Not Another Fairytale

When she walks down the hall, heads turn to stare. By that one sentence, you would think she was gorgeous. You would think she was a plastic Barbie doll character. In truth, she was anything but that. In truth, she was the complete opposite. The majority of her hair was ratty and had split ends nearly to the roots. The make-up flaking around her eyes was cheap and dull and her eyeliner was wrongly applied on her lower eyelid; too far below her eyelash line. This gave her the appearance of a human raccoon. She was a person, yes, but people saw her as a monster. As if she wasn’t from this world.

Tara’s hair hid her face as she walked quickly through the hallway and into her classroom. It wasn’t that she didn’t know they were watching her; it was that she didn’t want to bother acknowledging they were. This was a daily routine for all of the students; including Tara. The bell rings, the class changes, kids flood the halls, then pause to stare as Tara walks from hall to hall to get to her various classes. And in each classroom, all chatter stopped to watch her walk to her seat in the back and sit down, running a hand through her hair to allow it to fall in her face.

It hadn’t always been like this. There was a time when people would stop and stare at Tara’s beauty, as opposed to the monster she had seemed to become. Her story isn’t a fairytale about a girl who was once beautiful and was bewitched to be ugly because of someone’s own jealous reasons. No, it’s nothing like that. This is reality; this is so much more than make-belief.

Tara’s beauty was not at all comparable to anyone else in her school. But one night, while she slept in her soft bed, a candle on her desk that was lit was knocked over by her cat. Her homework caught on fire, followed by her text books and soon, even see was screaming awake, her face engulfed in flames. This is how it started. The next thing that had to happen was they had to graft skin from her thigh to her face, the scar left by this being worse than it probably should have been.

This is how things started. You would have thought that her friends would stay by her side through everything like they had always said they would, but they didn’t. As soon as she wasn’t beautiful anymore, they cast her away; afraid to be affiliated with her, let alone be seen around her when they didn’t have to be around. People were stuck on her past looks and didn’t bother to know her at the present time. But maybe it was better like that. If they tried to know her now, they would find a dark mind, plagued by nightmares and twisted thoughts of suicidal mutilation. In her mind, she wasn’t worth the time of anyone; it would be better for her to just disappear into nothing; into oblivion. At least, that’s the way things used to be. In this day and age, things were about to spiral in a totally new direction.

xxxxx

It was a Monday morning and for the first time in a while, Tara wasn’t the one in the ridiculing spotlight. This time it was on a boy; a new kid. Tara sat in the corner of her first period class as the other students crowded around this strange boy, bombarding him with questions, “Where did you transfer from,”, “What’s your name,”, “Are you single?”

There was a good reason for the last question. This boy was undeniably and completely good looking; attractive; a knock out. And on top of all that, he was single and not looking. Immediately, the girls, both single and taken lost interest and took their seats as the guys continued to crowd around him, questioning the new boy about whether or not he had a sports career and if he wanted one. He smiled at them and appeared as if he was about to elaborate on his previous teams for some kind of school sport when he looked passed the crowd of guys and looked at Tara.

Instead of some fantastic story about winning wrestling competitions for his school or making the most homeruns for his old baseball team, he asked, “Who is that?”

All eyes turned to Tara, the girl with the hair in front of her face. There was a hushed murmur among the students wondering why does he want to know about her? Why the girl with scars under that bundle of hair, on her face.

Tara’s gaze shifted to look at the new boy who was walking toward her desk and she began to panic. She was so sure that this boy, even though he was new, was going to make fun of her. He was going to put her down and be just like all the other kids in the school. There would be nothing different about this pretty boy’s attitude. Except when he reached the desk in front of her, he straddled it to face her and held out his hand, “I’m Damian.”

She had to shake her head to rid herself of her shock and gingerly, she took his and shook it, “Tara.”

“Why are you sitting alone? Do you not like the people in this class, or what?”

Tara looked down shyly, “No. The people don’t like me.”

Her voice was so quiet; Damian had to lean forward in order to hear it. He gave her a strange look, “Well, why not? What reason do all of these people have not to like you?” He gestured around the room.

Sighing, Tara brought a hand to her hair and slowly moved it out of her face. Students around her shifted to look at her like she was some kind of freak show to stare at and ridicule. Tara looked to Damian for a change in his passive facial expression; disgust, horror, something. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing. In awe, she wondered to herself, how can he still stand to look at me, after seeing the monster I am?

Finally, Damian shook his head, “That’s it?” His voice was getting louder and that caused everyone to look at him as if he were just as hideous as she was, “That’s the only reason these jerks have not to like you? I’d love to know what their problem is!”

“I’m a monster,” Tara said shortly, her hair falling back in front of her face.

Damian shook his head again, “Whatever has caused you to think that, you couldn’t be more wrong. Do you mind if I sit here?” He was pointing to the desk he was sitting at.

