She started her morning as any other teenage girl- washed her porcelain face, combed her wavy, long, brown hair, and brushed her perfectly straight, white teeth. Her room was in perfect order, thrifty books and vintage tapes, arranged alphabetically, and her bed full of assorted stuffed animals, and pure white sheets, and a puffy white comforter on top. She had vacuumed her floor twice already that morning, though it did have a few clumps of hair from her orange and black cat, other than that, it was clean and faultless. Outside of the house showed the rising yellow circle in the sky, partially blocked by wispy white clouds. There were droplets of dew on the grass and the sweet smell of cinnamon and autumn air was in the atmosphere. Two cars drove down 21st Terrace that morning, one that produced a tremendous amount of noise in the silent neighborhood, and the second who sped down the Terrace and exceeded the maximum of 15 miles per hour on the street. She directed her attention from the window to her backpack full of unfinished work and broken pencils. She thought to herself, this chilly autumn morning has just begun.
Her name is Xochitl (Zoe-chill). She woke up at five a.m. that morning from a terrible nightmare, full of green monsters with yellow fangs and long thick claws. She got up from her bed that she was sitting on, and rubbed Mary-Kay foundation on her thin long face evenly covering every atom of her face. She applied three coats of Maybelline mascara on her long and curvy lashes, and sweetly swept jet-black liquid eyeliner on the bottom-most part of her eyelids. The mirror showed black circles under her eyes from lack of slumber, she poked their puffiness ad frowned. She hated her mirror, her face, her body, her complete reflection. She stepped on her cold pink scale, as she does every morning, she had fear in her eyes, and she shut them. When she opened them, she saw the number 102, she was furious. She had not eaten a morsel in three days, and she only lost one pound. She was excessively upset; she could not even consider going to school that day. However, she still had to endure a long day with tears stuck in her hazel eyes because of the amount of missed days already that year. She brushed the tears that had leaked from her eye off her face, and walked to her closet. She slid on her favorite pink stripped skirt, and clingy white v-neck. She felt hideous, heavy, and atrocious. She slugged outside, hopped in her red and black Mini Cooper, and headed off to school.
A few minutes from school, she stopped at the 7-11 as she does every morning, with two crisp dollar bills in her hand. She grabbed and icy-cold diet coke, and walked up to the counter. The man complemented her on the skirt, and told her how good she looked in it, which was creepy to her. How could a man twice her age look at her body in such a sense, and why hasn’t any man her age done the same? While walking out of the store, she popped open the can, and threw the tab on the wet concrete along with her change- she hated having change in her pocket and jumped back into her car. She put on a gray cardigan, and started the car. She drove to school, and found a parking spot with two spots left untouched on either side. She sat in her car, set her favorite playlist on her iPod on shuffle, drank her diet coke, and took two ibuprofen tablets for her headache. She was contemplating skipping, but she did not want to be caught skipping again. Her mum told her if she skipped one more time, she would get her car taken from her, and she could not even think of how she could get around. She had no friends to take her to her favorite places- the mall, the beach, or her volunteer job at the hospital. She would have nothing to do but sit at home and hear the yells of her parents, and the video game noises of her neglected younger brother. The clock told her that it was 7:10, which meant it was time to slug her way to Drama 1.
Xochitl walked into the front entrance, and saw a few people she had always seen in the morning. The red haired girl who always wore her tops too high and her bottoms too low, and she was always hanging on her boyfriend Tim, who was tall dark and slender. There was also the preppy cheerleader friend, who always carried the same book in her arms, which Xochitl could never figure out if it was because she cared dearly about the book, or that she could not finish reading it because she spent all her time on her hair and makeup. She walked past her red rusty locker, which had only been unlocked twice, because she had forgotten the combination. Some people in her grade smiled a hello while she walked past them. They always smiled, but they never seemed to have the time to chat. Do they smile because they know I have no one to talk to? That not a single person cares and they want me to think they care. Well, they do not care. If they did, they would chat. They would tell me they cared. They don’t. She entered her Drama classroom, which reeked of perfume and sweat, and sat in the back corner. She avoided all eye contact, took out her pink and silver pencil, her non-spiral notebook paper, and a sugar-free cough drop to suck on so her tummy would not rumble.
The day went by quickly, lunch was the best part, the rest was a dread. She had sat out in the sun and sketched people eating their lunches. She liked to watch people eat, though, if she watched herself eat, it would repulse her. She did not like how bits of her meal would drip on her clothing or face from time to time, though it was silly when it happened to other people. She liked to see people smiling and giggling, she wished she smiled and giggled as much as others giggle. The other parts of the day were spent daydreaming about princes on white horses, galloping to save her from her life. She hardly remembered it all. When the last bell rang, she avoided people on the halls, and walked quickly to her car. She got in, took off her cardigan, plugged in her iPod, and drove to 7-11. However, this time, the creepy and was not working at the cash register, but a younger, cuter man. He also complemented her skirt, and told her that she did not need to be drinking the diet coke, because she looked so slim and pretty. She could not help but blush and smile. On the dollar bill, she wrote out her cell number, and walked out without saying a single word. Instantly, her mind was filled with regret. What if he never calls me? Or does not really think I am pretty? She felt that she was going to throw up, her stomach was getting queasy and turbulent. She got back in her car, and drove towards her favorite place, her favorite place ever.