Page 6 of Desperate People

Being beautiful felt like winning the lottery on a day you didn’t even buy a ticket.

Oh, maintenance is real.

The work behind the scenes—waxing, threading, contouring, learning to smile just enough to seem friendly but not enough to invite trouble.

Holding eye contact without inviting someone’s hands.

Balancing confidence on a knife’s edge.

But the bones? The symmetry? The skin that photographs like porcelain even when I feel like hell inside?

That’s just DNA.

Just Dad.

And Mom. I have her eyes and skin color.

But on that night, in the quiet hush of my pink-and-purple bedroom, my father sat at the edge of my bed with a look on his face I’d never seen before.

Haunted.

He reached out and traced a line from my brow to my chin, gentle like I was something fragile.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he murmured. “Sorry you got stuck with this.”

I laugh a little, confused, thinking it’s a joke.

But he doesn’t smile. Not even close.

His dark eyes are heavy with secrets I’m too young to understand, and I see something in them that makes my stomach twist.

“I hope you never have to learn why I’m saying this,” he says, then kisses my forehead and tucks the blanket around me like armor. “I love you so much. Now go to sleep, my little Devil.”

I carry that moment with me like a pressed flower in a favorite book—flattened and faded. But never forgotten.

Because at almost thirty years old, I think I do understand.

Beauty opens doors.

But it also paints a target on your back.

It invites unwanted hands, eyes, and assumptions.

People think they know you because of your face.

They think you asked for the attention.

That you enjoy the looks.

That you’re fair game.

Sometimes I think being born beautiful is the one thing I’ll never stop paying for.

And sometimes, when I see the way men look at me—not like I’m a person, but like I’m a prize—I wonder if this face is more curse than gift.

But then I remember my father’s voice.

And I remember that he knew.

---