Page 39 of Never Thought I'd End Up Here
But complimenting others is another story. It’s so much easier to see their strengths, to speak about them sincerely, to say the things I’d be too shy to tell them out loud.
To Daisy, I write:I know you don’t consider yourself very brave, but I think you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met—even if you’re scared of something, you never let it stop you from doing it. I also just think you’re really sweet and pretty and funny without trying, and I’m so glad the universe (or the admin team at Jiu Yin He) paired the two of us together for this trip. There’s nobody else I’d rather share a fancy hotel bathroom with.
To Oliver:Your ego probably doesn’t need this, but I have to admit that you’re a lot of fun to be around, and that you’re very sweet in surprising ways.
When I get to Cyrus, I pause, my pen hovering over the paper. It seems unnecessary to write something snarky, though the temptation is there, a devil hovering over my shoulder as I chew the inside of my cheek. I ultimately settle for a casual note, neither sentimental nor taunting, simply:Thanks for making sure I didn’t get crushed by rocks back there.Out of habit, I add a tiny heart after the sentence.
When everyone’s straightened from using one another’s backs as makeshift tables, we send our folded notes around and collect them in turn. I retreat to the shade to unfurl them, one by one. I’m expecting more of the same comments about how I look, because what else is there for other people to say? But the notes take me by surprise:
Your voice is so soothing—like, this is going to sound super weird, but I’d listen to an audiobook narrated by you.
I love how you always smile at everyone when you see them in the morning.
Okay, so tbh, when I first saw you I kind of expected you to be really bitchy and stuck-up … but you’re actually incredibly thoughtful and humble and fun to be around? I’m REALLY, really sorry for ever assuming otherwise, and I hope we can be good friends!!
How are you so composed and elegant all the time?!
Then my breath catches on the next note. The ink is pressed thick in places, like the person had spent a few minutes too long deliberating over every word.
Leah. You remind me of the greatest sculptors, who can turn marble into the impression of billowing silk, the coldest stone into something soft. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that everything you touch turns beautiful. The world becomes beautiful, as long as there’s you.
For the first time in a while, I wake up smiling.
I can still see yesterday’s comments projected across the darkness of my eyelids. Feel them settling beneath my ribs, taking root and blossoming into warmth.
Your voice is soothing …
Thoughtful … Humble … Fun …
Everything you touch turns beautiful.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were describing somebody else, but the compliments were written forme. Maybe—and it’s a little easier, a little less embarrassing to let myself believe in the quiet of the hotel room, my blankets snug around my body—they’re genuine. Maybe I’ve finally done it. Shed my past selves and emerged, skin raw and new, into a life where I could be happy and make real friends …
But then I open my eyes, and I realize something’s wrong—mostly because Ican’tquite open them all the way. The skin around them feels swollen and tight, and as my head spins and the early-morning light drips in through the hotel curtains, the itch creeps in. And, with it, the beginnings of panic underneath my sternum.
I flip the blankets off my stomach and shuffle into the bathroom, heart beating and blinking fast as the lights flicker on. Then I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, and I have to stifle a scream.
My hands fly to my mouth as if I’m in a tragicomic Shakespearean play: the skittish housewife who walks in on her husband kissing his decade-too-young mistress in their own bed.
Except this is infinitely worse.
A mosquito or some kind of demonic bug must have bitten me in the mountains yesterday, because there are two formidable, bright red bumps on my face—both smack in the middle of each of my eyelids, puffing them up like balloons. They’re so inflamed that my features look like they’ve been put through a distorting filter. I haven’t been this appalled by my own reflection since the days before my dramatic makeover.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, touching a careful finger to my left eye, then my right, as if I can somehow wipe the hideous bumps away like a mascara stain. “Oh. My god.”
“Leah?” Daisy’s voice floats out from the other side of the bathroom door. “Are you brushing your teeth?”
I take a deep breath. Force my panic to stay put for a little longer, even as reality comes crashing in, all my old insecurities overriding my brief moment of peace this morning. The compliments from yesterday suddenly feel so insubstantial in comparison. “Yeah, I’m almost done—just give me a few minutes …” To think. To escape this hotel before anyone can see me. My eyes swing to my reflection again, half-hopeful that it might not beasbad from a certain distance or angle, but if anything, the bugbites only seem to be swelling up further, rendering my face nearly unrecognizable.
My stomach sinks. Even though I know that it’s completely irrational and the world isn’t going to end simply because I don’t look super hot at present, I still have to fight the embarrassing, overwhelming urge to cry. It’s the same as when Cate would post a group of us where I wasn’t sucking in, or my smile was too stiff, or my hair was falling in the wrong way. That powerless, turned-inside-out feeling, the ever-present reminder that I’m not always pretty, that other, uglier versions of me exist, and nobody would ever want them.
Stop freaking out and think of solutions, I scold myself.If not an emergency exit, then at least find a way to cover up your eyes—which are itching so badly I’m tempted to scratch them out just to make it stop.
“Hey, um, Daisy?” I call out. “Do you have a pair of sunglasses I could borrow?” I should’ve brought my own pair, but I never usually wear them, because up until this morning, the lower half of my face was the weaker half.
“I’m so sorry—mine are broken,” she calls back. “They fell just the other day when I was bending down to help this really sweet old woman pick up her apples …”
Of coursethat’s something that would happen to her.
