~~S H A P E O F M E~~
They say 'nobody's perfect', but why do some of us have to be 'less perfect' than others? It took me long, but I finally realised that other girls weren't more perfect or closer to perfection than I was. Rather I was farther away from perfection. Beauty was really just how far away from perfection you were. It wasn't how close. The farther you were, the less attractive you were to society and the less farther away you were, the more attractive you were.
It might not make much sense, but the absurdity of my thoughts kept me occupied as I made my way to school that I was too busy to give a damn about the whispers and gossips that flew through the air.
"Is he here today?" I muttered as I got on my tiptoes in order to view past the multitude of people that had filled the hallway. I still wasn't tall enough to see as much as I wanted to, but I knew that he wasn't in school. Again.
I couldn't bear to imagine anything happening to him, but it was Wednesday—five days after he had asked me out—and I still hadn't heard a word from him apart from the sweet texts he sent during the weekend. He stopped texting after that and he hadn't shown up in school for the past two days either.
"Is he okay?" I bit my bottom lip, overthinking and worrying myself into a nervous mess. I was tempted to run into the bathroom and dial Malik's number, but then I remembered that Sherrandah had told me to meet her in the cafeteria. Obviously I couldn't choose to not meet her royal gorgeousness, so I dragged my unwilling self past my locker and into the hallways.
"Hey Sherrandah."
"Hey Tems!" She grinned at me as usual and I smiled back, uncomfortable under Yolanda's glare and Zari's stare.
"Hi Yolanda, hi Zari." I greeted both of them.
"Hi baby." Zari piped, winking at me. and I wondered if she would ever stop. Yolanda on the other hand completely ignored me and it was fine by me. I was already used to it.
"Sit, sit." Sherrandah pointed at a seat next to her.
"Okay." I said timidly.
"So, did you do what I told you to do?"
"Oh. I forgot." I scratched my head, feeling embarrassed.
"Give me your phone." She stretched her hand towards me. "At least you downloaded the app, and God yo phone is small." She commented, and I felt embarrassed a second time. Sherrandah was giving me attitude because I had forgotten to open an Instagram account like she asked me to.
This was as a result of the fact that I kept postponing it since I wasn't sure what to do and also because ignoring it gave me more time to worry about Malik. "Here. Put in a password. Anything you think other people won't easily know." She advised and the first thing that sailed through my head was Malik.
"Oh okay." I nodded and put in my password which was the only thing I thought of: 'Malik2000'. The added 2000 was only to make the password longer as I did to all my other passwords.
"So what do you want your username to be?" She asked, and my brain froze with absolutely no ideas. "How about Temsbaby5 or Temisexy or ThickTems1?" She suggested and I wrinkled my nose at the last two usernames. Temisexy? I could as well call myself a.stupid.joke5
"I think Temsbaby5 sounds better." and it did in my opinion. It had a ring to it that I liked.
"Hmm, okay. Remember you can change it any time you like." Sherrandah said, then turned to Zari and Yolanda. "Y'all follow Temsbaby5 right now."
"Right away." Zari said and took out her phone.
"I'll do that when I feel like it." Yolanda said and I thought I saw her roll her eyes.
"Oh and I'll give you a shout out later on Tems." Sherrandah said as she typed away on her phone. "You can follow back when you got the time."
"Oh okay. Thanks Sherry." I smiled at her, while part of me was still worrying about Malik.
"Aii' boo. So how many valograms y'all think you getting today?" She seemed excited as she asked. I checked my phone to confirm that it was February 14th, Valentine's Day. I had totally forgotten today even existed. Agonising about Malik's absence was so draining that it kept me out of the loop of things going on around me. I wouldn't be surprised if I had a test today that I totally failed to think of.
"At least ten." Zari shrugged. "Them boys know girls are my thing."
"How 'bout you Yolly?" Sherrandah turned to Yolanda.
"I got twenty five last year, so this year I expect at least twenty." She spoke slowly, seeming highly disinterested in the whole subject matter. Sherrandah had broken the record last year by receiving 28 valograms and Yolanda had followed very closely. I wondered how many they would each get this year.
"What of you Tems? How many you think you getting?"
"None." I stated plainly. I had never gotten a valogram for Valentine's and I didn't expect today to be different. "I don't have secret admirers like you guys."
"It gets boring and especially tiring after a while Tems. Trust me." She rolled her eyes and I wanted to tell her that I wouldn't mind the attention at all, but instead I said.
"I know. It's a lot of work for y'all to accept flowers." I must had sounded bitter as all heads turned to me. "I'm going to class." I announced and pushed back my chair so I could leave.
"Let's hope your mans, Malik sends you one." Yolanda gave me a fake smile and I turned to glare at her. I had wanted to tell Sherrandah about our 'relationship' after we actually started dating, but Yolanda was being a b*tch and ruining everything.
"Why?" Sherrandah laughed in a way I thought was nervous. "They aren't together, or are they?"