Tara shifted her gaze back to her desk, amazed that for the first time in a couple of years, someone was bothering to talk to her because he wanted to; had even grasped her hand warmly, almost as if accepting her. Before her mind had even registered what she was saying one word slipped passed her melted lips that would undoubtedly change her life, “Sure.”

He flashed a dashing smile at her; one of a prince from a fairytale would be imagined to have. Damian was sure to realize the mistake he was making with trying to be her friend. The boy was setting himself up to be an outcast just like Tara was. He knew that and because of his nonchalant nature of not really caring what people said about him, he couldn’t have cared less about what the other said of did.

Throughout the day, Tara and Damian kept running into each other, either crossing each other in the hallway or having the same class. And when it was lunchtime, Tara looked up to find Damian in front of her once again, “Mind if I sit with you? We could get to know each other better and being the new kid, I need a friend and some guidance.” Damian was balancing his lunch tray in one arm and scratching the back of his head with his free hand while grinning sheepishly.

Tara smiled beneath her hair, finding herself unable to keep a sullen face when he grinned at her. It was infectious and she found herself sliding over to allow him to sit with her. Damian smiled again. Eyes watched the two as Tara actually brushed her hair from her face to get a better look at the boy.

Damian truly was gorgeous. Two bright blue eyes sat squarely on his face and his cheekbones were high; lips were plump. He wore a plain, light blue polo shirt and semi-tight, dark blue jeans. They hugged Damian’s legs like a damp t-shirt to skin. Yes, Tara decided, he was incredibly dashing. It was a shame she wasn’t.

“So…” Damian began, “Um, how are you, I guess would be a good question to ask.”

Tara allowed herself a chuckle and people at the tables around her stopped their conversations and looked around to see where that charming giggle had come from.

Damian smiled again, “So, how are you?”

“In all honesty?”

He nodded slightly at her.

Tara’s voice was very soft, but clear and musical; something no one had heard in years, “Better than I’ve been in years. It feels good, knowing someone actually wants to know how I’m doing.”

“Wow,” was all he managed to say.

“But, um,” she coughed slightly, “How are you?”

“Better than nothing. My family just officially got settled in last night. It was good to sleep on a bed instead of just a sleeping bed on the floor, that’s for sure. But everyone here seems so,” Damian lowered his voice and leaned closer to Tara. “Fake.”

Tara had to hold back a snort of laughter and leaned in toward him as well, “More than you could ever imagine. And to think I didn’t know that all these years until, well… Yeah.” She gestured to her face. She didn’t want to tell him; not yet And she felt Damian could sense that.

“It’s strange,” he said, “I come for a huge town full of people that are themselves and if other people don’t like it, too bad. Those people get tons of respect. Now, here I am in a smaller town and everyone is conformed, fake, and don’t have a shred of inner beauty about them. Except for you, Tara. You’re different and I can’t put my finger on as to why these people are afraid of that.”

She sighed and stared out the window. It had been a mystery to her also for a while now.

“Things just happen, I suppose. Things that nobody can help,” Damian followed Tara’s gaze outside into the wintery field on the campus. He didn’t realize how right he was with that statement.

“Would you like to come over this evening? I can tell you more about this place. I’ve been on both sides of popularity spectrum,” Tara told him. Plus, she thought to herself, it was awfully nice to have someone to talk to. Tara thought maybe at last, she would finally have a real friend.

He flashed his fairytale prince smile that made her blush, “I’d love to.”

She gave Damian a smile less stunning than his, but it was a true smile. As the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, he put his hand on her arm softly, “I’ll probably have another class with you at some point, so I guess you could give me an address to your house then.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tara said, standing up with her own tray while he did the same with his. Tara took her time throwing away her trash and putting the tray away. By the time she was finished with that, Damian was gone; already off to his next class.

Three periods later, it was eighth period and Damian and Tara found themselves sitting beside each other once again. Silently, Tara opened her notebook while the teacher rambled on at the front of the classroom. She wrote her address on a piece of paper and folded it. As soon as the teacher faced the board, she tossed the note onto Damian’s desk.

Damian smiled and put his hand over the square piece of lined paper. Slowly, he slid it toward him and opened it. Briefly, he looked to her and nodded. He would be there.

xxxxx

Tara walked out of the school into the wintery air. It was much like the majority of the kids in this school; cold and harsh. But Tara smiled because she finally had met someone who wasn’t like that. With whatever shred of dignity that she had found because of Damian, she walked with her head held high and allowed the less mutilated side of her face to show. Both students and teachers turned to look as she marched down the stairs of the school to her mom’s car which was waiting for her at the end of the long walkway. As she opened the passenger door and slid in, her mom stared at her, her jaw lax.

“Good day at school for once?”

Tara beamed, “Oh mom, you have no idea. There is a new boy in school and he’s in at least four of my classes. He came up to me, mom. He said hello, shook my head, and didn’t flinch when I showed him my face. And he is so handsome. His name is Damian and he’s coming over tonight! Mom, I’m so excited! I think I might actually have a real friend!”