"You are beautiful you know."

"I see it, your father see's it, sissy sees it everyone sees it, except for you."

I don't know why you think your ugly,you're not and I'm not just saying that because I'm your mother."

“I wish you could see how pretty you are," my mother said to me as she peered into my room. She looked worried.

"I know, i know you tell me this everyday." I replied sarcastically and annoyed as I flagged my hand in the air signaling her to leave.


I was standing in front of the mirror peering back at my reflection. Horrified at my appearance, I ran to the bathroom shuffled through my drawers and gathered my makeup together and dropped it into my new sparkly pink hello kitty make up bag. I needed to cover my face up with make up and quick so that I could look at least a little descant for my first day of high school. 


I pulled out my foundation from the hello kitty bag and began to swirl it around my cheeks, across my forehead and chin and smeared it all around my nose making sure to blend the powder in with my skin until all my freckles and blemishes were hidden and the skin on my face looked just like it did on the models in the teen vogue magazines. Then I grabbed my black eyeliner out of the bag and took my small manual sharpener and began to sharpen it so that it was pointy enough to make a clean outline around my eye. My eyeliner had been dull from me practicing applying my make up all weekend. This was the first time I had started to wear make up. High school is going to be a big leap from middle school and I wanted to make it a great year. First step: wear make up.Next I took my eye lash curler out of the bag and grabbed my hair dryer from under the bathroom sink. My mom had taught me this simple trick to make my eye lashes longer. I turned on the dryer an held the eye lash curler up to it. After a few minutes I felt the curler with the tips of my finger nails. It was scorching hot. The perfect temperature to keep my eye lashes firmly held in place. I took the curler and closed it around my eye lashes on each side. Then I shuffled my hand around in the bag for my mega lash blast fusion mascara. According to the commercial it's suppose to triple the length of my eye lashes. Just to be safe I had bought a pair of fairly sized fake eye lashes which I intended on using on my first day and until the lash blast fusion kicks in. I again sunk my hand in the pink bag and pulled out some eye lash adhesive. I had been practicing applying my eye lashes all weekend too and was now a pro at it. I scooted up closer to the mirror and began to slowly glue on my eye lashes, carefully making sure they looked natural and long. I had to make sure no skin was showing between my real eye lashes and the fake ones and that they were tightly secured so that they won't fall off. That's the last thing I need for someone to notice they are fake or for them to fall off. I was trying to avoid as much humiliation as I could. I don't want to have a re hash of what happened last year. This year I'm not going to be the nerdy girl. Next for the last finishing touch I take my huge eye pallet out of my drawer and start sorting through the colors with my brush until I find the perfect shade, a Goldish orange color with sparkles. I rubbed the brush in it and gently rubbed it across my eye lid.I glanced at my face one more time and decided my make up looked good enough.


Now I needed the perfect outfit, shoes and accessories. Then my look would be completed. I run to my room and open my closet door to find a tornado of junk, clothes and shoes. I quickly dig through the pile of things and find my favorite shoes: the brown sandals with blue and gold tracing from Love Culture. I slip them on and continue to dig until I find a really cute pair of ripped Miss Me jeans. They had cost 100 dollars, which my mom made me pay for myself, but it was totally worth it. Then I scrounge to the bottom of the pile and pull out a cute white and grey zebra tank top. I climb out of all the chaos and walk over to my dresser, which contains all of my jewelry. I look at all of my earrings hanging from there holder and I finally choose my plain white, small pearl earrings. Then I open up my jewelry box and search for my favorite necklace and some bangle bracelets. I pull out my necklace with a huge silver heart and a peace sign hanging from it then I take some of my silver simple bangles and slip them around my wrist. I take a final twirl around the mirror checking for any blemishes or strands of hair out of place. Everything was in place and I finally looked fine. Just fine. Even with all the make-up and cute clothes I still looked ugly,but that was just the disease talking. I don't really think that. Yeah it's just the disease I say to myself over and over in my head, just a disease. I had been diagnosed with having OCD about being perfect after visiting three different doctors and meeting with a bunch of different psychologists over the summer. Of coarse I'm the one out of my family who gets a disease. Figures.


"Hurry up the bus will be here soon and you haven't even ate breakfast yet" my mom screamed from in the kitchen.


Then an overwhelming churning feeling subsides in my stomach and I begin having second thoughts about going to school. Maybe I could pretend to be sick or play hookie. Just for one day, I thought to myself. Or maybe I should just be home schooled and never have to deal with those people again. And by those people I mean Shayna and all her perfect popular friends and everyone else for that matter. All judging me. "Mom tells me I need to get Over myself and that no one cares that much what I look like" I believe her, but try telling the disease that. And besides everyone knew me as the nerdy girl, so how can they see me as anything different then that?

I shook the negative thoughts from my head as I tried to think of my happy place. My psychologist told me to try doing this every time I begin thinking negatively. I close my eyes and imagine myself sitting on the beach, feeling the warmth of the sun as it hit my face, and the coolness of the sand as I dig my hand down deep until my whole hand is buried. Laying beside me was my mother reading like she always does with her head buried in her book. She was probably reading something by Oprah. She religiously watches the Oprah show everyday and takes in everything Oprah says. My mom practically worshiped the lady. Then as I turned over on my side I saw sissy with a pale and shovel in hand working on her masterpiece. I wasn't suppose to look at it until she was done she had told me.


