He was Hot, I was Not!

I went home after the game and got the dinner plate my Mom had left for me to eat. After eating, I went to my room and typed up a rough draft of my story on my computer. As I typed, I couldn't stop thinking about how cute Stan was. He had a really gorgeous smile and his eyes were a hazelish-green color from what I saw. He had the prettiest hair that made me want to run my fingers through it. At the game it looked dark because it was drenched with sweat and curls framed his face and collar, but on the first day of school it had appeared to be a light to medium brown color. I envisioned him in his football uniform--he looked so handsome. I didn't even know that he played football, and he was a good player too--the quarterback...and all that implies. I sighed aloud, disgusted with myself: a guy like that would never be interested in someone like me.

I got up from in front of the computer and walked over to my vanity and looked at myself in the mirror. What was wrong with me? Why didn't guys like me? Well, guys did like me, but just as a friend. Why couldn't I find one to love me? There were other girls heavier and less attractive than I was, and they had boyfriends, so why didn't I?

I was a big girl, thick, some said pleasingly plump (I hated being called that), but not obese. I would never be thin, my whole family was full of thick women, but I would never let myself become disgustingly fat either. My Mom said I had "good child-bearing hips," like that was some kind of compliment??? And my breasts, god I hated my breasts. They were bigger than most girls my age--they have always been big. I've been wearing a bra since I was in fifth grade, and because I am big-breasted, it doesn't look very attractive when I go without one. Leo, an 8th grader that lived in my neighborhood told me I had the perfect body. I busted out laughing and said, "Yeah, right." He stammered, seeming surprised that I didn't believe him, and he started to say something else, but he changed his mind. I walked off chuckling and thinking to myself "Leo likes fat girls."

I leaned closer to the mirror to get a closer look at my face. I wasn't really ugly, but I wasn't drop-dead gorgeous either. My cheeks and chest area were full of baby moles, yuk, a black girl's freckles. I really hated those moles, a lot of my friends called them freckles so I didn't correct them, and I preferred to think of them as freckles. They did kind of look like the freckles some redheads got...from being out in the sun too long, I guess. I never really bothered with makeup. Why? What was the point? Most people couldn't see beyond my glasses anyway.

I had tried contacts, but I just didn't like them, and I was prone to eye infections when I wore them. Unfortunately, I was very near-sighted--I only needed my glasses to see , so I had to wear them all of the time. At least my frames were cool: the latest style Coach. My Mom had bitched about buying them because they were pretty expensive, but I had insisted. It's one thing to be thought of as a geek, but I wasn't going to prove that I was one beyond a shadow of a doubt by wearing frames that were made for nerds.

The only two things that I really liked about myself were my smile and my hair. A lot of people said I had perfect teeth, and a smile that lit up my whole face. I had a dark, thick, glorious head of shoulder-length hair that came from the Native American blood in my Dad's ancestry. Sometimes it was a pain to deal with because it was so thick, but once I got it styled the way I liked it--it stayed that way without any hairspray or gel to hold it in place.

I shook my head and sighed in disgust as I walked away from the vanity. I finished the final draft of the story and e-mailed it to the editor of my high school newspaper. I then took off my clothes and took a shower. Thoughts of Stan ran through my head as the warm water pelted my exhausted body. I put on my nightgown and laid down with a smile on my lips--hoping that I would dream of Stan tonight.