Every Ugly Word Read online

  “I already told you, Ashley, I’m not interested,” he said too loudly. “Go bark up someone else’s tree.”

  The laughter and whooping behind Finn snapped up a notch. He held my stare, upper lip curled. I let him see the waves of hatred rolling off me like heat. Yet I had nothing; no quip, no pithy remark. It was moments like these that always left me wondering why, when faced with someone who clearly despised me, I lost all ability to think.

  I took a breath and shoved Finn out of my way, striding for the parking lot and my car. Air rushed past my cheeks, cold and damp. I pushed my bangs from my face, and shook off the laughter still breaking up the night behind me. I cranked open the car door and got in behind the wheel. For a moment I gripped it, my fingernails digging into the hard plastic, imagining plowing the car up onto the walkway and over Finn and his arrogant crowing.

  But instead, I put the car in gear and reversed out of my spot. I heard someone yell my name and glanced in the rearview mirror. Finn had his hands cupped around his mouth. His words reached me even through the closed window.

  “This night just got a whole lot better, bi—”

  I turned my music up, loud, and gunned for the exit.

  Chapter Four

  Doc is paying attention now, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, stroking his moustache. “Did you tell anyone about these events? Maybe your mother?”

  Hell, no. I shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  “Because all Mom cared about was that I didn’t embarrass her.”

  Doc frowns, but I can see the light turning on behind his professional reserve. A dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship is his bread and butter. “What made you feel that way?”

  Seriously? “Just little things.”

  “Like?”

  “Like . . . she wasn’t interested in understanding how things were for me. She wanted me to conform. Be like everyone else. Be normal.”

  “And how did she define ‘normal’?”

  I scoff. “Wearing the right clothes, belonging to the right groups. Being popular. You know, high school stuff.”

  The finger on his moustache freezes. “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  He nods. “Yes, I think so.”

  An awkward silence descends. I don’t believe him, and he can tell.

  He sits back in his chair. “Can you give me an example? From around the time of the letter?”

  I snort. “Take your pick.”

  “Just tell me the first one that comes to mind.”

  That’s easy.

  •••

  When I walked in the door at home, still tense from the events at the dance, I was already composing a sketch in my head. Not one for my class workbook, but one for my personal collection. One in which a cartoon Karyn was pregnant and chased a fleeing Matt, pleading with him to look at her dimples. I was debating whether the cartoon Matt should be demanding a paternity test or crying, when I walked into the kitchen and found my mother in her robe, sitting at the dining table. That was odd. Mom owned a flower shop, which meant she left the house every morning before five to go to the markets. Even on the rare occasions I went out, she was usually in bed by eight.

  She sat, rigid, her almost-black hair sleeked back into a ponytail. She’d taken out her contacts, so her glasses were perched at the end of her nose. She stared through them at her phone, frowning.

  Had Dad called? Doubtful. We hadn’t heard from him in months.

  I tried to keep my voice casual. “Mom, what are you doing up?”

  Mom held up the phone, screen bright with a text message. A message that said FROM BROOKE.

  My heart thumped painfully. “Why is Brooke sending you messages?”

  “She isn’t. She’s sending them to you,” Mom said evenly.

  I furrowed my brow. “On your number?”

  Mom sighed. “You changed your number twice in the last six months, Ashley. I wanted to know what was going on. I had the technician add . . . Look, it doesn’t matter. I’m receiving copies of whatever is sent to you, and I want to know why you’re getting messages like these!”

  “You’re what?”

  Mom’s face remained impassive. She turned the phone to herself and began to read. “‘OMG. You’re so fat and stupid. Stop throwing yourself at guys. Everyone hates you. Why don’t you just die?’”

  Mortification started at my hairline and cut through every nerve ending on its way down to my toes. My phone had beeped several times during the drive home. I hadn’t bothered checking it.

  “Mom—”

  “‘Bow wow. Go home, dog.’”

  I swallowed, but she wasn’t finished.

  “‘Hey, Fugly. If you really want some, you can have this.’” She looked at me over the frames of her glasses. “There’s a picture attached of a boy’s penis. At least, I think that’s what it is. He isn’t the best photographer. And frankly, in a year or two, he’ll realize what he’s got isn’t really anything to be proud of.”

  I knew I should laugh. She was mocking whoever had sent it. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

  “What’s going on, Ashley?” Mom’s voice was cold.

  “I . . . uh . . . it’s just a joke.”

  One of her brows slid higher. “Do teenagers routinely send photos of their genitals to each other? I thought that was just a Dateline special.”

  I shook my head. There was a reason I’d changed my number. Twice.

  Mom dropped the phone to the tabletop and sat back, chewing the inside of her lip. “This is so disappointing. You have to learn to stand up for yourself, Ashley! I mean, life isn’t going to get easier out of high school. You know that, right?”

  The back of my throat burned.

  Mom flailed one hand. “No one’s going to offer you respect. You have to earn it. Demand it! You can’t walk into a room of teenagers looking like last year’s leftovers and expect them to admire you.” She gestured to my stretched-out jeans. “It starts with how you look, then you tell them what to think of you, then you act like you own the world. That’s the only way to get through this life without being a loser. Don’t you want people to like you?”