Then off in the distance my dad and my brother Davin were throwing a football back and forth to each other. Then as my eyes close tighter as I try to hold on to the memory it vanishes as a new pictures appears with flashing police lights and people hecticly running around. My whole body shakes and jolts as my eye lids quickly open. My breaths are now longer and faster as my heart begins to beat rapidly. I try to rid the image from my mind, but it won't go away as it settles ideep n my mind clearly and I begin to feel as if it had happened yesterday. It was three years ago and is still fresh in my mind.


They say the first year after a loss is the toughest, but whoever said that was wrong. It's been three years now and I still can't get over that depressing night. It was 2 A.M. When my mother got the call that my 17 year old brother had been drinking and driving when he ran a read light and drove right into a semi truck. Everyone was okay and came way from the accident with miner bruises and scratches except for my brother Davin who was driving. By the time ambulances got to the scene he was in critical condition and was quickly rushed off to the hospital. By the time he got there he was already dead. They said he wasn't wearing his seat belt and the impact from the cars colliding caused him to fly through the wind shield. His body was found 25 feet away from the accident and his lungs had been crushed and his neck broken.


The time at the beach is the last happy memory I have of being with my brother. Then after Davin died it was hard for my whole family. We all dealt with it in different ways, mom sneaking away to Davins bed room to cry and sleeping way more often then before by taking up to three naps a day, dad acting like he's okay as he tries to hold our family together, Sissy asking about her brother Davin often who she was to young to fully remember and me, isolating myself from my friends and putting all of my anger and sadness into my school work. That's when my best friend who should have been there for me, Shayna became popular and turned against me. She got all her new and popular friends to harass me calling me nerdy and more horrible names than that. She practically ruined the one thing in my life that I still loved, school and I don't think I could ever forgive her for that.
So that's how I came to be known as the nerdy girl at school and around the same time is when I began to feel “sick” and was diagnosed with having this stupid disease.


I rapidly shook my whole body as I tried to come back to reality. I can't think about the past and certainly not on this day. I'm in a new school with new students and a clean slate. No one has to know I have this disease I say to myself. No one has to know. I then hugged my arms tight around my tummy and slowly dragged by body down stairs and to the kitchen.


"Eat something Aria, for me" my mom said as she Gawked at me with her puppy dog eyes" 


She knew I couldn't resist that face, yet everything inside of me told me that taking even one bite of that chocolate chip muffin would be a bad idea. Just another perk to having a disease that no one understands.



"That's okay mom I'll pick something up at school" I replied in a shaky voice.



I knew it hurt her inside when I didn't eat. She's really worried about me. Since Davin's accident I have lost over 40 pounds and now way 90 pounds, an unhealthy weight for a 5 foot 7 girl like me. I had always been skinny and light in the first place, but my health weight is at 130 and that's about what I use to weigh, so I am very under weight.


“Here I'll take this granola bar and eat it on the bus on my way to school,” I say, to keep my mom from worrying any longer. I grab the granola bar, kiss her on the cheek and walk out the door and to the bus stop.


When I arrive at the bus stop I give my granola bar to one of the sophomore boys standing there. I wasn't really going to eat that granola bar anyways, I just took it to make my mom happy and to keep her from worrying. I know she means well. She has already lost one child and doesn't want to lose another, but I just couldn't get myself to even eat one bite of it and I really didn't feel like throwing it all up after I was done. It's the worst feeling in the world, so I try to avoid eating as much as I can.


As the bus stop pulls to a stop, I take a deep breath, fix my tightly curled brown curls that had been tasseled and moved out of place by the wind. “Well here goes nothing,” I say to myself as I grab the railing and make my way up the steps and into the bus. I stand at the front of the bus for a few seconds as I try to find a place to sit. I know to avoid the back, which is where Shayna and her annoying friends would be seated as they always were. I had to avoid the front few seats to though because that's where the losers sit. I finally spot an open seat right smack dab in the middle of the bus and make my way down the aisle as I try not to make eye contact with anyone or do anything that could potentially humiliate me. I take my seat next to a short, blonde hair, blue eyed girl with beautiful, crazy long lashes. “If only I looked like her” I think to myself. The bus ride was about twenty minutes long so I pulled out my Iphone and untangled my earphones so that I could listen to some music.


I turned up the volume all the way and put my earphones on so that I could drown out everyone on the bus. As I began to get really into the music I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and faced the blue eyed girl sitting next to me as I replied “yes?” She probably just wanted to borrow a pencil or something, I thought to myself. “Sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely love your outfit. And your shirts so cute where'd you get it? She asked intently.”Forever twenty one” I replied back in a quiet raspy voice. “Cool, and by the way Im Sophie,” She replied back all perky and bubbly. I wish I had as much energy as her because I'm not much of a morning person and im not good in the afternoon either for a matter of fact. The only time I feel truly awake and feel motivated to do stuff is late at night. I'm a big night owl. I use to be a morning person though, but a lot of things about me have changed since Davin's incident.

Sophie and I got to talking and it turns out that she is really nice and sweet and nothing like Shayna or any of the other populars as I like to call them. Plus sh invited me to sit with her and her friends at lunch. Maybe this school year will be okay after all.