Temperance Brennan. We went to the same high school, for a while.
I was the varsity lacrosse captain. I had a ton of friends and decent grades. I was one of the leaders.
She was a geek. She had perfect grades and spent most of her time in the library. She hardly ever talked to anyone.
They talked about her.
…she's a foster kid…
…such a loser…
…a freak…
I wanted so badly to tell her she was better than the blonde airheads. I wanted to tell her that they whispered about her because they were jealous.
I never talked to her. Oh, I'm sure I asked to borrow pencils, and what the homework was, but I never talked to her. I couldn't. I was a coward and I wanted—needed—the acceptance I got for being a jock.
Almost immediately after I found out I was her Secret Santa, I found out she wanted a Smurfette.
I knew why. I knew what she thought when she heard people talking about her. She wanted a Smurfette because she wanted to be Smurfette. The girl who was never alone on a Saturday night. The girl who all the boys wanted.
Temperance wasn't Smurfette, though. She was Brainy Smurf. The smart one. The one who always had the answers. And she didn't see that it was better to have brains and be nearly beautiful than to be shallow and stupid and have nothing except looks.
I wanted her to see that she'd be beautiful one day. I was positive. My mom went from being hideous in high school to the reason my friends always wanted to hang out at my house, so I knew Temperance would eventually be a knockout.
Obviously, I never told her any of this. She wouldn't have believed me. I was a jock. She was a geek. She would have thought I was being cruel.
So I did what I could. I gave her a Brainy Smurf, because I knew that she knew that I knew what she wanted. I hoped that she would remember me if I gave her the wrong gift. I hoped that my gift would be the first step in her realizing how great she was.
And when I taped it to her locker, I wished for her to one day know that she was better than Smurfette.