Flaws

When I stand in front of the mirror to brush my teeth in the morning, the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom is unforgiving: my hair is tangled and limp, the bags under my eyes are pronounced, and all the scars from poorly handled zits and my bout of chicken pox stand out like the chocolate stain on my white baseball cap. I look very much the same for the remainder of the day.
Sometimes people ask me why I don’t wear makeup. I suppose, on top of the expense and the time I would have to sacrifice for the cosmetics, I would feel oddly guilty. It’s one thing to be aware of your own flaws, but to hide them from other, equally flawed, people? It seems like a rather pointless deception, much like the medieval dogma of the sun revolving around the earth.

That’s not to say that I’ve never done it. Recently, for example, I had to apply some for my senior portrait. A sudden burst of acne days before had rendered my cheeks badly poxed. Reasoning that this picture would be trapped in the yearbook forever, I smoothed away the bumps.
Soon after my picture was taken, I bumped into the Marius to my Éponine. What we talked about was of no consequence – mundane, even. But what did it really matter as long as he was staying, making me feel alive, wanted? His offhand remark of “You look really pretty, by the way,” shattered that feeling of giddiness.
The day before, the day after. Both, either, any. Any other day, those exact words would have sent me into a state of euphoria. But that day? It was my face, but it wasn’t my face; it was me, but it wasn’t me. Didn’t he realize that, too?

One day in pre-K, when I was standing in line for the bathroom, the girl in front of me turned around and took out a chunk of my right cheek with her teeth. The teachers called our parents to pick us up early.
The girl’s grandparents showed up first. I remember because the grandmother crouched down to inspect the damage her granddaughter had inflicted on me. Of all the things that happened that day – the initial bite, the medical treatment afterwards, the Oreos I choked down one right after another as I waited for my parents – the grandmother’s face, a mixture of revulsion and pity, remains the most vivid.
Afterwards, I avoided all reflective surfaces. I was afraid, so afraid, that if I looked in the mirror and saw what the grandmother had seen, the disgust that had contorted her face would be justified. The ever-present Band-Aids shielded people from the possible horror that lay beneath and shielded me from my family’s judgment. Because seeing the grandmother’s revulsion on my mother’s face? My father’s? I don’t think I ever would have recovered.
The Band-Aids disappeared only after my father sat me down to tell me that I didn’t need to hide anymore, that my cheek was smooth again. After all, my youth made me physically resilient; my face had healed quickly without scarring.
I can’t say the same for my self esteem.
Observations about me made by my classmates in elementary school included that my eyebrows were too thick, my face was too flat, my acne was out of control. My eyes were too small, my nose was too big, my teeth were crooked. All these remarks were harmless. Or they would have been harmless, had I not been so sensitive. But without that same sensitivity, I would never have developed my indignation on the behalf of the emotionally abused. Acting on that indignation, however, is still a work in progress. Some days, I do the honorable thing. Other days, I see myself turning into the grandmother from pre-K.

“Did you see him? He has, like, no neck.”
My grip around my pencil tightened, but I kept my eyes on my notebook. I knew who they were talking about. It was the guy who helped me out when I struggled with my computer, who closed the window for me when I was freezing my butt off in Statistics because I couldn’t run to my locker to get a jacket.
“And when he runs? The whole ground shakes.” Some chortles now.
“Come on, guys. Just drop it.”
It should have been me who said that. Because I was his friend and what they were saying would have hurt him if he’d been in the room. But the excuses started rolling through my mind like the text on zipper signs: it’s not my business, they’re probably just joking around, wait two more seconds, will anyone else say anything first?
It should have been me that intervened, but it wasn’t. The one who acted was the girl sitting behind me. That hesitation, beyond all other hesitations, has haunted me ever since.

I’m just like them. The people I used to fume at because they were so callous, insensitive, cowardly – when I choose silence, I’m just like them.
What happened to the girl that swore that when she was old enough, brave enough, she would be the one to tell off the other kids if their words were unkind about someone else? The days I have to consciously ask myself that, I force myself to stand in front of the mirror and take in the baggy eyes and the acne scars.
Do I know where she is now? If I still can’t see her, I press my tongue against the inside of my right cheek, then my left, then my right again. The skin of my right cheek is just the slightest bit thinner than my left. Is that from the bite all those years ago or just my imagination?
Does it matter? I found her. She’s here. Fight for her.