"Why don't you ask Temi?" Yolanda grinned for the first time today, and I felt like wiping that smug smile off her face.
"We aren't anything. Yet." I gritted my teeth in anger. "See you guys later." I dodged past the big statue at the end of the cafeteria and headed for class.
On Valentine's Day, first periods were mostly shortened as five or more minutes were used by the freshmen to give out valograms to people who had any bought for them by their friends, boyfriend or someone with a crush on them.
My first block today was English class, and soon enough I could see the freshmen arrive with their baskets of flowers. The girls were dressed as cute angels in all white, flimsy dresses from which you could see the outline of their underwear–thongs to be precise. While the guys wore white, tight fitted tank shirts and shorts. I felt my eyes hurting from the array of white floating in the room.
My head was bent over on the desk as I waited for the sharing of flowers to be over when I heard a cough beside me. I raised my head to see a Valentine's angel standing with five bunches of flowers which had cards hanging from them in her arms.
She smiled at me and placed them softly on my desk. The five bunches of flowers had different colours, but all still roses. The first two were a bunch of red roses, the third and fourth were pink roses and the fifth was a posy of yellow roses. I ignored the eyes that settled on me and tried hard to hold in my surprise at the fact that I had received not only one valogram, but five in total. It felt like a dream; a dream that I didn't want to wake up from.
The Valentine's angels made their way out of the class, but another girl walked back to my table and gave me a bunch of red tulips.
"You are so lucky." She whispered, then as if she suddenly realised what she had done, turned red in shame. "I'm so so so sorry." She stammered. I looked up at her; with her ginger red hair in two ponytails. I thought she was adorable with freckles spread over her nose and parts of her round face.
"Here." I handed her one of my pink roses.
"Thank y...you so much." She stuttered again. Was she really that scared of me? "Bye." She said and hurried away. At the door she regained her composure and gave me a small wave. I smiled at her.
CHS was owned by an American-Canadian and so we followed the US' high school standard. Our high school started from grade nine to grade twelve. The grade nines were called freshmen, grade tens were sophomores, grade elevens were juniors and grade twelves were seniors.
Being a freshman two years ago, I knew the one rule that applied in CHS and it was the fact that freshmen were not allowed to fraternise with the juniors and seniors. The grade nines were seen as immature and too young, and it wasn't until they were sophomores before they were actually seen as an important part of the school. By then as everyone said, they had already been 'integrated'.
This was the reason why the ginger headed Valentine's angel was horrified that she talked to me, as she completely forgot about the rule. Honestly, I didn't care about the rule. If anything, I thought it was just stupid.
"Alright. Five more minutes for you all to read your cards and giggle and scream like the girls you all are." Our teacher, Mr Burns said spitefully but no one payed him any attention. We were too busy buzzing about our valograms.
I checked each bunch of flowers in the order I was handed, starting from the red roses. The first didn't come with a card, but the second did which read:
"One valogram couldn't show how much you mean to me. Not even two or three are enough. But I'll give you these few today. Be mine and let me give you a flower for every Valentine's Day of your life and every chance I get." It was signed. "Yours only baby, Malik." An idiotic smile spread over my face as I read the card over and over again, engraving every word into my heart as my fingers stroked over their curves.
I was about taking the flowers apart when I noticed that one pink bunch and two bunches of red roses were together. That meant the three were from Malik. I checked the pink bouquet for a card and there it was also handwritten by Malik.
"Roses are red
Violets are blue
I don't really like poems
But I really LIKE you."
A giggle made its way out of my mouth before I could stop myself and I felt heads turning towards me. I didn't care though. The message was really cute and it surprised me that Malik could be so corny and sweet at the same time. It was hard to believe that he really liked me. The question had bothered me for long but I still hadn't gotten an answer; why me?
Was Malik one of those guys that wanted something else from a girl? I mused, but quickly shut my eyes and shook my head to get rid of the thought. It wasn't true. Malik was different.
Moving on to my other posies, I sniffed the yellow and the other pink roses. They smelt really good. They both had cards attached to them. The yellow was from Sherrandah "Do you sexy. Happy Valentine's boo. From Sherry." I smiled at her haphazard writing even though it was enough to give anyone a headache.
The card on the pink roses read "Pink looks good on that ass. Wear it more. Truly, Zari." I shuddered in embarrassment even though she wasn't here in person to say it to my face. Somehow she managed to make me feel uncomfortable when she was present and also when she wasn't.
I held the red tulips in my hands, feeling their velvety petals and tiny veins while I tried guessing who could had sent me the flowers. I however couldn't think of anyone. At least I knew for sure that it wasn't Yolanda.
"You so fine
And you pretty fire
But no matter how much time
I'm still gonna make you mine." I read the card twice over, looking for the sender until I turned to the back where tiny initials were printed at the corner.
I felt my throat go dry as I picked at the letters.
"J.K."
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