Hi! Another chapter, whoo hoo! This was maybe the hardest one, since the previous two were mentioned in the books and this was not, so I had to come up with this one alone. But I really like it. Enjoy, and REVIEW! :D
"Hello. My name is Connor. My cat's name is Billy. I like to draw…"
Mary squeezed her eyes shut and leaned back as the first grader rattled on with the personalized speech that his teacher had made him memorize. She looked around the room and saw that most of the other girls were smiling, and even the boys looked like they were enjoying their first grade buddies.
Normally, Mary would have been having a nice time, too. She liked kids. She had always gotten along well with kids, enjoyed being around them. She had that strong maternal instinct, had eagerly helped to take care of her younger brother, John, when she was just five.
But Mary had gotten next to no sleep last night. She had stayed up late, unable to sleep, staring at the ceiling and thinking of how fat she was, of how ugly, of how disgusting everyone must think her. So right now her eyelids were drooping, her head was pounding, her stomach was rumbling. She hadn't eaten anything yesterday, and the day before only an apple and a few crackers, which she'd vomited back up. She was feeling a little faint, and the world was hidden behind a veil of haziness.
So Mary was not in the mood for toddlers.
"…and I'm really happy that you're my eighth grade buddy," Connor finished with a smile. He looked up at Mary.
She didn't really want to talk at all, especially since the fluorescent lights were making her headache worse. But he seemed so happy, and Mary just couldn't be mean.
"Hi," she said dully, unable to imitate cheeriness. "My name is Mary."
She rubbed her temples and stared up at the teacher, who started giving instructions about the first and eighth grade buddies' first project together. They were to start scrapbooks that they would work on the rest of the year.
"Now," said the teacher, "I've got a copy of everyone's yearbook picture here. I want you to take your buddy's picture, glue it to a sheet of colored paper, and write three things about them."
Mary felt like screaming. When were they going to be able to leave? Mary had already decided that she couldn't make it the rest of the day, was going to slip away when this was over and go somewhere quiet until the school day was over and she could go home. But she couldn't just get up and walk out of the first grade room.
"Do you want to go first?" Connor asked, his eyes shining with energy, a smile still on his lips.
Does nothing bring this kid down? Mary wondered. Out loud she said, "Um, sure." She grabbed a piece of green paper and glued Connor's picture to it, then grabbed a pen. "Go on and tell me about yourself."
Although Connor had practically poured out his heart in that first speech he gave, he seemed happy to do it again. The first thing Mary wrote was that he had a two year old cat named Billy. Then she wrote that Connor had a younger sister named Lizzy. After that, Mary zoned out, thinking about everything, her life, her body, her diet. The only other thing that she caught was that Connor's parents were divorced, and Mary felt like that was something she shouldn't write. So instead she put "Happy".
"Done," she said flatly. Connor took the piece of paper, and, though it took him a while to read it, he was smiling by the end.
"You think I'm happy?" he said earnestly.
"Um, yeah. Sure. You're one of the happiest people I know." Mary's stomach was rumbling more now, louder. It hurt, too. But this excited Mary. Two days, so far, with nothing. Nothing today, either. And what about tomorrow?
"My turn." Connor took another piece of paper and glued down her picture—Mary avoided looking at it, knowing it would make her hate herself more—and then he got out a pencil.
Mary racked her brain, trying to think clearly. "Uh, I have a little brother named John." She watched as Connor wrote it in large, clumsy letters.
"I like to draw." She waited for him to finish.
"And I…" But before she had said another thing about herself, Connor was filling in the third line.
"What…" When he was done, Mary grabbed the paper. Her eyes skipped to the third line.
In big, uneven letters, Connor had written the word "Beautiful."
Mary felt something inside her warm. She looked down, and her eyes met his. He looked so innocent, so kind. For a moment she was unable to speak. Then, she whispered, "You think I'm beautiful?"
Connor's smile grew even bigger. "You're the beautifulest person I've ever seen." He said it so sincerely, so purely, and Mary had to blink away tears.
She let her eyes roam up to her picture. Before, her brain would have instantly shouted out a bunch of words: Ugly, Stupid, Fat. But now, she noticed the pretty color of her eyes and the shininess of her hair.
"Thank you," she said, so softly that she herself could barely hear.
The teacher clapped her hands and announced that it was time for the eighth grade buddies to leave. Mary stood, and without hesitation Connor hugged her. Mary froze, having spent the last few months shying away from human touch, but slowly she loosened and gently hugged Connor back.
"I'll see you next week, okay?" she said, as happily as she could.
Connor nodded. "See you then!"
As Mary stepped through the doorway, she could not keep a smile from her face.
Beautiful, she thought. He really things I'm beautiful.
She walked to her locker, shucked off her loose, baggy sweatshirt, and stuffed it inside, proudly straightening the T-shirt underneath.