Pretty, Ugly Girl

Abi woke up for the first time in a long time to something other then Mel calling up to her. She woke up due to the fact that she set her alarm. It was a weird thing to her, getting up before seven am but she did say to Tommy that she would be there at half eight and despite the fact that she could easily go against her word, for some reason she got a feeling that he wouldn't take all too kindly to that.

It could have been down to the fact that he was nineteen years old, therefore four years old then she was, or it could have been the fact that his looks were just that slightly intimidating. She felt stupid for thinking that.

With a sigh, Abi started picking up all the clothes that littering her floor and dumped them in her washing basket. Mel refused to pick up the clothes from the floor to wash which meant that somethings hadn't been washed in almost two months. It didn't really both Abi that much because a little bit of deodorant or febreze masked any smell that they may have accumulated over the period of time.

Looking in her wardrobe seemed as hopeless as looking in the kitchen would be for finding clothes. The only thing she had hanging up were a pair of jeans that she could not get on past her thighs. She had only just brought them a few months ago and they fit then so the fact that they didn't now made Abi quite upset. In fact she cried when she tried to pull them up only to find they wouldn't go further than her mid thigh.

And what made it worse for her was the fact that Jade had tried them on to see whether they had shrunk in the wash but instead of them getting stuck on her too, they glided up her thighs with no hassle and she could button them up as well.

That hurt Abi so much, the fact that her eighteen year old sister could fit into her clothes and she couldn't. And of course Jade didn't keep quiet about it; she told Mel which somehow got to James and he took the piss out of her not being able to fit into the jeans. So in the long run, he was the one who started calling her fat and chubby.

Mel had tried to tell Abi that she was nowhere near fat nor chubby but of course the girl didn't listen to her. It was a fact that the jeans wouldn't go up her thighs because she had tried them herself so it was obvious that her thighs, at least, had to be fat. And that was something that Abi was not happy with.

So whatever Tommy was going to have her do, she assumed a part of it would be about her weight. After all beauty was focused on weight half the time and looks the other time.

Not even bothering with closing her wardrobe door, Abi went back to her bed and got on her knees before looking underneath the bed. It was where she kept clothes that she didn't like but couldn't be bothered to bin. It mostly consisted of skirts but she could swear she had a one or two pairs of trousers there as well. She pulled an item at a time out, shaking her head when she kept only getting skirts.

There was no way she'd be going to meet Tommy in a skirt and that was a guarantee. She didn't like skirts because most of the time they just seemed slutty and disgusting and the other half of the time they were too long and seemed like they came straight from the olden days where short skirts didn't really exist.

A triumphant feeling passed her when she pulled out a pair of trousers. They were a dark green colour and really baggy but Abi knew that she had a black tank top which would go with the trousers and make them look less horrible.

Keeping the same bra as she had yesterday, Abi quickly stripped and got into her trousers before she rooted around in her washing basket for the black top. When she found it she quickly sniffed it before spraying it with deodorant and pulling it on over her head. Going back over to her bed, Abi grabbed one of the jackets that was dumped at the end and pulled it on.

Glancing at the time, she huffed over the fact that it was only just gone seven. She had expected her to have taken at least half an hour with finding clothes before another five minutes with getting dressed. But she hadn't so now she didn't know what else she could do except for do her hair. But there wasn't anything she could really do with it except put it up in a ponytail. However Abi found that whenever she did that her ears stuck up far more then they did when her hair was down.

It was why she barely ever had her hair up in any way. She was the only one out of her siblings who inherited her father's ears rather than her mother's ears. It annoyed her greatly because she hated the fact that her ears stuck up no matter whether her hair was down or not. She could recall that her mother wanted to get her ears pinned back so that they didn't cause too much insecurity for her when she was older but her father didn't want her too.

She knew her mother was going to do it anyway but then she died which meant there was no way she'd be able to have it done until she was eighteen. To Abi it felt like she would never reach eighteen. Time just didn't seem to be passing by quickly.

