Ugly Girl Read online

  I was about to crack a lame joke to ease the seriousness, but a sudden ache in my back forced me to roll my shoulders through our hug. A gust of air thrust out of me when it felt like something suddenly shoved me from inside my spine. The push held enough of a punch to catch me off-guard, changing the most basic things about my appearance, and freaking me out when I was already on the brink. “Oof!”

  Judah scrambled to hold onto me as my legs gave out. I whimpered pathetically when my back decided to be a total wuss and start spasming. “Hey, what’s wrong? What’s happening?”

  “My back hurts! Oh, man! Super way painful. Give me a second.” I tried to stand on my own, but my spine was in full-on contortion mode. Judah held me, despite my protest and my torso bending away as it tried to center itself.

  A terrifying crack sounded, rippling down my spine. Judah and I cried out in alarm as one voice, but he held me until I was finally able to find my footing. I slowly stood with a bit more stability, rolling a kink from my shoulders.

  Judah hopped back with alarm clear on his face. He lifted his finger to point, but remembered himself and lowered it. Instead I followed his eyeline and patted my shoulders in fear.

  The noise from the college kids passing by blurred into the background when my fingers reached over my shoulder and landed on… nothing. I pulled in a deeper breath than I’d ever managed before, my lungs expanding with extra room that came from standing up straight.

  Only I’d never stood up straight before.

  “My hump,” I whispered, amazed and terrified. My mouth fell open when I realized that I was seeing the world from a vantage point of about two inches higher than usual, due to not being stooped anymore.

  Judah shook his head, his hand over his mouth. “Rosie, your hump is gone!” He looked like he was about to say something else, but the newfound air that dragged inside of me was pushed out in a forceful gust.

  Something heavy pulled at my chest, making the whole area feel bruised and unsteady. Discomfort mutated to pain as I moved my arms over my chest. I’d always had a flat chest, with no breasts to brag about. That, I’d been grateful for, though. Having immobile A-cups meant you could run faster on the field without being bogged down by weighty body parts.

  My mouth fell open as dread colored my cheeks. Beneath my banded arms, I could feel my chest growing at an alarming rate. The whole area ached so bad I had to bite down on my lower lip to keep from screaming. Inches and inches expanded faster than I could conceal them, my skin stretching grotesquely as the elasticity of my sports bra was tested to its limits.

  And then both straps snapped.

  Never in all of our years as friends who’d seen each other through puberty had Judah ever glanced at my chest. He gawked like a teenager with no thought of social propriety as I scrambled to hide my spontaneous breasts. “Did those just… Are your…” He couldn’t say the word “boobs” to me, which was good, because I might’ve imploded on the spot from mortification if he did.

  “I’m going to go look for my necklace!” I shouted, horrified and utterly drenched in confusion. I worked the tattered remains of my bra over my hips and discarded the sad fabric in the nearest garbage can, flummoxed and a little terrified that I was morphing into something… not me.

  I didn’t wait for him, but barreled back into the bar, holding my bosom in place with my arms crossed. Goosebumps were covering my arms, and tears of angst threatened to spill out of me. My shoulders and my chest felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to them, but the terror at the suddenness of it all hurt far worse. I pulled out some cash in my haste to find my necklace, and slapped it on the bar top. I rarely drank more than a beer or two, but my back ached, and my chest felt like the skin might tear at any moment. Frankly, I was surprised it hadn’t. I slammed the shot in hopes it would be my pain reliever.

  I’d never cried in a bar before, and was firm that tonight wouldn’t break that trend. I didn’t know what was going on with my body, so I decided I would deal with all of that later when I had a mirror and, I dunno, a sedative or something. My nerves were on the brink of a total breakdown.

  My necklace. I have to find it and get out of here.

  I renewed my focus, determined that I wasn’t leaving until I had the locket around my neck once more. I was great at finding things. I was always the kid who had the most Easter eggs in my basket. I’d never lost my car keys. Not once. I was a human GPS who could find true North blindfolded. I followed my gut, and it led me to whatever I needed to find. It was how I landed so many flawless shots. My gut told my pool stick where to aim, and I never had a problem. I inhaled the stench of beer that stank like it had been soaked into the walls, warning my gut that it was go time. Judah came in a few minutes later, shaken but ready to be helpful in my quest to find my locket and get the crap out of there.

