Someone Like You Read Online Free Page A

them.
    ‘But Simran, I can’t wear all this,’ I say and dig into the chocolate pastry we had ordered. If there is one thing that I have come to love in Delhi, it’s the food. It’s amazing and no matter where you go, something awfully delicious will find its way to your mouth.
    ‘Yes, you can wear all this,’ Simran insists. ‘See, most of the clothes here are for models and really skinny people. You are skinny and you can look prettier than these models here. For now, we will buy you something toned down and once you’re used to it, we will buy the more outrageous and outlandish clothes. But yes, we do have to get you a dress.’
    ‘I am not sure.’
    ‘You’re never sure. Screw the pastry, let’s go to a salon now,’ she says and pays the bill. The charmed waiter makes sure the card is swiped and the slip is signed swiftly. We leave Barista and my heart aches for the unfinished pastry—a little piece of heaven—that I had been forced to leave behind.
    As she drags me out from the coffee shop and onto the escalator, I ask, ‘Why a salon?’
    ‘When you look into the mirror in a beautiful dress, more often than not, you’re looking at your face and not the dress. Yes, the dress matters, but the face matters more. We need to get you tidied up. And trust me—cleaning eighteen years of dirt takes time.’
    My protests that it will not help my cause are turned down. Simran is absolutely confident and very persuasive, asusual. On the third floor of the mall, there is an upmarket salon where we are going to spend the next three hours. I don’t get what she says to the person—equipped with a belt that has twenty different types of clips and scissors hanging from it—but I can make out a few words.
    Desperately needs a wash … cut it in layers … make the eyes pop out … blow dry … re-do eyebrows … hideous … nails … clean up … beautiful … ugly …
    The details of what happened inside the salon are painful to recall now. My face is sore and warm and it pains near the eyebrows and the nose. I don’t know as yet whether it’s worth it, but every time I pass a mirror it’s like a different person stares back at me. My eyebrows look like they have been hand-sketched, my complexion looks at least three shades fairer and my hair is now tangled into a beautiful mess with keratin and hair wax. I can smell how good I smell.
    I look
beautiful
! This is the first time I am using that word for myself.
    ‘See? You love yourself, now, don’t you?’ Simran asks, catching me lingering around a mirror for a little too long.
    ‘But didn’t you say I didn’t need to do all this?’ I ask her. ‘That I was comfortable in my own skin and I didn’t need make-up.’
    ‘Yes, I said that, but don’t you like yourself better now?’ she asks with a smirk, and puts her arms around me from behind. I look at our reflections in the mirror and I have tiny tears at the corners of my eyes.
    ‘Simran,’ I say, ‘we look like sisters.’ I smile and look up at her, like a child needing assurance. ‘I look nice?’
    ‘Yes, you do. But to look like sisters, we need to get you out of your rotten jeans and show off a little bit of your legs.’
    ‘I have never worn anything like that. Or like what you’re wearing,’ I say, as I turn red in the face thinking of what itwould feel like to slip into a dress. Though, I have to admit I am also a little excited thinking of it.
    ‘Do you hate me for taking you to the salon?’
    ‘No, not at all,’ I say and look into the mirror again. My heart starts to beat faster again; it feels like my first real moment of loving myself. My hair looks fabulous and I can’t take my eyes off it.
    ‘Then, trust me. It will be good,’ she says and drags me behind her.
    She takes me to shop after shop, brand after brand, not asking me to try on anything. I am thankful for that but I am sure she will start doing that soon. Meanwhile, I start to bombard her with questions about whether