  I closed my eyes. “Yes.”

  “So why do these kids feel like they can do this? Why aren’t you on that phone giving it right back to them?” She indicated the phone and my jaw dropped.

  “You think I should send insulting texts to my classmates?”

  “Unless you want them to keep doing this.” Her face didn’t change.

  I stared at her, disbelieving. “You think I want this?” I stormed past her, headed for my room.

  “Ashley, I’m not finished!”

  “Well, I am.”

  I ran to my room and slammed the door with a satisfying bang. I grabbed my phone out of my purse and threw it as hard as I could. It smacked against the wall and tumbled to the floor, the screen a starburst of cracks. But the cover stopped it from falling apart. It just lay on the carpet, green light blinking to let me know yet more of my classmates had taken the time to get in touch.

  I looked around at my unmade bed, the white dresser and desk I’d had since I was twelve, the faded yellow wallpaper I hated and had covered with as much of my art and Matt’s as I could. One huge piece I’d done the year before hung over my bed. It was a meadow in perspective, tall blades of grass crystal clear in the foreground, fading to a hushed, blurry green blanket in the distance. I’d done it to try and make my room peaceful, because this room, with the door closed, was my only safe space.

  But they always managed to ruin it anyway.

  Pinching my lips together, I grabbed the phone, tore the SIM card out of it, and squeezed hard until it snapped into two pieces. Then I gathered up my pencil bag and sketchbook and dropped into the chair at my desk. Art was cathartic, the only way to exorcise my demons.

  Using acrylic crayons, I rubbed Karyn into existence on a sheet of heavy cartridge paper. The bold colors and shiny effect suited her. Her h
air came out more gray than the platinum I’d been aiming for, but her eyes were perfect—scraped out of the waxy crayon with a razorblade.

  Finn emerged next, also in crayon. I discarded two false starts before I got his rodentlike features right. I made his too-wide lips an acidic blend of red and purple. By the time I’d worked over his cheekbones and the sharp angles of his face, there was too much black on the paper, but the effect was perfect: He’d dirty anything that touched him. Just like in real life.

  As evening passed into midnight, I tried to draw Matt, in pencil this time. But it was impossible to get him right. His eyes looked dead, his face just a flat copy of the real thing. So I drew pieces of him instead—the way his shoulder fed into the muscles at the base of his neck. The way his hair flipped at his temples when it got too long. A profile of his nose, and one eye—downcast, so I didn’t have to get it right. Piece by piece, the different images of Matt came to life on the paper. Finally I drew my favorite part of him—his hand. I drew it grasping a pencil, the tendons on the back standing proud.

  When I was done, I put the pencil aside. I couldn’t resist running my finger along the soft gray lines. I closed my eyes, imagining he was really there, remembering how he’d held my hand earlier that night. How he’d needed me.

  Until Karyn showed up.

  With an angry cry, I crumpled the drawing and threw it on the floor. I leaned forward on the desk and put my head in my hands.

  Who was I kidding? Matt was never going to love me.

  Chapter Five

  Doc’s face is blank. When I close my mouth, he doesn’t move immediately. And when he does, it’s a simple tilt of his head, as if he’s listening to something I can’t hear.

  Then he takes a breath. “Did your mom ever confront you about the phone again? Or mention the texts?”

  I shake my head. “A couple of days later, she left a new card for my phone with a note telling me to change the number and not give it to anyone except Matt.”

  “Did you do that?”

  “No. It was just another way for people to taunt me, so I stopped using it entirely. I closed all my online accounts, too.”

  His eyebrows climb almost to his hairline. “At seventeen years old, you stopped using a cell phone and social media?”

  “What choice did I have?”

  His inability to come up with an answer is satisfying. But it also lowers my defenses. I find I’m suddenly desperate for him to tell me those texts were awful. To tell me I was strong.

  Instead what he says is, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  I tip a shoulder. The fire in my scars makes me wish I hadn’t.

  “Ashley,” he says quietly. “I’m here to help you, no matter what else happens. You know that, right?”

  They are simple words, but a well of emotion springs up in their wake. I am suddenly hopeful and afraid in the same breath.

  No matter what. Does he mean it? No one’s ever said that to me before.

  Well, almost no one.

  •••

  After balling up my drawing of Matt, I’d intended to get changed and just go to bed. But when I turned away from my sketchbook, I found Older Me in the full-length mirror on my closet door. She wore a heavy green hoodie, zipped all the way up to her chin.

  She peered at me. “Hey, Ashley. How are—”

  “You knew about Karyn,” I spat, stomping across to my dresser to dig out my pajamas.

  She blinked. “It wasn’t—”

  I cut her off by slamming a drawer. “Did you know Matt was going to date her, or not?”

  “I thought maybe.” She frowned. “But things . . . things are a little different for you, so I wasn’t sure . . .”

  “How could you not have told me? I almost made such a fool of myself!”

  Her face was pained. “I guess I hoped, for your sake, that I was wrong,” she said quietly.

  I sank to the floor and let the tears come. “He looked so happy with her,” I said into my hands.

