Counselors and kind-hearted teachers had told Kara that high school would get easier. She just needed to trust other people. Open up. She just needed to put forth an effort, and if she needed any help, just come and talk to them. Kara suspected they were hired to pretend to care, and they probably gave the same empty advice to every student that felt like they didn't fit in. But Kara knew she wasn't like other misfits, if there was such a thing as a "normal" misfit. Kara knew the advice they were giving would not help her.

Every day, her new mom and Alex drilled into her that she had to be careful. Hidden powers in the world were looking for her. Outside of the Danvers household, Kara's whole life was a lie. Kara couldn't mention her former life on Krypton, of course, to ANYONE; as far as the world knew, she grew up in Midvale orphanage.

She was given names of caretakers, teachers and fellow orphans to memorize. She could confide with her new counselors about the fictitious life, but not about what was really bothering her.

"We can't help you unless you let us in," they often pushed her.

"You can't help me, anyway," she would reply coldly. After a few visits, Kara could tell her counselors were giving up on her.

So really, the school didn't have a chance to help her fit in. Nobody did. She could never be happy always pretending to be someone she was not. Knowing that made her need to cry often, but she couldn't even do that. Some days Kara felt like ending it all, taking her own life and all of the lies with it. Often she puzzled over how to do that. Ironically, Kara's whole world was dead, and Kara herself was unkillable.

So instead she acted like she was dead, haunting the hallways of the school like a zombie, never raising her hand, sitting alone at lunch, and only learning enough from her classes to avoid the embarrassment of having her mom called in to help fix the broken girl.

High school was so damned lonely.

Her step-sister Alex was a sophomore taking advanced placement classes, so Alex didn't share any classes with her, and Kara couldn't spend any time with her big sister until the bell rang at the end of the day.

Without Alex, Kara felt totally lost in this crowd of teenagers, where every mistake resulted in humiliation.

Mom and Alex showed her how to dress, but she didn't know if she was doing it right. Clothing was so much more complicated than on Krypton, where girls just slipped into a one piece gown and moccasin-like shoes. Bras, panties, belts, hats, stockings, scarves, sweaters, high heels, glasses and pants all looked very complicated and strange. To Kara, some Earth girls looked like clowns with all the makeup they wore.

Even when Kara wore exactly what she saw other girls wearing, she knew she wasn't fitting in. She didn't sway her hips like other girls. She didn't know how to bat her eyes. She didn't know how to be shy attractively, and she didn't know how to assert herself without seeming like a bitch.

For Kara, class work wasn't as hard to grasp as the social stuff, and sometimes Kara actually tried to learn. Earth education wasn't so different from the schools on Krypton, and Kara felt like she could learn math and science and philosophy easily.

Maybe theoretically Kara could learn. Maybe these classes should even be easy for her. But she didn't learn. She didn't see a future in learning. She didn't have any dreams for the future at all. She only dreamed of the past on Krypton, or of going back home with Alex, where she could be herself, and where people accepted her, unlike school where even when Kara really tried to connect with other students, they shied away from her. Or even insulted her for trying.

Kara was used to it. The wounds of repeated rejection were scabbing over, and if she didn't pay them any mind, they would eventually heal, only to be replaced by new wounds. But Kara could handle it now. She had learned how to accept her lot in life. At least that's how she had felt that morning.

Until everything changed.

It was lunch time. Kara felt starved, so she walked a bit too fast down the hallway towards the cafeteria. She wanted to get her food first so other students would not notice her chowing down before the rest of the kids sat down to eat. They would call her a pig, eating so much, even though she was underweight. They didn't understand that her Kryptonian metabolism needed twice the calories of an ordinary human.

But before she could get to the cafeteria, she felt like many eyes were following her. She paused to look around, and anxiety turned to a creeping feeling of dread. Her fellow students' eyes glowed with a fierce judgment burning holes into Kara with their stares, as if they had powers greater than Kara's. One boy who was holding a sheet of paper like an exhibit was pointing at her. Laughing.

Kara so wanted to flee like a startled cat, but instead she froze, afraid that whatever she might do, it would be the wrong thing. Looking around her, she finally noticed that copies of the sheet of paper the boy held were taped on the walls, over lockers and on windows every few steps down the hallway. She grabbed one.

