The broken man and the Lily

The Whole Story

I stood there, nervous, shuffling around the same spot near the stairs. My thoughts were clearly up in the clouds, leaving my body down on earth.

'I can't believe that she remembered her promise,' the voice in my head whispered. Well, it was obvious she would, she was the kind to never go back on her word once spoken. Though she be forgetful, once reminded, she will never drop the topic and will force the promise she made onto you again. 

"Whatever are you doing Raan? You look like a child who has done something wrong and worry of the punishment with you sweating buckets and pacing the bottom of the stairs to my apartment," a voice said from behind me. Startled, I turned around and looked at the source of the voice only to have my jaw drop at the sight before me. 

"Wow," was all I managed to utter. Standing on top of a flight of stairs, in a light brown skirt and a peach off-the-shoulder laced top, was Lily. 

"What's the matter? Cat got your toungue?" she said before proceeding to walk down the flight of stairs. I couldn't utter a single reply and instead just helplessly continued to stare at the magnificently beautiful girl before me. 

"Please do stop staring... It's starting to get uncomfortable though your facial expression when staring is cute," she said while blushing as her cheeks turned bright red.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I just couldn't help myself," I said, turning away as I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. 

"Hey, you are blushing! Haha, was I really that stunning?" 

"Well, obviously, you are very beautiful tonight Lily," I replied. That however, earned me an elbow in my rib as she just couldn't take the complimenting anymore. She was blushing really hard. 

"Come on then, we best hurry else the party will start without us and you know how much I don't wanna miss the starting especially with the performance of the band," she said as she picked up her pace. I then followed suit behind her and once again my mind immersed itself into its own world. 

'We really are attending prom together eh... I am so dead... Why did I have to remind her of prom... How I regret... I wonder if I can ever take the pressure of eyes with killing intent on me tonight.' Yeah, it's prom night tonight and Lily is my prom date. The most beautiful girl in college is the prom date of the most plain guy in the whole college and probably the most ugly one too. 'She is just doing this to fullfill her promise, I'm sure. After this we are going to go back to normal where I am usually ignored and she is the center of attention. Yep, nothing is gonna change, I shouldn't ever get my hopes up.' I kept telling myself. 

Yes, my name is Raan, and I am the ugliest and most plain guy in the whole of college. Lily on the other hand, is the polar opposite of me, bright, cheerful, popular, beautiful. Heck, she even won the Beauty Pageant competition held by the college this year. All the boys have their eyes on her and all the girls aspire to be her. How did she know me then? Well you can say it was most probably due to pity. I am in the same class as her and am always that one guy sitting in the corner, quiet and getting ignored. No one ever came up to me because of my appearance. 

You see, I am scarred. My whole body is scarred. I have severe burn marks running down one side of my body, from the right side of my face to the nape of the neck down to my right knee. The left side of my body on the other hand, is full of scars from stitches I had when I was a kid. That's right, I am the epitome of ugliness. You may ask how someone as ugly as me never thought of just jumping off the building and die, ending my miserable life. I have thought of that, many times, on days at ends even I have thought of killing myself off just to ease the pain a little. The pain of being ignored, of being bullied, of being hurt for who I am. However, I soon came to give up. I lost everything since that day and I have nothing else left to lose. What's wrong with just living this life? At the very least I still have a place I could still call home though it is empty. Plus, I had found an ambition. So I decided then to just chase my dream and ignore everyone else.