Abi settled on just brushing her hair with her comb which took about twenty minutes because she just kept brushing over and over again on the same patch of her just to pass time by. She only stopped because she heard that someone was up already. When she listened out for the door, she could swear that it was James' door but he rarely got up before ten am.

An expression of disgust settled on her face when she thought about his girlfriend staying over. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened and despite the various dislike the girl has from the other siblings, it most probably would not be the last.

After a few minutes Abi heard the bathroom door open which she figured was James' girlfriend leaving it. She found out she was right when she heard his door again. It was funny because she didn't hear the bathroom door open when she went inside it.

Waiting around seemed boring to her but she didn't want to leave right now because then she'd be waiting around in the cold. And Abi really didn't like the cold but could put up with it at times. Though only when it was a necessary. In the end she just laid on her bed for the passing time, willing herself not to sleep. It was hard because she did really want to go back asleep but she managed to keep herself awake in order to meet Tommy in time.

She surprised Mel with being up and out of bed before she had even called up to her but the surprise went away when she realised she wasn't in her uniform and that she obviously had no intention in going to school today. Again.

But before she could say a single thing about it, Abi left the house without a thought of having breakfast or even telling Mel where she was going for the day. Then again, that didn't surprise her as much as it should have. She was getting far too used to the fact that no one in this family paid attention to anyone other than themselves most of the time.

When Abi got to the skate park she could see that Tommy was already there. And judging by his expression she guessed that she was probably late. Though it couldn't be more than a few minutes or so. As she got nearer to him, he looked up and noticed her. “You're late,” he stated which had her rolling her eyes.

Another person who stated the obvious.

“Yeah, I know. Only by a few minutes or so. Ain't like it's going to kill you or anything,” she told him, shrugging her shoulders.

“You told me that you'd be here on time. I'm not here to be messed about Abi, especially by little girls,” he snapped which made Abi just cross her arms over her chest. Tommy just glared at her for a minute or two and as much as she wanted to reply to him, she used her common sense and stayed quiet. “Good choice. Now come on, we have to get to mine so I can explain the rules to you.”

Abi followed him in silence to his house. It wasn't so much his little snap at her that made her quiet, it was more the fact that he did look intimidating right then and she swore that he was going to hit her. She was actually surprised that he didn't hit her but didn't say anything about it. After all she didn't exactly want to be hit by someone, especially not Tommy. His hands looked sort of big to her and she reckoned that they could hold a hard hit.

The fact that Tommy actually had a house wasn't something that surprised Abi. Depending who you knew, you could get a house around here when you were eighteen and be on benefits which would pay off most of the rent. It also didn't surprise her that the furniture that he had looked to be something that he was given by his parents. Even though he had a house that he could afford didn't mean he could afford all new furniture. Many people couldn't which was why they robbed the old furniture from their parents or grandparents.

“Sit down Abi,” Tommy said which brought her from her thoughts. She noticed that he was sat on a seat already so she quickly sat on the other seat. It wasn't all that comfortable to her but she wasn't going to say anything about it to Tommy because despite the fact that she mostly didn't care about hurting people's feelings (or being just plain mean), this wasn't her house to complain about. Plus the fact that he was helping her – or at least, going to be helping her.

Tommy seemed to be studying Abi for a moment or two before leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “Just to make sure, you're not going to object to what rules I set, right?”

“Right.”

He nodded, pressing his lips together as if he was thinking. Abi reminded him of the time that Emma was in her position. However he didn't think that Abi would be as quick to help as Emma was. She seemed too closed off in a way to be as easy as Emma was. And Tommy figured that getting her childhood from her would be much more difficult than it was with any of the others.

“You want to be beautiful and I am here to help you get achieve that. I know what I'm doing Abi so if you want to question me – forget about it. If you want to try and tell me that something's wrong – forget about it. I know a lot more than you do so don't try and pretend that you know all this when you don't.”

