Beauty's Faces
The chatter of shrill, girl voices filled the crowded classroom. Groups had formed in multiple areas, from goths to preps to jocks and their chicks. Among these class coded groups were loners like Eve. She wasn't someone you would take a second glance at, infact, the most popular girl, Kathy Williams had once declared, "Whose Eve?," when the English teacher had read the roll sheet. Everyone had looked around, confused, even though most of them had gone to McArthur High with Eve for two years. And now she simply faded into the background.
Eve glanced up as someone bumped into her chair, disturbing her. Closing her worn and torn book, Eve saw a boy whose shaggy blonde hair covered his eyes. Turning his head, his electric, blue eyes seemed to pierce her heart.
"Sorry," he murmured. He turned back and slid into a seat, two spaces in front of her. As people noticed the new comer, whispers went around the classroom.
"Who was that? He's not from around here," Eve thought," Maybe he was home schooled. No…. if he had lived here, in Serenity, everyone would know him.
Eve went back to reading her book, when she was disturbed again. "Hey bookworm, setting your sights on the new guy?" Kathy Williams sneered as she slid into a seat beside Eve. "Well listen here, ugly, that new guy is hot, making him mine." At that last word, Kathy got up and went back to her clique of snobs.
From years of practice Eve easily kept back her tears. Looking up at the boy, she closed her book. "Another day in the life of Eve Nightingale," she thought. Clearing her head, Eve grabbed her notepad and started her work. At the end of class Eve waited for everyone to trickle out of the classroom. Grabbing her binders she said goodbye to the teacher and started to head for her next art class.
Walking into the hall Eve heard, "Hey wait up!" Turning, she saw that it was the new guy. "Hey, my name's Dark Mathews. My family just moved here from Salem, Oregan. What's your name?" he asked looking at her expectantly.
"My… my name is Eve," she answered softly," Eve Nightingale."
"Hmm," Dark smiled, "I like it. Actually, it fits you perfectly. Well hey! What's your next class? Mine's Art II."
Looking surprised Eve answered, "Me too."
Dark smiled and stopped as they passed his locker. Opening it he said," Your cute, Eve, shy yet cute." Grabbing his obviously new sketchbook, he started toward the art room, with Eve and the eyes of every girl in the hallway (single or those in a relationship) following him.
"Ha, ha," she scoffed, "I know you overheard Kathy. She said I'm ugly and she's right. I spend every year being the punch line for every joke."
"Their just jealous you know," he said, looking intently at Eve, "Your unique and beautiful, and I'm proud to say I know you. Something my mom used to say was that beauty has many faces. I guess it kind of stuck and it's never been proved wrong."
Looking at Dark, Eve saw that he was actually sincere. "No tricks. Hmm maybe he really is different," she thought. Smiling, Eve followed Dark into art.
Throughout the next month, Dark and Eve became even closer. They shared everything from sketch ideas to weekends together. Kathy Williams tried to break the growing bonds between Dark and Eve, but the two barely came up for air when talking, let alone let someone get between them. It was a match made in heaven. They liked the same things. Plus Eve made Dark laugh, and Dark brought Eve out of her shell.
Earlier in the month Dark had tried out for the McArthur soccer team. Something that ranked even higher than football. Dark had ended up becoming team captain, which took up most of his time. Also, his position on the team made him a prime target for girls like Kathy Williams. Despite their close relationship, Eve and Dark slowly drifted apart. Eve became very school oriented and her parents gave her first car. Dark immersed himself in soccer, school, and sadly, Kathy Williams. Their completely different schedules was the final wedge that basically made them strangers to each other, with the occasional wave hi when passing each other in the hall.
