Lovely Vicious Read Online Free
Author: Sara Wolf
faintly, but it’s not a real smile. “Thank you. I have work tomorrow, but I’ll be back before dark.”
Mom’s an art restorer – the kind who takes old paintings and historic vases and fixes them up for museums. But after the hospital, she’s been having a tough time finding – and keeping – work. She works at the local tourist-trap train museum for now.
“I’ll make dinner tomorrow, if you want,” I offer.
“Nonsense. I’ll get pizza.”
“Alright.” I grin and agree. She’ll forget. It’s not her fault – she’ll just get absorbed in her work or the darkness of the past and forget to feed herself, let alone me. I take chicken out of the freezer to defrost it when her back’s turned.
“I’m a little tired,” She says, sweeping over to kiss the top of my head. She smells like lavender and sadness – and that smells like ripped tissue paper and sun-dried salt.
“Okay. Sleep well.” I squeeze her hand and she squeezes mine before slowly ascending the stairs. She moves so timidly, still, like around every corner there’s someone waiting to hurt her. Tonight should be an okay night, if she was honest about taking her meds.
She shouldn’t have to take meds at all.
I wince and scrub the pots harder. I channel my rage and put enough elbow grease into cleaning the kitchen to lubricate a small car – the counters shine, the floors are smooth, and the sink is more spotless than a Disney Channel star’s criminal record. I strip my clothes off and hop in the shower, rinsing away the last remnants of booze, cigarette smoke, and glitter from the party. My knuckles are red and raw, the top layer of skin shaved off. Ah, well – a few injuries are to be expected when you punch an iceberg like Jack Hunter.
I come out smelling less like adolescent angst and more like almond shampoo not tested on animals. I bandage my knuckles and inspect the damage on my soul from tonight in the mirror. Mom’s curly brown hair and Dad’s warm cinnamon eyes stare back at me. They look a little goldish red in the middle. Dad used to say they were like little shards of ruby and topaz, but people with brown eyes search for the tiniest bit of color to make their hue unique. I call them cinnamon proudly, but the fancy-dressed DMV lady refused to put ‘cinnamon’ on my license and so here I am, fighting for brown-eyed equality still today. They have not heard the last of me - I will rise from the ashes and tango with pink-nailed, hoop-earring DMV oppression yet again.
It’s still strange to see my thinner face in the mirror. I used to have fat cheeks with massive packets of pudge slapped on my chin and eyelids. My neck had rolls. Even my earlobes were fat. I went to fat camp every summer but that never worked because I’d hide in the incinerator to escape sports time – a risky but ultimately effective tactic. I preferred becoming bacon to embarrassing myself by showing off my bouncing fat rolls and wheezy lack of stamina. I took up an entire bus seat by myself. I have to remind myself constantly I don’t take up that much room, anymore.
If I was rich like my old best friend Gina, I would’ve gotten lipo for my sixteenth birthday along with a BMW or something. You could’ve probably powered a BMW for a few months with oil made from the fat I lost, but alas. I wore layers of clothes and watched my calories carefully and ran every morning and every night, so there was just gradual muscle and no surgically-removed bags of fat to convert to something useful. I remember hating every second of my diet and exercise, but now it’s a foggy, painful memory, the opposite of the clear, sharp memory that kicked my butt into gear in the first place.
“I don’t go out with ugly girls.”
Ugly.
I touch my face, my reflection moving with me in the damp mirror.
Ugly.
Ugly ugly ugly ugly. Purple streaks didn’t make me prettier. Losing weight didn’t make me prettier. My face is the same as ever – a
Mom’s an art restorer – the kind who takes old paintings and historic vases and fixes them up for museums. But after the hospital, she’s been having a tough time finding – and keeping – work. She works at the local tourist-trap train museum for now.
“I’ll make dinner tomorrow, if you want,” I offer.
“Nonsense. I’ll get pizza.”
“Alright.” I grin and agree. She’ll forget. It’s not her fault – she’ll just get absorbed in her work or the darkness of the past and forget to feed herself, let alone me. I take chicken out of the freezer to defrost it when her back’s turned.
“I’m a little tired,” She says, sweeping over to kiss the top of my head. She smells like lavender and sadness – and that smells like ripped tissue paper and sun-dried salt.
“Okay. Sleep well.” I squeeze her hand and she squeezes mine before slowly ascending the stairs. She moves so timidly, still, like around every corner there’s someone waiting to hurt her. Tonight should be an okay night, if she was honest about taking her meds.
She shouldn’t have to take meds at all.
I wince and scrub the pots harder. I channel my rage and put enough elbow grease into cleaning the kitchen to lubricate a small car – the counters shine, the floors are smooth, and the sink is more spotless than a Disney Channel star’s criminal record. I strip my clothes off and hop in the shower, rinsing away the last remnants of booze, cigarette smoke, and glitter from the party. My knuckles are red and raw, the top layer of skin shaved off. Ah, well – a few injuries are to be expected when you punch an iceberg like Jack Hunter.
I come out smelling less like adolescent angst and more like almond shampoo not tested on animals. I bandage my knuckles and inspect the damage on my soul from tonight in the mirror. Mom’s curly brown hair and Dad’s warm cinnamon eyes stare back at me. They look a little goldish red in the middle. Dad used to say they were like little shards of ruby and topaz, but people with brown eyes search for the tiniest bit of color to make their hue unique. I call them cinnamon proudly, but the fancy-dressed DMV lady refused to put ‘cinnamon’ on my license and so here I am, fighting for brown-eyed equality still today. They have not heard the last of me - I will rise from the ashes and tango with pink-nailed, hoop-earring DMV oppression yet again.
It’s still strange to see my thinner face in the mirror. I used to have fat cheeks with massive packets of pudge slapped on my chin and eyelids. My neck had rolls. Even my earlobes were fat. I went to fat camp every summer but that never worked because I’d hide in the incinerator to escape sports time – a risky but ultimately effective tactic. I preferred becoming bacon to embarrassing myself by showing off my bouncing fat rolls and wheezy lack of stamina. I took up an entire bus seat by myself. I have to remind myself constantly I don’t take up that much room, anymore.
If I was rich like my old best friend Gina, I would’ve gotten lipo for my sixteenth birthday along with a BMW or something. You could’ve probably powered a BMW for a few months with oil made from the fat I lost, but alas. I wore layers of clothes and watched my calories carefully and ran every morning and every night, so there was just gradual muscle and no surgically-removed bags of fat to convert to something useful. I remember hating every second of my diet and exercise, but now it’s a foggy, painful memory, the opposite of the clear, sharp memory that kicked my butt into gear in the first place.
“I don’t go out with ugly girls.”
Ugly.
I touch my face, my reflection moving with me in the damp mirror.
Ugly.
Ugly ugly ugly ugly. Purple streaks didn’t make me prettier. Losing weight didn’t make me prettier. My face is the same as ever – a
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