The sheet had been printed from a website, namely the "StudentBody" blog, which was supposedly created by some pretty blonde girl in the school, but might just as well have been some acne covered geek. Nobody really knew for sure who the infamous blogger was, but her website was always the topic of conversation, because it posted tabloid-like news about Leesburg High School, it's faculty and it's students.

Under the blog's banner were 2 boxes. The top box was labeled "EyeCandy", with pretty colors and cute images of candy on the borders. Inside that box were 4 columns, labeled: Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors. In each column were 5 names. Kara glanced through each column. Being a freshman and a bit of a social misfit, Kara didn't recognize any of the names, except that her sister Alex was ranked 3rd on the list of Sophomores. Good for you, Alex, Kara thought. She didn't have much sense of what Earth people thought was beautiful, and she was happy that other people admired her sister, too.

Below the pretty box framing names of pretty girls was another box. This box was surrounded by little gargoyle and halloween icons amid patterns resembling decay. The label on the box was predictably "EyeSores" framing the names of ugly girls.

The very first name on the list was Kara Danvers.

Kara stared at the list for a moment in confusion. She felt like she was about to be involved in some kind of horrible accident. Time was slowing down. Her hands clenched into fists. She was mesmerized, and her mind was rapidly filling with questions:

What did it mean? Was this list saying she was the ugliest freshman, or the fifth ugliest? Did it matter? Who made the list? Who had seen the list? Was there another Kara Danvers in the school? Did someone in the school hate her? Was it true? Was she really the ugliest? What would happen next?

Kara dropped the sheet of paper and looked around. Several eyes were following her. She felt cornered. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide. She wanted to play dead. Could she survive socially? What reaction was on point?

Kara turned back towards the cafeteria and tried to walk at a casual pace. She walked awkwardly, like she had forgotten how. She was sure other students were watching, laughing at the way her ass moved out of sync with her lumbering body, groaning at how her shapeless legs stumbled like stilts when she walked, and whispering about how her boobs still haven't come in yet. They were staring at her like passengers in a car stared at wrecks alongside the road.

As Kara turned the corner into the cafeteria, one of the popular seniors blocked her path. The much taller girl stared at Kara with an expression between sympathy and disgust, and asked: "Why are you crying?"

Was she really crying? Kara worried. She touched her eyes and felt streams of tears and suddenly realized how upset she was. She pushed Miss Popular out of the way a bit too hard, and ran through the cafeteria a bit too fast. She ran out of the door leading outside, then darted across the school grounds, then flashed across the street to the woods on the other side, and finally slowed down when she was sure nobody could see her. She dropped to the ground in a fetal position. She wished she had never opened up her spaceship and entered this horrible world.

X X X

Kara didn't understand much about this strange society she was now trapped in. It had weird concepts of good and bad.

On Krypton, good simply meant people helping each other. Bad meant people being selfish. Morality was as simple as that.

In America, just about anything made a person bad: Wearing mismatching socks. Loving the wrong person. Failing a class. Showing off in class. Having acne. Being poor. Being "uncool," whatever that meant.

But the worst thing a person could be was ugly. It was the ultimate evil, the only unpardonable sin. She had only been in school for three months now, but that lesson was made very clear from almost the first day.

Her foster mom had always told Kara she was pretty, and Kara believed her. But maybe that was just what moms are supposed to say. Adults were nice but they always lied to make kids feel better. Adults told them fairy tales like Santa Claus, the Little Train That Could, and the biggest lie of them all: The Ugly Duckling. Adults then spouted values that they themselves did not believe in, like "You can be anything you want to be when you grow up," or "Beauty is only skin deep."

Kara's classmates were completely different. Kara knew they were mean, but they were also brutally honest about things that were wrong with each other. Why would her classmates lie? If they were saying that Kara was ugly, then she must have been ugly.

