I'll Make You Feel Beautiful Once Again

I stared at the blank sheet in front of me, occasionally peeking over to the others to see if they wrote anything down yet. Hayley hasn’t, either has Austin, and Jaime and Andy were too busy doodling on their papers to write anything useful down. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write something down, because I did, maybe just to get some things off of my mind. It was just the fact that I didn’t know what to write.

I lifted my head, trying to sneak a glance over at Kellin. He was also staring at his paper. His ocean eyes glazed over as he held his pen over the paper, ready to write. He looked so cute, and god, shut the fuck up brain. Was it wrong to think that he looked so adorable with his eyebrows furrowed and his teeth biting down into his bottom lip in concentration? Was it wrong to think this way about a guy?

“Alright, it looks as if some of y’all are havin’ trouble?” Mr.Williams asked, interrupting my thoughts. He had gotten up from his seat and was limping around the table, peering over our shoulders to see our progress. He received a few curt nods, even one from me. “‘Kay, that’s what I thought... just write down on the paper the reason why you think you’re parents put y’all in this class, and the reason why you think y’all are in this class, you hear?” That must be his catchphrase or some shit: You hear? Understand? “It’s simple, what you’re parents believe, and what you believe, understand?” See?

I turned back to my paper, my pen scrawling across the sheet slowly. I covered it with my hand, making sure no one could see what I had just written down. True, I shouldn’t be embarrassed, some of these kids might have the same problem as me, but still...

Why my parents put me in this class: They want me to get better because they love me

Why I think I’m in this class: I hate myself so I hurt myself

Before I could be the coward that I am and scratch out the last part, my paper was snatched from my hands. “What are you doing?” I hissed quietly so the others wouldn’t hear me spaz out.

“I’m takin’ your paper,” Mr.Williams told me, his voice low and threatening. I huffed dramatically and crossed my arms, turning my attention to the wood on the table. Mr.Williams snatched everyone’s papers from them and limped back over to his chair. With a heavy sigh, he slumped down and began to look over what we had written. We all stared at him and waited, growing impatient as he dug through each paper. He opened his mouth, prepared to say something, but was quickly interrupted.

“Wait!” Jenna called, stretching out her hand towards him.

Mr.Williams rose an eyebrow at her, surprised that someone actually had the guts to stand up to him. He smirked softly and nodded at her. “Yes, Jenna?”

“I don’t exactly feel comfortable having you just... spill our problems out to everybody,” she spit, gesturing to the rest of us before crossing her arms in frustration. Some of us nodded in agreement, and some of us kept our attention on other things, too afraid to meet the menacing stare of the old man.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “And what do you want to do about that?”

Jenna tightened her jaw and blew out an annoyed puff of air from her lips. “Why don’t we just... start off with one person?” She suggested. “One person instead of the whole class.”

“Deal,” he said quickly, standing from his chair and limping around the table. On his way around, he dropped a single paper in front of us, and I watched the one I received float down under my nose. “Start off with one person, like Jenna said,” Mr.Williams wheezed. “Share your problems, talk to each other, I don’t care. Just no crying, we don’t have any fucking tissues.”

I picked up the sheet in my nimble fingers, scanning the words to find a name. My heart instantly dropped to my stomach when I saw the boyish handwriting scrawled across the top. Great, I’m gunna have to spill my guts out all over the person I was hoping to avoid during this class: Kellin.