  “Ashley . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter what I do, or what I say, he just doesn’t see me. Not like that.”

  Older Me heaved a sigh, but didn’t respond. Anger burned in my chest again. How could she be so calm when everything was going wrong?

  “Ash, can’t you see that if he doesn’t realize how wonderful you are, that’s his problem?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You sound like an after-school special.”

  She shrugged. “So?”

  “So?” I stabbed a finger toward her. “So, you could have helped me—if not to get him for myself, at least not to get my hopes up!”

  She blinked. “I tried. You wouldn’t listen.”

  Not for the first time, I wished I could reach through the stupid mirror and shake her.

  “If you’d said to me, ‘Ash, don’t get excited, he’s dating Karyn,’ I promise, I would have listened!”

  “I didn’t know for sure—”

  “Take a stab at it next time. I’ll cut you some slack if you’re wrong, okay? If you can’t at least give me a clue, why are you even here?”

  She scowled. “I’m here to help you.”

  “Right.”

  “Ashley, you can’t blame Karyn, or me, or even Matt for this. People do what they want. They love who they love. No one else can change that. It’s like with Mom—you can’t change the way she is. The only thing you can control is you. You can’t let her—or anyone—get under your skin that way.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I raked my hands through my hair. “I’m getting texts that tell me to kill myself. How can that not get under my skin?”

  Older Me placed her hand on the mirror, as close as she could come to touching me. She kept her voice to a whisper. “I know. I do. But you have to keep going. You just have to. If you push through this, you’ll show them. You’ll show them you didn’t deserve this.”

  Those words . . . you didn’t deserve this . . .

  I chewed them over. I wanted to believe them, but I just couldn’t.

  Older Me kept talking. “You think the way these people treat you is the end of the world. But I can tell you, it isn’t what happens to you in your life that destroys you. It’s what you do about it.”

  “Are you trying to say it’s my fault everyone—”

  “No.” Older Me put her hand up to stop me. “I’m saying that you’ve had crap thrown at you. You can either keep going and prove everyone wrong—show them you didn’t deserve to get it in the first place. Or you can roll around in it and think you deserve it, and start acting like you do.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  She leaned closer. “Ashley, if I had the chance to go back and live it again—to be in your shoes—I’d do it in a heartbeat. To learn that I wasn’t who they thought I was.”

  I couldn’t look away from her. “But everyone else thinks it is me! Even if I believed what you’re saying, it wouldn’t change what they thought.”

  “Look, there’s nothing I can say that will make this easier.” She ran a hand through her hair and looked as tired as I felt. “You just have to keep going. Because . . . because if you can believe that the problem is theirs, you won’t end up like me, or Mom. You’ll be better. Stronger.”

  “I don’t know . . .” She was telling me to fight. And I was so tired of fighting.

  She gave a watery smile. “It’s a hard road for us. But maybe you can find an easier path. And if you do, let me know.”

  I gaped at her. “Really? You’re the one who’s supposed to have all the answers.”

  “Ash, I told you, no one has all the answers,” she said, frowning. “Not even someone who’s lived the problems already.”

  “But you must know.”

  “Some, Ash. I know some.”

  “So tell me!” I groaned.

  “And lead you down the same path I took? No. No way.” She shook her head. Emphatic.

  I slumped back onto my bed and the smell of detergent rose from the co
mforter. “What point is there to having a future self, if your future self won’t tell you—”

  “I’m here to help you do it better!” she snapped.

  I rolled over to glare at her. “So do that!”

  “I am!”

  We were both silent. She sat at the mirror’s surface, visibly panting.

  “You don’t get it, Ashley. You just don’t. And you won’t until you’re on this side of this stupid glass.” She flicked her finger at the mirror.

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t think—”

  “Would you just listen, for once? Please!” She took a slow breath. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “Somehow . . . somehow I’m here. And even if it doesn’t feel like it, I am helping. As far as I’m concerned, it’s my job to help you avoid the mistakes I made. Everything I tell you, or don’t tell you, is intended to help you make better decisions than I did when I was your age.” She stopped, biting her lip. “When you’re in my shoes, you can make different choices, if you want. But I’m doing the best I can.”

  I hated those reminders that she’d once been on this side of the mirror. She’d only admitted it once before—that she had an Older Me when she was a teenager, too. But if she was reluctant to talk about my future, she flatly refused to talk about her own past. As much as I wanted to know everything, part of me understood. I’d hate being her, having to recount—to relive—the most humiliating moments of my life. But I’d do it. I knew if I was ever on that side of the mirror, I’d tell my younger self everything. Warn her about everything.

  Suddenly, she cursed under her breath and her face paled.

  “They heard me.” Her voice caught.

  “Your roommates?”

  She nodded, blinking rapidly. “I’m sorry, Ashley. We’re going to have to finish this later.”

  A moment later, the only reflection in the mirror was my own.

  Chapter Six

  Doc has been scribbling frantically on his notepad while I talk. I hate that thing. Every therapist here has one and they write things about me without telling me what they’re writing. Sometimes I fantasize about reading it. But then I think, I probably don’t want to hear what they have to say.