She Is Beautiful

One

One
Confidence

Alona Ryans didn't see it coming.

Henry Jones saying yes, the school cheering, the mean girls furrowing their brows in jealousy, those were what she imagined.

In movies and books after all, that was how confessions were supposed to turn out.

The most recent book she read gave her the confidence to ask Henry out. She thought Henry likes her too, was just too shy to admit it. Two times he had said hello to her. At the bus stop. At the school's gym. Two times he had helped her pull the cart of books she was delivering for homebound patrons. At the Crimson Crossing. At the Ruby Amore Cafe. They were signs. And Alona understood them.

So that Monday morning at the school cafeteria, head held high, she slowly and gracefully marched her way towards Henry.

"There's a new movie called Stop the Rain. Do you want to check it out?"

Henry looked behind him, though there only was a wall and he knew that. He was hoping, deep inside, that Alona, the least liked girl in their entire school, wasn't actually talking to him. Not now. Not when Giselle, the girl he was head over heels in love with, was sitting beside him.

Henry picked his ear with his pinky, pretending he didn't hear her, but Giselle repeated it for him.

"I think she's asking you out."

As Henry's friends chorused their oohh'ss and boo's, shifting their eyes from him to Alona, stifling their laughter, Henry felt blood rush to his face. It was the first time he ever felt shamed in all his sixteen years of existence.

He chuckled nervously. "I don't date UGLIES." He stressed the last word because it was a word that always came along with the mention of Alona's name. In the hallways and the cafeteria where everybodys paying attention to everybody, no ear wouldn't have heard of Alonas "bulging eyes" and "fatness" although Henry noticed that her eyes were not really bulging. They were only bulging a little more than the common eyes.

There was a moment of silence. It could have just been his imagination, but he saw how Alona stared at him with pain in her teary eyes. The bags under her eyes puffed up, her eyes seemed to quiver from embarrassment and confusion.

"I-I mean. . ." Henry stood. But he could not find the courage to finish his sentence. He was afraid Giselle would be disappointed of him. There was a line between the popular and the unpopular that no one could easily cross, after all. He was afraid his friends would chaff him for being soft. He would be made fun of for a year. He was afraid that the school would think he was not so cool, after all. 'Cool people do not associate themselves with uncool people' was the unwritten rule if he did not want to place himself in the center of harmful rumours.

Alona almost laughed hysterically. "B-But you talked to me. Y-You helped me."

Henry tried remembering. He did, he really did. "I was just being kind." It was true. It was his honest feeling. No ill intentions included. Even if it was not Alona, he would give a hand to anyone pulling and heaving on a cart heavier than them, he would utter a hello to anyone cowered in a corner, seemingly lonely and helpless.

"Somebody forgot to look at herself in the mirror this morning."

"Acne girl!"

"Fatty!"

"Flat bridge!"

Alona's knees shook terribly. She spun, her eyes meeting nothing but judging and sneering glares. She was wrong. She was totally wrong. She saw the exit in its flaring red letters and she ran for it. She wished the world would end at that moment. She wished she never read the stupid stupid book. Under an Awning. If the world doesn't end today, she would navigate to every book review sites existing and rate the book one and put in every stupid word the dictionary has. Self-confidence? It only tattered her.