Pinkish

“Hey, Ruby, what’s your favorite color?” A peer once asked me in elementary school over a pile of scrap paper and drawing supplies. As far back as I can remember, my favorite color has remained the same.

“Purple,” I lied, holding a pink crayon.

I grew up under my father’s wing. He was an army veteran, around 40 years old when I was born. He probably wanted a boy, but he got stuck with me; straight out of the womb with a full head of black hair and lips that spread over my face like a lizard. I was thrown straight into a Biliblanket by nurses, the usual treatment for the neonatal jaundice I was stricken with.

When I was older, both of my parents would tell me I looked like a glow-worm during those first few days at the hospital. They also agreed I was one of the ugliest babies they had ever seen.

And ugly is how I aged. I was generally ostracized by the popular girls during my grade-school years, all high and mighty with their straightened hair and side-eyes full of judgement as they lapped me during the mile we had to run in gym class. I was lucky if I came in second to last place - even speed walking was difficult for my short frame, carrying one hundred and seventy pounds at the time.

That may have been where my distaste for pretty things began; an internal rejection of the concept which had already rejected me. Pretty. That’s what the color pink meant to me.

In theory; what I wanted to be.

In reality; something that would never suit me.

So, I lied about my favorite color. Some days, it would be blue. Others, maybe black. Anything to make me feel tough; like one of the boys. But I wasn’t good enough at that either. The tomboys in my school viewed me as a wannabe. Maybe they could smell it or maybe they could read minds. Whatever it is, they knew I wasn’t one of them and I was nowhere near welcomed to their sports playing, phlegm hocking playdates.

Because of this, I started sitting at the boys table during lunch time. There, I made a good friend. Matteo was the only boy who didn’t avoid me like I had the plague.

“Rubes, why don’t you hang out with Jenna and all them?” He asked me one day. He gestured his head to the right, towards Jenna’s table. It hurt my eyes – pink shirts, skirts, book bags, hair scrunchies, lunch boxes. I shuddered. While waiting for an answer, he took a long pull of chocolate milk through his straw.

“They think I’m weird,” I told him, sinking in on myself. I rested my chin on the tabletop in defeat. I thought I could avoid him becoming curious about why I was void of other female friends.

“You are,” he confirmed, but he didn’t say it in a mean way. I still took it as such and exhaled dramatically. “But then you could go sit with the other weird girls like Savannah and her friends.”

Matteo and I both turned our heads to the left at the same time to get a view of the table where Savannah sat. She had her middle finger rotating around in one of her nostrils. She took it out and observed her fingertip before popping it into her mouth. Her and I made eye contact; she removed her booger-finger from her mouth to stick her tongue out at me.

I just shook my head at her and said, “They think I’m not gross enough, apparently.”

“You aren’t,” he agreed with a confident nod of his head. He poked his tongue out at Savannah in return. He was a good friend.

“And that’s the problem!” I exclaimed, sounding very passionate about this 4th grade life crisis of mine. “I’m not gross enough to hang out with them, but I’m not pretty enough to hang out with Jenna and her friends! I will never be able to fit in with any girls and Matt, listen – Matt, it,” I paused and took a deep breath before whispering, “it sucks.” And that was a big deal, because I had just uttered the ‘s’ word which was definitely considered a cuss for children in the early 2000s.

He took his straw out of his milk carton and tipped his head back, trying to swallow the last remaining drops. He set it down harshly, like he was about to say something important. “That’s a total lie.” He declared; squeaky voice as stern as I’ve ever heard it.

“You’re prettier than any of them, but you’re too nice to hang out with them,” he reasoned. “If you sat with them, they’d probably suck the life out of you. Might send you to the shadow realm. So maybe you should just stay here. I’ll ask Roger and Drake to sit with us tomorrow; they really like coloring, just like you do.”

No one had ever called me pretty before. It didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. I was more concentrated on the fact I had met somebody willing to introduce me into their friend group. I smiled in approval, my round cheeks squishing the corners of my eyes up.

“What’s your favorite crayon color?” I asked suddenly. Matteo got a serious expression on his face, stroking at his chin like he was an ancient, bearded wizard deep in thought. His face lit up and he snapped; a complete 'eureka!' moment.

“Definitely pink. I was going to say red, but pink is way better.” He grinned at me, not seeming to care if it was girlie or not. When he smiled that big, he was kind of pretty.

Nowadays, when I’m getting ready in the mornings, nostalgia reminds me of those times. It makes me regret hating my favorite color for so long. In the mirror I put pink blush on my cheeks and think fondly to myself, ‘Maybe I’m pretty too. Maybe I always have been.’