The Girl in the Mirror

The girl in the mirror is ugly. She stares at me, her too-small mouth open in a slightly disbelieving gape. The warm hazel eyes that had once brought smiles of delight from both friends and passerby have dimmed to a boring brown.

She tries to smile.

It's just a grimace.

That girl is me.

***

"I miss your grin, Andrea," Shirin says as she flips a pancake onto my plate. "Remember how bright your teeth were when you smiled? You never do that anymore."

I don't answer. I'm too busy staring at the metal pot that sits on the table in front of me. I can see the girl's face in the pot. It's stretched and distorted which makes it even uglier.

She doesn't need to be any uglier.

"When can I take these out?" I say, rubbing on my braces. They hurt my gums so much that sometimes I take trips to the bathroom just to take them off and relieve myself of the pain. Dad paid extra to have pink glittery stones put in them. As if it would make me look any prettier.

Shirin sighs. "Once your teeth straighten out," she says. "You've asked me five times this week."

I yawn. "It's only Monday," I say.

"Exactly," she replies, and pours more batter in the pan.

"Well, can I get contact lenses?" I peer closer at the pot, trying in vain to make the girl's face better. It doesn't work. She just looks bigger.

I can tell Shirin wants to roll her eyes but she resists it. "Mom and Dad have already spent so much money on everything else," she says. "They can't afford contacts."

I take off my glasses and peer into the pot again. Still no difference. now the girl's eyes look huge.

I rest my face on my hands and groan. I know I've cost Mom and Dad tons of money, but none of it is my fault.

It's his fault.

***

I remember the day it set off. It was like a row of dominos--one got pushed over, and then the others came tumbling down faster and faster.

It was him who did it.

His name is Oron.

He made me ugly.

Some people might laugh when they learn how it happened, and some might feel sorry for me. Some might not even care at all.

That doesn't matter. I'm telling it anyway.

It was the first day of sixth grade. We were playing dodgeball, and I was running this way and that and I was doing incredibly well until he--Oron--threw the ball my way. He isn't a small person, and if he throws at full force it hurts.

It hurt a lot more than I expected it to.

It hit me right in the face--my teeth, to be exact. Two fell out. Most were twisted in odd places and the ones that didn't budge were chipped. The dentist gave me fake teeth and braces and repaired the chips, saying I looked fine. But I didn't believe him. Doctors only say that to make you feel better about yourself.

I never smiled with my teeth again.

In fact, I barely smile at all anymore.

Oron is like a curse. We've never really talked, unless you count the four times he apologized for causing me inconvenient or especially painful injuries.

After that was the eyes. We were making slingshots in craft class and were taking turns, aiming for the board in the center of the wall. Somehow, and I don't know how, Oron's ball bounced off the target, onto someone's desk, and flew straight into my right eye.

The optometrist suggested a monocle, since I'd only injured one eye. I couldn't tell whether he was joking or not, but I got a regular pair of glasses.

Then there's my hands. My hands are scarred and bumpy and disgusting. The girl in the mirror is so ashamed of her hands that she never puts them up.

Oron and I had been paired together for a chemistry project. He was told to boil a pot of water for Ms. Sale, the teacher.

I was standing right next to him as he brought it to her desk. A little bit splashed on the floor and he slipped, the whole pot of water pouring over my outstretched hands which had been reaching out for a book Ms. Sale was handing me.

I had to go to the hospital for those burns, and now, a whole year later, I'm still treating them.

He also broke my nose. Again, this was an accident with a ball, although this time it was a baseball and I was sitting in the stands. Out of all the people that could have been hit, the ball hit me.

I wonder if he wanted to hit me.

I never found out.

***

I'm looking at the girl in the mirror again. She tries to smile and she looks demonic, glittering pink stones set in her unnaturally crooked teeth. Her broken nose is twisted and hooked at the end, and her glasses cast shadows down her face. She hesitantly lifts up a hand and bites her lip. It's still scarred.

It will always be scarred.

She will always be scarred.

The girl was pretty once. Her smile was gentle and straight, her hands frail and wispy like a breath of air. They would gracefully move over whatever she was touching, and her nose was the most petite and perfectly shaped nose anyone could ever have.

She still had her hair. She runs her hand through it. It's honey-colored and long. If Oron somehow managed to run that...

No. I won't ever let him.

I get to keep the hair.

***

Today there's a new girl in school. She's beautiful, more beautiful than I once was or ever could be. I like the way her black hair curls softly around her face, framing gentle dark eyes and a sweet mouth that always looks as if it's smiling.

I try not to look at her. I don't deserve to look at anybody.

Which is why when she comes over to my empty table during lunch, my heart starts pounding furiously and I feel sweat forming on my palms.

"Hello," she says with that gentle smile of hers. "I'm Octavia. What's your name?"

I stare at her blankly. "Andrea," I say slowly. "Why are you sitting here?"

"You looked lonely," she answers. "Are you?"

I slowly nod my head. "Yes," I say. "I... I don't have very many friends. Actually, no friends at all. Unless you count my sister."

"Sisters make great friends," Octavia says brightly. "I have seven of them."

I gape at her. "Seven?!" I exclaim. "How can you live with seven sisters?"

"And six brothers," she says, unzipping her backpack and bringing out her lunch.

I blink at her. Then I push my salad around my plate and sigh. "You're just here because you feel sorry for me," I say.

She frowns. "No," she says. "I want to be your friend."

***

Later we walk home together. Octavia just moved in and she lives on the same street.

"I like the way you look," I say a bit shyly. "Your hair is pretty."

"Ooh, so is yours!" she says. "It looks like gold in the sunlight."

"But the rest of me is ugly," I say. My shoulders slump. "I hate myself."

Octavia shakes her head. "We all have our faults," she says. "Have you looked at your eyes? They're so bright! And your ears are the perfect shape. Now smile for me."

"No," I say.

"Please?"

"No!"

"Pleeeaaase?" she draws out the word and I sigh.

"Fine," I say, and smile at her. She laughs and takes my hand.

"Your smile is gorgeous." She says it with so much enthusiasm that I believe her.

***

"I forgive you," I say to Oron. He closes his locker and frowns at me.

"For what?" he says.

"For making me look like this," I reply, gesturing to my face.

He peers closely at me and shrugs. "I see no difference," he says. "You look the same. Except for the glasses."

"What about my hands?" I lift them up to his face and he shrugs again.

"Just a few little bumps," he says. "You can barely see them."

Now I know that it only takes the loving words of others to make you believe you're beautiful just the way you are.

***

The girl in the mirror is different now. Her hands are healed and her eyes glint. Her honey-colored hair shines against her blue glasses and the pink braces that make her teeth colorful.

The girl in the mirror is pretty.

That girl is me.