Chapter 23
A pair of gorgeous, magazine-worthy girls gossip at the sink mirrors and apply no-makeup makeup because why wouldn’t they?
No-makeup makeup works if you don’t need makeup.
If you’ve got porcelain skin and eyes set so wide they’re on opposite hemispheres.
I study the girls with grotesque intrigue through the crack in the bathroom stall door. Loathing them. Wanting to be them.
I sit on that line that so many sit on, the line between beautiful and not.
I can reach it on a good day, during the follicular phase of my cycle, if I didn’t sleep on my face, with just the right amount of plucking and primping and a great hair day and God’s grace during my makeup routine.
It’s the line that keeps me even more stuck on the hamster wheel of the pursuit of beauty.
Even more dependent on makeup tutorials and tips-and-tricks videos and “that perfect cream bronzer.” Because anything could be the thing that makes the difference between me being beautiful or not.
I whip a compact mirror out of my pocket and pull out my tiny weapons, swiping and gliding and brushing my way to a better self not with the casual flicks and dainty dabs of flippancy, like it’s a fun little hobby, but the way anyone less than gorgeous does—with urgency, with desperation, my self-esteem hinging on whether or not I’m able to nail that cat eye or that feather technique with the mascara or get my foundation smooth and not cakey.
A desperation that hides the true feeling underneath it.
Rage. Rage that I was born with dark circles that make me look sick and rosacea that bursts when I’d least like it to and thick, chunky curls that won’t behave.
Curls with four different curl patterns because I guess it’s not enough that I have unruly hair, I need four different patterns of unruly hair that don’t go together, two of which aren’t even tight enough to be classified as curly but not loose enough to be classified as waves and are probably most aptly classified as some kind of pasta noodle.
Just weird, noncommittal hair that looks like a horrible accident every time I wake up.
Rage that he doesn’t want me. And that maybe he would if I didn’t have dark circles or rosacea or acne or curls.
I know that there are more obvious obstacles.
He’s my teacher. He’s got a wife and a kid and a fully baked life.
Still, I can’t help wondering. Is there a level of beauty one can reach where they become undeniably wanted?
And am I one lip stain shade away from that level?
Spicy Sienna didn’t work last time, but maybe Berry Queen will.
I head to class and take a seat toward the back. The door swings open.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his hook-nose. “I’m Mr. Condren. I’ll be your substitute teacher while Mr. Korgy is away.”
I chew off my hangnail, spit it onto the floor, and suck the metal-y blood from the tip of my finger. Is he that affected by me that he couldn’t even come in to work to face me? Maybe the Spicy Sienna did work.