Far From Beautiful

I wasn’t good enough for him, I never will be.

I’m not really even sure why I try. William says that I am the most important person to him that is in his life, but I really don’t see how I can be?

I mean look at me. I am a disgrace to anything and everything. I don’t look good even when I am covering it all with make-up. I’m not skinny like everyone thinks that I am, I’m pretty much afraid of everything around me almost, and I never want to leave the house in fear of meeting someone new that will hate me because of everything that’s wrong with me, or will hate William because of his being with me.

I don’t understand how such a beautiful person like William Beckett can find someone that is such a disgrace to humanity like me, Ryan Ross, wonderful.

Plus mirrors have become my enemy.

Ever since the first time that William kissed me.

August 30, 2005

My nineteenth birthday.

I was lying with my head settled in William’s lap as he leaned back against a large oak tree in the park stroking my hair while both of us watched the sun set.

“It’s beautiful.” I spoke softly cuddling up slightly into William’s lower abdomen.

“Not quite as beautiful as you Ryan,” William whispered leaning over raising me up slightly so that he didn’t have to work so hard at reaching me.

I was about to object when his lips met mine.

You’d thought I would have been focused on my lips connected with one of the most wonderful guys in the world, but no.

I was stuck on the words that he spoke.

‘Not quite as beautiful as you Ryan’

It rang through my head.

I wasn’t beautiful, what was he talking about? Was there any possible way that this boy was losing his mind?

I mean I was probably the farthest thing from beautiful.

That was one year ago, and I still can’t fathom how he finds me beautiful.

I can’t look in the mirror, can’t face how horrific my face and body is. Can’t look in the mirror to do anything. Not for my make-up, not for my hair nothing. I’ve managed to figure out that I can fix my hair without the mirror and can get someone else to do my make-up almost every time, and when I can’t I just don’t mess with it.

It’s complicated and William doesn’t understand, but I can’t explain it to him, because well… I don’t know how too.

* * * * *

“Hey, why don’t we go out tonight?” I heard him ask me the night before for probably the third time this week.

I shake my head no.

“Ry, why not?”

“I just.. I just can’t,” I stutter.

“Why?!” William pleads to me.

He wants to know why, but I can’t tell him because I don’t even know.

“I don’t know!” I cry curling up into a ball beginning to shake the slightest bit hiding my face from him as I sit on the couch in our living room.

“Baby,” he mutters moving over to wrap his arms around me attempting to stop my now terrible shaking.

“Shh.. it’s okay we don’t have to go anywhere.” He says trying to console me now.

I do nothing but nod my body still shaking the tiniest bit.

Another time of getting out of leaving the house. I was running out of ways to convince him though.

I was going to soon have to leave the house and be seen by others. It meant my flaws were going to be exposed to whoever saw me. I didn’t want that, I didn’t want others to see how appalling I was.

It was that or lose William.

I can’t allow that to happen either. He may see who I am as the complete opposite, but I still love him.

* * * * *

Then tonight, it starts like it has about the last four or five days.

“Can we please go out and do something tonight RyRy?” William asks.

Again, like always, I shake my head no.

“WHY?! WHY RYAN? I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY WE CAN’T GO OUT!” He screams making me sink down in my seat on the couch.

“I-“ I start.

“Don’t say you don’t know. Its all you ever tell me.”

I’d never heard him like this.

I didn’t know what to say to him. It scared me the slightest bit when he was like this.

Quickly I stood from my sunken spot running away from the living room where he was yelling at me for not saying why I couldn’t leave.

I hastily ran up the stairs towards the second floor moving down the hallway, and into our bedroom slamming the door locking it behind me as I sank down to the floor back pressed harshly up against it.

Soon I heard William’s footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hallway. Then came the knock on the door.

“Ryan, please open the door I wanna talk to you,” He said just loud enough I could hear his voice from the opposite side of the door.

“No,” I muttered hiding my face in my legs.

“Love, I just want to know what’s wrong please let me in.”

“I can’t William.”

“Why not?”

Standing I unlocked the door, and swung it open.

“Seriously?! William, I don’t understand how you don’t see it. I’m not pretty I don’t deserve you. There isn’t any possible way that I can be the person that you want. I don’t ever want to leave the house because I’m an embarrassment to everything and everyone around me. I don’t want people to think of you differently because of me.” I told him shaking my head slightly tears running down my face, turning away from him walking over closer to the window where I stopped.

“Ryan, you aren’t an embarrassment. I love you,” he told me walking closer to me taking a hold of my hand. I quickly turned away from him as he wrapped his skinny arms around me.

“You don’t love me. You can’t love me,” I stammered.

“But I do. I always will, and you are beautiful Ryan please understand,” he begged me guiding me towards the wall that sat in front of our bed. I knew why too. There was a mirror there, and he was going to make me look at ugly myself.

I kept myself turned away from it the best that I could, but William kept turning me back.

“Look at yourself please,” he asked me the sadness in his voice hurtful to me.

“No,” I said struggling to get away from him though I wasn’t sure why. That boy may have been super skinny, but he was strong to and I couldn’t fight him, and I finally gave in looking in the mirror.

I still wasn’t pretty.

“Ryan don’t you see. I love you. You are itty bitty,” he said this placing his hands of my waist. “You look absolutely amazing with or without your make-up,” William continued touching my jaw bone with the back of one of his hands. “And even if you weren’t beautiful, which you are, I would love you because I don’t just love you for being pretty. I love you because of they way that you think, the way you act, your creativity.”

I stared trying to find what he was seeing. Trying to see what he believed I looked like. It was starting to show, but still I felt as if I wasn’t as pretty as he thought.

Slowly I felt myself being turned back to him.

“We’re going to do this everyday until I can convince you,” William told me.

I nodded slightly know that he was going to stick to his words now that he had said them.

Still, how long can you hold onto something before finally figuring out that you are wrong?

I’m still not sure.