Abi was quite honestly taken back with what Tommy was saying. She didn't say anything about it though because she gathered that he was probably being one hundred percent serious because of the tone and expression he used. But in a way, she was sure that he would help her achieve what she wanted and she guessed that with him being serious and more or less strict about it, it'd help her achieve it because honestly, she had literally zero willpower when it came to stuff like that.

She admitted it to herself all the time and never once made excuses about her willpower. It wasn't like she was bothered about it so she found no reason as to why she should even ponder an excuse. But now she was becoming bothered about the fact she had no will power because she didn't know how she'd be able to survive whatever rules Tommy was going to be setting down.

“Beauty is much more what you look like then what you are like. Forget about whatever you've been taught about the only thing that matters is how you act – it's all lies because that is not true. What you look like defines almost any relationship you form. It's why you have such hard times making friends, isn't it Abi?” he said which made Abi feel like he was mocking her with the end bit.

Yes she did have trouble making friends which were anywhere near decent. She just didn't know how exactly he would know that though. It wasn't something that she would ever broadcast nor something that she would think could ever pass as gossip.

“I guess so,” she mumbled in the end, not really liking the direction this had gone in.

“You're not ugly – at least not yet – but you're nowhere near beautiful. And the truth may hurt, but you're nowhere near the size that would be counted as beautiful. It's why you wear clothes like you're wearing now, to make people not notice your body because they're loose.” Each word that Tommy was saying was making Abi feel smaller each time.

She knew she wasn't pretty and the fact that there was a pair of jeans she didn't fit into but her older sister did told her that she wasn't really skinny, but the fact that he was basically just blatantly telling her that she was ugly as something that she was finding a bit too much for her to handle.

“I know all the tricks when it comes to hiding my body; I used to be pro at it. But the difference between you and me is that I didn't have someone to help me overcome it or change myself. I had to find out the hard way and trust me, that is something that you most probably wish that you will never have to experience.”

The way in which Tommy was talking did confuse Abi quite a bit but she got what he was on about mostly. Though there was no way she'd ever imagine him to be in the same spot she was in. But then again, whenever she looked at someone she could never imagine them in a different way to which they're in.

It's just the way she thinks. There's nothing she can really do to stop thinking like that nor can she change the way she thinks.

“But here's the main question Abi. How much do you like your food?” Tommy asked, making Abi practically freeze.

How much did she like her food? She didn't really know. Sure she mostly always ate dinner because she liked Mel's cooking, but she rarely ate breakfast and most of the time she rarely ate lunch, but she didn't really know how much she liked the food. But just from the question that he asked she knew there was going to be something along the lines of food in the rules and she was going to have to follow it because she did tell him she would. Twice as well.

The question was, would she be able to do it? If it helped her achieve what she wanted, then she figured that sure she would be able to do it. She would have to because there'd be no way she'd be able to achieve it half heartedly and it did seem like Tommy was really into helping her. But would she be able to do in her house?

The more she thought about it the more Abi became determined to do this. She had to do it because she wanted to be beautiful. It was the one thing she wanted more than anything in her life and because of that, she was going to make sure she succeeded.

“I like my food but not enough to object to giving it up at times,” she ended up saying to which Tommy just nodded.

“Good because one of the rules is that you cannot eat all that much during the days. To become skinny you have to be able to maintain a low calorie intake whilst burning off the rest of it. Now I don't have you down as a girl that is into sports but every week you're going to be meeting me in the swimming pool and we're going to work on you,” he explained, making sure that she was getting everything he was saying.

And she was. And probably for the first time since meeting him yesterday, Abi was feeling excited for what was going to be happening. Even though she had only been told one rule as of yet, it seemed like one that would help with her a lot. And she really did need a lot of help.

Not only did she know it but so did Tommy, after all it must be the reason why he's helping her, she figured. But she found herself not quite caring because he must care about her in some way to want to help her. And that thought would be enough to sooth her over.