my skirt a little bit; watching the eyes of the older men shift away from me and down to the floor with embarrassment.
"I think you've got to start embracing what you've got Amber." Tina continued that afternoon, sipping on her glass of lemonade through a green and blue straw. I watched the way her lips moved around the top of it and I was sickened to think about what other things she had done with them.
"Or else you're just a tease." Tina laughed, pushing her sunglasses down to the bridge of her nose and wiggling her eyebrows comically. Her silvery-green eyes were narrowed.
"I am not!" I argued back, watching the way she rolled her eyes as her sarcastically-serious grin morphed into a genuine smile.
"Being that pretty and never letting anyone in to see it? Or rejecting every boy since... Tony?"
She scoffed on his his name; it dripped off her lips like acid.
Tina reached out and pushed back the sleeves of my skirt, exposing my skin that had been whitened by the endless days of keeping my heavy winter coat wrapped up and over my arms.
"What are you-"
"If you're not a tease, then learn to live a little."
"I don't see how rolling up my sleeves is going to make me anymore attractive now that you see my horrible farmers tan."
Tina rolled her eyes again, looked at the tan line of my skin, and gently rolled the sleeves back down. "Fine. But you know what I'm trying to imply don't you?"
I shook my head.
"See! This is why you're not as mature as you could be. Sometimes, you just don't get stuff like this..." She scooted closer to me, resting her hands in her lap and focusing on me intensely.
"Put yourself out there. Live a little bit. You can't open up to love if you don't show you've got the potential to in the first place Amber... I don't want to see you alone like this forever; you're like Rapunzel sitting up in a tower waiting for a prince to come galloping in on a white horse to drag your sorry ass down to the chapel to marry you."
She paused to smirk.
"Cut the guy some slack. And show him something worth fighting for..." Tina gestured to my green bean legs sprawled out on the grass.
"You can't be serious-"
"But I am." Tina grinned, smiling as innocently as ever. "Amber, there is nothing more magical then finding someone who loves you for what you are."
She took my hands into her's.
"But you can't keep yourself locked away for him to discover all on his own."
I was standing in the canned food aisle with my mom.
I pulled my skirt up a little higher.