This continued until the day that tragedy struck, on the week of spring break. Eve was on her way home from working on a project at the community center. As she went to turn a sharp corner, her car slid. It rotated six times and then screeched to a stop. Two cars going opposite ways, then slammed into her, spinning her into the side of a building. As her head snapped forward, her arm made a loud crack and the windshield shattered, sending shards of glass everywhere. Eve knew she was hurt and hurt bad, but she couldn't feel anything. She couldn't feel the glass cutting deep into her face. She couldn't hear the fast approaching sirens of the ambulance. She couldn't see the blood that trickled from multiple lacerations all around her body.
The ambulance pulls up beside the crushed mass of car. They pry open the driver side door and carefully remove Eve from the wreckage. The paramedics shake their heads at Eve, as they slowly lower her onto a gurney. Just as the back door of the ambulance closed, Eve's car erupts into flames, which are quickly out by the firemen who have just arrived.
As the ambulance rushes toward the hospital Eve fades in and out of consciousness. She kept trying to say that she was fine and that she wanted to go home, but her voice kept failing, only coming out as a groan. The paramedics talked, but Eve couldn't understand them. She was barley aware of the nurses who ran along side her as the gurney is rushed down to the intensive care unit of the hospital. The doctors put tubes in her arms and fed an anesthesia into the fluid bag, making Eve fall into the black pit that was unconsciousness.
The doctor that got assigned to Eve knew her, and called her parents. As her parents ran from their home, people who lived near them passed the story around the whole town until everyone knew what had happened. When Dark found out he left Kathy, who he was on a date with, and ran all the way to the hospital, which was six blocks away. He arrived at the same time Eve's parents got there and sat with them while they waited to be allowed to see Eve. Mrs. Nightingale wouldn't stop crying, and Mr. Nightingale kept muttering something about how it was all his fault. Meanwhile, all Dark could think about was how much he had missed Eve. He'd missed everything about her. Her personality, her laugh, and especially her smile.
"You can come in now," the doctor announced as he opened the doors that led to the patients' rooms. All three of them got and followed the doctor down the hallway to a window that looked into to Eve's room. Her head was completely bandaged, with only her eyes and mouth showing. Multiple tubes ran from monitors to her arms. As they went to enter the room though, the doctor held out his hand.
"Two at a time, please. By the way, try not to distress her too much. She can't deal with a lot of stress right now." the doctor stated.
"You guys go first," Dark told the Nightingales, "I'm fine with going last." At his words Eve's parents went into the room. They spent an hour and a half just talking to an unconscious Eve. When they came out and went home for the night, Dark went in to see her. To his surprise, Eve started to move her head, and then opened her eyes.
"Dark? Why are you here? Where are my parents?" Eve asked.
"Eve, you were in a really bad car accident. Your parents were here earlier, and I'm here 'cause I was worried about you. Do you realize how bad your injuries are?" Dark asked.
"Um, well I think broke my arm, but that's about all. Why?" she said
"You have cuts all over you body, and you arm is broken in two places. It's a miracle you survived.
Eve grimaced as she replied, "I'll bet I'm even uglier now. I mean, even you, who became my only friend, left me for a beautiful girl."
"Eve, the only reason we stopped talking was that we both had different interests, and to tell you the truth I kind of liked you. I still do, Kathy Williams is just someone to fill the empty void I had when we stopped talking. Plus you're the most beautiful person I know. Do you remember what I said to you about beauty the first day I met you?" He asked.
Smiling, she answered. " Yeah, you said that beauty has many faces."
"Well, I stick by what I said then. Beauty has many faces and no one has proven it wrong, and I doubt anyone ever will." Dark smiled down at Eve as her look of shock turned to one of love.
That night was the first time the sacred words "I love you" were said between the two of them. As time went on Eve was able to go back to school with Dark at her side. She received countless looks of hatred from Kathy Williams, but she didn't care anymore. She and Dark went on to graduate and attend college together. Soon after both had graduated there and gotten jobs, they married and had kids. Together they lived out happy lives and died in each other's arms. On their headstones rests the saying "Beauty has many faces. The three most commonly missed faces of all, turn out to be birth, life, and death".