beauty can be something

They call me ugly. They call me gross and sometimes, it hurts like someone just slapped you one the cheek really hard. I've heard it many times, these past few months, after I transformed into a new high school. Students on the hallways gawk at my face and take some photos silently. Some students just narrow their eyes to see closer to what I look like, their faces coming to me like a blur of air.

Sudden sounds ringed in my ears, my mind telling me warning-alert, the heel of her shoes annoyingly clicking, and I can't do anything but look down at my shoes. Suddenly interested at how my criss-cross pattern of shoelace is fascinating, I quietly studied it.

The sound came louder to me though, and I let my long hair fall on either side of my face, like a curtain to draw away attention. Only it drew more attention.

Abruptly, the sound stopped and the one thing I knew right now, was that her shoes were high heels, meaning she was a girl and the fact that I could smell her mint chewing gum.

''Are you just going to be fascinated by your ''pretty shoes'' or will you look at me.''the girl spoke, air quoting 'pretty shoes' and I saw a flicker of movement of her arms to cross them over her chest. I slowly, so slowly looked into her eyes and stared. Just stared at her, like I did with my shoes.

She had shocking bright blue eyes,like the oceans I saw in the internet, but behind those, I saw a line of brown line circling the edge of the blueness. I see, she has worn colour lenses, to change her eye colour.

She rolled her eyes at me and just pulled me by my wrist; she led me to a room full of too-consuming-perfumes of roses and I nearly choked on it.

She turned the lights on, and everything changed around me.

There were make-up boxes everywhere, black, glossy boxes full of make-ups that I haven't even seen in real life. Foundations, eye-liner, blusher, concealer, bronzer, lipstick and so on.

The girl pointed at a round chair. ''Sit there Jen, and do not move. I'm going to change you. Into something else that you will likely have not imagined. Go on, sit there.'' I nodded once and obeyed her like a servant I was to anyone. While she took some black boxes under her arms, I studied her some more. She had natural waves on her blonde hair, but the top her hair, the roots, were brown. it was like a natural brown-to-blonde style but to me, they were still dyed. Her figure was...well, it was between bony and willowy.

She quickly arranged those boxes on a table near me and stood on her knees, staring at me like I was some kind of a mystery puzzle she had to fix. Maybe I was.

''Jen, I want to change you, so that you won't have to handle those creepy students and so that you'll be happy,'' she half-grinned up at me and I felt my lips going up. ''Is that going to be okay for you? For me to change you? Transform you to a different world, where you haven't even tasted yet?''

''I would love to be out of this world.'' I whispered and she nodded.

I closed my eyes as she did her art.

She winded my hair with soft curls at the bottom for a natural look and blushed my cheeks, hid some corners of my jawline and drew some lines across my eyelids. I felt a tingle against the fist touch of liquid-like against my lips but I kept my eyes closed, to keep the surprise later. She painted and rubbed out, angling out, like a true artist would and I was her canvas, to be filled and so she was the artist.

I wondered what she thought of me when she saw me surrounded by people, snickering behind my back and taking photos of my hideous face. Maybe I was an art that has been broken and she reached out to glue and paint the pieces back together...

''Open your eyes, princess.''

I obliged her.

She was holding a silver-trimmed mirror in front of me and now I was the one gawking at myself.

I was utterly beautiful, like an angel from heaven and I couldn't believe so I pinched my cheek to make sure this wasn't a dream.

My cheek stinged; so it was true. I wasn't dreaming. This was real.

The outline of my jaw was smooth and perfect, my eyes wide like an innocent girl. My high cheekbones were replaced by hidden colour of blush under my bones and a rush of pleasure went through me. My face had transformed into a goddess, my eyes were still the colour of green fields but the shape has changed. The tone of me changed and the blood in my veins flowed like a melody, a surprise indeed. A real surprise that made me gawk at myself at a mirror, even though I never do that, No, I forbid myself to do no such thing but this, now, I had allowed myself to enter the world where people lived and laughed. Be loved and be happy for. I never got to taste such things but this was new.

I looked at the girl who changed me - transformed me and she smiled, dimples appearing on both side, and I couldn't help but return it, feeling it shine on her.

''How-how did you do it?'' I asked, patting my cheeks and my lips, then my eyes.

''I have good hands. And good senses. I wanted you to live a little.''

''Why?'' I asked again, my face burnt with questions that might explode, ''Why would you help me when no one would?''

She looked directly into my eyes. ''Because I was just like you. And people like us, should be allowed a small joy in their lives, shouldn't they? Shouldn't we be allowed some fun?''

Indeed.

Transforming me to a different person was dangerous, but fun at the same time.

Shouldn't we be allowed some fun?

That's the question for living. And maybe for changing, transforming a new character didn't sound that bad...