  Three hours later, the bar was closing and we were being pushed out on to the street with a promise that the owner would call if they found anything.

  Judah didn’t say a word, but kept his arm around me as we walked, my eyes on my shoes and my hands blackened from running them over every inch of that disgusting, sticky floor. I had one family heirloom. One. My Aunt Lane salvaged one thing off my mother’s body before it had been cremated. The locket was gone now, and though I had no memory of my mother, the fragile connection I had to my roots was gone with it.

  2

  Strange Body and Old Dudes

  The park was my favorite place to hide when life grew too confusing to navigate without a roadmap. The one just off-campus was geared toward kids, and showcased copious amounts of playground equipment. There was a runner’s track stretching the perimeter, but the trees were my favorite part. They were a little piece of nature, smack in the middle of civilization. Tall and varied in color and trunk thickness, they gave a home to many a critter who saw me coming a mile away. It was a peaceful place, and even after the week I’d had, I could still feel nature calming me in that way only the best parts of life could.

  It wasn’t just the hippopotamus of pressure from exams that pressed down on my chest, it was a whole new chest that troubled me. I glanced down and tugged my light zip-up sweater tighter over my breasts. In the span of a week, I still hadn’t gotten used to my face without the shroud of acne, my hump being gone and my eyes pointing in the same direction. Strangest of all were my breasts, which had burst from a solid A-cup, to actual double D’s that I couldn’t stuff gracefully into my normal clothes. They had kept growing in the days after we left the bar, but thankfully, seemed to have tapered off. I was surprised I didn’t have stretchmarks, and that my bruising seemed to be mostly faded. Every morning since then, Judah had a freaked out look on his face when he woke up next to me, just as perplexed as I was that my entire body mutated so dramatically. I was too embarrassed about it all to call Lane and tell her all that had happened quite literally out of nowhere. So I hid in my hoodie, which wasn’t quite the invisibility cloak I was wishing for.

  My hand moved to my throat, seeking out the locket that was still missing. It was the thing that anchored me when life grew too confusing. Now when I truly needed it because I barely recognized my strange body in the mirror, it was nowhere to be found. Yesterday, my Chem professor had actually stopped me, saying that they weren’t letting in new students to audit the class. He hadn’t recognized me, though I’d never missed a lesson.

  I ignored the bench and sat under my favorite knotted tree, setting down my book and opening up the loaf of bread. I didn’t have to snap my fingers at the squirrels. I didn’t have to be super still for the birds to land on the toes of my black indoor soccer shoes. They knew to come. No sooner had I dug the bag of birdseed from my pocket did twenty birds land near or on me, hopping with their tiny two-toed feet and vying for attention with their dainty chirps and chipper greetings. They were telling on the squirrels that evening, where they usually just sang me pretty songs and told me about their favorite places to build nests.

  I felt eyes on me,
but I shook off the paranoia. I kept my hoodie cinched tight around my face now, weirded out when people looked at me. The pointing had been replaced by appraising glances. I wondered if this was what normal felt like, and wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

  “Calm it down, guys. I brought enough food for everyone. Tell me everything I missed.” I worked up a smile for them as the squirrels started arguing with the birds over who had stolen whose twigs.

  No, I’m not crazy. I know it’s not normal to hear animals speaking to you, but from the time I could make out Lane’s voice, I could also understand the entirety of the animal kingdom. They have no one to listen, so I let them unload. The squirrels made themselves at home tearing apart the slices of bread into squishable handfuls. I always bought the kind of bread with nuts in it, since that’s what my squirrels preferred. Judah had thought it was crazy when we’d been younger, but he was used to me by now.