Kara never could tell when she looked in the mirror, but now that she knew, she could see it. Her hair was neither blonde nor brown but a filthy looking mix. Her 15 year old breasts barely created bumps in her blouse. She looked sullen when she was relaxed, and her face wrinkled on the odd occasion that she smiled. But the thing that made Kara feel worst about herself was her weight. She weighed a whopping 165 pounds, which according to the charts the school handed out made her borderline obese. According to Kara's mom, she was actually too thin. Her Kryptonian cells were much denser than normal humans, and her ideal weight should supposedly be 180 pounds, and her mom even said that was probably why her breasts weren't coming out. But even though it was obvious to everyone else besides Kara that she was not overweight, she felt like she was a pig, and she was sure other people thought so, too. After all, people saw her eat an entire large pizza all by herself and still feel hungry. She tried to force herself to only eat the standard lunch provided by the cafeteria, even though it left her feeling lightheaded. When she slipped into a bikini, she thought she could see fat leaking over the elastic. She didn't care that she could also see her ribs around the bikini top.

It must have been her weight, Kara decided. That is why people thought she was ugly. Well, she just wasn't going to eat anything else at school. She didn't care if she was tired all day. Nobody else would, either. If they didn't see her eating, they would know she was trying. She had to set a goal. She would get her weight down to 150 pounds before the end of the semester. The only thing that worried her was that maybe her mom was right, and her breasts wouldn't grow until she gained weight. Well, she could always fill up her bra with something else. That was just what she had to do.

Kara finally wiped away the last of her tears and began to walk slowly back to school. She could do this. She had just never known how ugly she was before, but if she worked at it, she could eventually get off that list. Or at least not be at the very bottom.

X X X

The cafeteria had mostly emptied out when Kara returned to school, meaning that it was time for her next class. First, she needed to take account of herself. She slipped into a restroom and took a quick look in the mirror. Her eyes were haunted by dark blotches that wiped away easily, but now her face was naked. She brushed away some dirt from her skirt and legs, and she combed her hair. Then she paused, sure that she was missing something. Did she smell OK? Was she wearing too much of that crappy perfume her mom gave her? She knew she needed to go to class now, but just the thought of entering that room, knowing that all of the eyes of the class would be following her twisted her stomach into knots.

She stood frozen at the mirror for what felt like a long time when the door opened and a familiar girl with bright red hair walked into the restroom with a blotch of mustard on her shirt. Kara squirmed, knowing that Red recognized her. The girl stood beside Kara, took a paper towel from the dispenser, wet it, then proceeded to clean the yellow stain, while occasionally stealing a glance at Kara. Each glance increased Kara's feelings of shame. Then, as the girl was about to leave, she shook her head and said, "I don't care what the list says, I think you are really pretty."

Again, Kara needed to wipe her eyes, as a reservoir of pain poured out of her soul in the form of tears. Kara didn't know if she believed Red's kind words, but despite Kara's lack of faith, those words exorcized her shame and fear. She wanted to hug Red. She wanted to know her real name. At the very least she wanted to thank her. But all she could do was smile gratefully through the tears.

Red smiled back and then left before Kara could say a word.

Shortly after, Kara walked to class. She was a few minutes late, but the teacher did not scold her, and while her classmates did stare at her as she made her way to her seat, she was forgotten as soon as the teacher began taking attendance. Even when Kara's name was called, no laughs or whispers fouled the air, so Kara could breathe freely.

X X X

Kara did not see Alex all day, until they boarded the bus to go home. As always, their bus was mostly empty, so the two sisters sat undisturbed near the back. They felt uncomfortable and unable to talk about the elephant sitting between them, when Kara finally said, "Congratulations, you know, about being so beautiful."

"Oh God!" Alex replied, rolling her eyes. "You don't believe that crap, do you? I mean, the idea that you are ugly is so crazy, and I wonder if they mixed the lists up and I should really be on the bottom."

Kara laughed and hugged her sister as tight as she dared, saying "I love you!"

Alex looked around before hugging Kara back, then whispered in her ear. "Me too, but wait until we get home."

Kara nodded her head, sat up straight and collected herself. With the public disgrace today, Kara had forgotten that they had much more private and explosive secrets to protect from the ever watchful eyes of Big Brother and now StudentBody.

During the whole trip home, Alex stared out the window at the cars moving the other direction. She was acting colder than usual, making Kara feel anxious at first. Then, Alex shifted her hips slightly and with the slight of hand of a magician, Alex's right hand pulled Kara's left hand down into the vacated space between them, disappearing in the folds of Kara's skirt. Kara simultaneously froze and melted as Alex's fingers straddled the back of her hand, and her thumb gently stroked Kara's inner palm. Kara tried to act bored for any potential spying eyes, but she couldn't hide the red glow on her face.