  The birds were super talkative, and the squirrels were downright rascally. Two of them started fighting over half a piece of bread, yelling at each other until I tsked their bad behavior and picked up my loaf. I peeled off my sweatshirt and hugged the bread to my purple Princess Bride t-shirt, which featured André René Roussimoff in his prime. “Cool it, guys. I mean it. If you two start fighting over food again, I’ll take this bread and eat the whole loaf myself right in front of you.”

  “No! No, we’ll be good,” one of the squirrels named Randy promised.

  The two backed down, Tubby’s fat belly dragging on the grass while Randy fluffed his black tail to keep from lunging at the big guy on the yard who always tried to steal his nuts. “There’s enough for everybody, so chill.”

  I reached for Penelope, who was never shy about climbing into my lap. She skittered over my shoulders and flicked my cheek with her gray tail, and then cozied up on my neck like a scarf to keep me warm, though it was decently toasty spring weather out. She chittered in my ear, begging for some good girltalk. “Tell me about Jake again.”

  The hottest guy on campus didn’t even know I was alive, though we’d had three classes together. Jake was pre-med, wore skinny jeans and listened to my favorite band, Lost and Forgotten. I liked to add little embellishments when I told them about human life, so Jake was transformed into a pirate with a curved sword and a devil-may-care grin he whipped out just for fair maidens like myself. Sure, Jake wasn’t a pirate in real life, but that didn’t matter. In my imagination, he had a bandana and an eyepatch and said things like “I’ll have a shot of rum in that” (that last part I’d actually heard him say at a party once, so the pirate adventure wasn’t too far off the mark).

  “Will you ever get to go off on the pirate’s ship and find buried treasure?” Penelope was always asking if I had any new stories about her favorite pirate.

  “Sorry, sweetie. A life of adventure isn’t for me. Besides, if Jake knew I was alive and invited me onto his pirate ship, I wouldn’t be able to hang with all of you, would I?” I tried to keep my voice chipper, but my animals always saw right through me.

  Penelope tried not to scrape me with her tiny claws as she hugged my neck. My favorite girl squirrel was always good at squeezing a smile out of me.

  “It’s fine. Wasn’t meant to be. I’ve got too much schoolwork to do anyways. I don’t have time for pirates. I’m learning how to take better care of all of you. That’s way more important than being the princess.” I tried to declare my future with gusto, but I couldn’t lie.

  My squirrels gathered closer around me, as the birds started singing the bedtime song Lane used to sing to me when I was little (and a few times I’d been homesick in college. Don’t judge). My furry friends so wanted to soothe my heartache. It was the Beach Boys “Wouldn’t it Be Nice”, and they nailed every bar, as usual. My hand went to my collar to finger the locket that wasn’t there. I felt naked without my necklace, and dreaded telling Lane I’d lost my favorite thing she’d ever given me.

  The squirrels kept coming until the usual forty-three were gathered around me, intermingling with the two dozen birds and the skunk. My skunk always skulked in the background, like the exchange student who didn’t know how to ask if he could sit next to you on the bus. “Come on, Wilbur,” I offered, waving him forward. I’d never been sprayed before, and I was pretty certain Wilbur just wanted a friend. In that respect, we were the same animal. He was like a shy kitten who just wanted to be loved on, so after spreading out enough bread and seeds for everyone to have a snack, I kept one hand on Wilbur while I opened my textbook.

  The familiar anxiety swelled up in me at reading aloud, but I knew my babies wouldn’t judge me if I got a word or two (or three hundred) wrong. I came here a few times a week to practice before work, and they hadn’t kicked me out yet. Wilbur snuggled into my shirt, nuzzling André Roussimoff’s smiling face that stretched perhaps too tight now across my chest. I scratched Wilbur under his chin, smiling when he purred at the attention I paid him. “I love you, Rosie.”

  “I love you, baby doll.” I knew how much he hated that people shouted when they saw him. He loved me because I didn’t see a freak of nature when I looked at him. The animals treated me like I was their prom queen, and not the dyslexic ugly girl who didn’t belong at the cool kids’ table. It’s a powerful thing to be so thoroughly loved for being who you are. Now that my body didn’t look like mine anymore, I clung to the familiar feel of their love all the more to steady myself.

  I stared the letters of the book down, daring them to make me cry. It was too much to hope that straightening my lazy eye might erase my dyslexia. I tried not to wish for things that would never happen, but every now and then, being at the bottom of the curve started to get to me. Forget overnight boobs; I’d trade my new big girl bra for the ability to read any day. “‘The smell?’ No, that’s not right. ‘The sm…sm…smallest atom in the d…d…d…’.”

  I felt someone’s eyes on me, but I brushed off the paranoia and went back to my homework. “‘The smallest atom in the d…d…d....’”

  I stopped when I heard a set of footsteps running in my direction. I wasn’t perched near the running track, so I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I tried to shoo my friends away, but they remained with me, taking on a protective stance. The birds formed a line to my right where the footsteps were coming from. Their heads dipped, readying to take flight in the direction of the newcomer, instead of flying away from the intruder. My squirrels started running laps around me, as if they thought they could form a static fence that would keep the trespasser away from their story time. I clicked my tongue to tell them to calm down; they usually didn’t get so worked up with strangers.

  “Rosie? That’s gotta be you behind that tree. Only you’d be surrounded by a million little critters.”

  “Hey, Judah.” I relaxed at the sound of his voice. “Have you come to escape the super cool people at the super cool complex?”

  Judah groaned. “It’s like just because some of us are finished with finals, they assume no one wants to read ever. The apartment below us I swear has some sort of major wrestling event going on.”

  “Whatcha reading?”

  “The library had a huge used book sale, so I cleaned up. Can you believe I got all these books for twenty bucks?” Judah excitedly opened up a book from the top of his stack, rifling through the pages till he found the right one. Judah was a master at books. He educated me on most of the things my teachers threw up their hands trying to teach me. “See this font? They don’t make it like this anymore. I mean, it’s called the same thing, but the top loops are completely different looking.” He yanked his phone out of his pocket and typed in the modern version of the font he was looking for. “See the difference?”

  I nodded, though we both knew I was bluffing. Judah was my best friend, and had been my tutor since the fourth grade when my nickname had gone from “Rosie Posey” to “That Stupid Girl” when it got around that I couldn’t read yet. “Very cool,” I said, convincing neither of us that I understood what he was tal
king about.

  Judah picked up my pointer finger and traced a letter in the book with the tip of my nail, taking his time and going down each curly slope. “Okay, that’s the old one.” Then he froze the touchscreen option on his phone and traced the same letter (probably) with my finger so I could feel the difference instead of trying to see it. He got me, and what’s more, he didn’t mind spelling things out to help me. And respelling them. And respelling them. “This is the new one. The tail on the end is curvier. Totally different, but it’s still called the same thing. Eleven years, Ro. That’s all it took for them to evolve this font into something almost unrecognizable. Isn’t that crazy?”

  “Totally shitbat.” I always got a kick out of the weird things that excited Judah. Most people didn’t get his quirks, but I did. He had one minor flaw, though: tunnel vision. “Dude, tell me you left enough money for dinner. It’s your night to cook.”

  He winced and then slowly looked over at me. His sheepish half-smile made his wider nose crinkle only on one side. “How do you feel about soy dogs and macaroni?”

  “Again. How do I feel about soy dogs and boxed macaroni again,” I complained.

  “Come on. What’s going to feed you better – books or a measly meal that we eat, and then it’s gone? Books are forever, baby.” We were leaning on the same stretch of bark, our heads sharing the tree as our own upright pillow.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Hm. When your stomach is growling tonight, I’ll just tell you to put some ketchup on page eighty-nine. Sound good?”

  “I’m going to Jason’s tonight for D&D, so you’re on your own. Speaking of which, I’m still not abandoning my theory that your locket was magic, and losing it made your body morph into this new one. I’m thinking there was a spell put on it that gave you your hump and whatnot.” He waggled his fingers at me, his eyebrows dancing at being able to work his story games into conversation organically. He pushed his glasses up his nose with a grin.