I had a specific excerpt that I'd been planning on sharing if I'd finished it, but I don't think it's quite ready. Instead, I want to share something a little more "polished". Not that anything is really finished in the midst of NaNoWriMo.
I was torn between several scene selections. I have a variety of funny, silly scenes and also dramatic scenes. I've got scenes that include a bit of each. I think that this excerpt does that. I think it includes both drama and humor, or at least that's the effect I plan for it to have.
I shuffle through the clothes in my closet, trying to find something to wear to Delta’s graduation dinner tonight. It’s just the three of us, but I still want to look good. Why is it so hard to find something that doesn’t look disgusting on my body?
I just can’t find anything that I like anymore.
That’s a lie, though, because I never really had much that I liked. And it’s really dependent on each day’s mood. Some days, everything looks perfect. Other days, I just can’t work it.
I don’t know why I’m such a disgusting fatty. I’ve been this way most of my life. I was a chubby child. I thinned out a little in junior high, and then I put weight back on Freshman year of high school. The only reasonable explanation I have is that the stress has sent my diet spiraling downhill.
I’ve finally been losing weight recently. But I still can’t find anything to love about my lumpy body.
Sure, there are parts of me that I like. I have pretty hair and eyes. I like those, and that’s why I accentuate them so much. As for the rest of me? I despise it all. My nose looks crooked in profile. My ears are just a little bit too big for my head. My butt and bust are too small and my hips jut out further than they should.
If I could trade my life for anyone else’s, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I don’t see how things could much worse for me. I’m an unattractive high school girl with almost no friends and a mother who can’t stand to be around me unless she’s taking over my life. She pretty much wants me to fit this mold she has, and it’s just not working for me.
“Are you almost ready?” Delta asks, standing in my doorway.
“No. There’s nothing for me to wear.”
“What do you mean?” she asks. “You have tons of great clothes. Why don’t you wear the red dress with the lacy sleeves?”
“Because it makes me look like a fat tramp.”
“Tiffany!” she scolds, entering my room and closing the door behind her.
“Sorry, but it’s true. Nothing in that closet is worth putting on a body like this. Do we have any burlap sacks I can poke a whole in? Maybe I should just wear a garbage bag so that my outside can match my inside.”
She sits beside me and puts her arms around me. “Don’t be ridiculous, Tiff. You’re beautiful.”
“I’m not,” I say.
“Yes. Yes you are. You’re beautiful. Of course you are.”
“Well I don’t feel like it,” I tell her. “I’m ugly and fat and I just don’t feel like going anywhere ever again.”
“You’re only saying that because you compare yourself to the photoshopped girls in magazines.”
No, I say that because it’s true. And maybe because people never miss an opportunity to remind me of that fact.
“I’m a troll,” I complain.
“Why can’t you see how pretty you are?” she asks.
“Maybe because it’s not true. It’s so easy for you to call me pretty. You’ve got it all together. Perfect body, perfect hair, perfect teeth. Nobody picks on you or calls you Porky or Butterball.”
“Who calls you that?” she demands.
Somehow it doesn’t seem right to say that Mom used both of those on me this morning, so I lie. “Just some girls from school.”
“Well, I’m far from perfect,” she says.
“Oh? How aren’t you? You’ve got everything that I don’t have. I think Mom wishes she’d had two of you instead of having me. I wonder if she’ll ever love me just for who I am.”
“Mom loves you too,” she tells me.
I want her love so much, and I hate that I do, because I know that I’ll never have it.
“And my hair isn’t perfect. Sometimes I even hate it. I have to straighten it every single day so I don’t leave the house looking like Frodo Baggins. And I have one crooked tooth right on the corner of my mouth. It always irritates my lips and that gives me colds sores.”
My older sister has flaws? What a revelation.
“What else?” I ask. I’m convinced that nothing she dislikes about herself can be as bad as being an ugly blob of a freshman.
“Okay.” She looks around the room as she thinks. “My feet.”
“What’s wrong with your feet?”
“I hate them.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, that’s the thing. But I’ve always been super self-conscious about it. I feel like my toes are weirdly long and they grow on this strange little curve. Like, what’s with that?”
“Liar,” I say, smiling. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up, though.”
She shoves my shoulder and I let the force knock me onto my back on my bed. “Don’t call me a liar. It’s true. You remember when all the girls were going to get mani-pedis?”
“You had a cold,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I was fine. I couldn’t bear the embarrassment of letting everyone see my weird feet. I was being silly, but I was just so… I couldn’t even imagine.” She chuckles at her own expense. “I pretended to be sick so no one had to see them.”
“What about pool parities?” I question. I don’t feel so alone anymore. “You must have had bare feet in the water. And what about at the beach.”
“I’ve only been bare foot around family,” she says. “When I’m with other people, I wear sandals that hide as much of my toes as possible and I make excuses to not take them off. I don’t go in the pool.”
“Really?” I laugh. “Your feet? That’s what you’re most self-conscious about?” I ask in disbelief.
“That’s it!”
“But mine is worse! I’ve got jiggly thunder thighs and underarm flab and stomach rolls.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about all that. You’re losing the weight, aren’t you? Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine. You’re already on the right track.”
“You know I’m right,” she says, somehow picking up on my thoughts.
“Yeah, I know. You are right.” I sigh. I’ve spent too many years fighting back tears. But I know something that she doesn’t know. I’m not losing weight because I’ve been dieting like I keep telling everyone. I just keep saying that to Mom and Delta and anyone who asks because there’s no way anyone would approve of the truth.
Delta would try to help me. Mom would be ashamed of me.
“You’re so fit,” I tell her enviously. “I mean, it’s like you look lean and muscular, not just skinny.”
“You’re strong,” she tells me.
I know it’s true, but why don’t I look strong? “How can I be so strong? I can lift heavy things, but I don’t have obvious muscle like you do.”
“I guess it’s because you’re a weakling,” she teases.
I love her even though she’s such a dork. “A weakling? Well then you’re a weak link.”
“Go on,” she snorts. “That makes you the weakest link.” Clever.
“You’re the missing link,” I accuse, and she breaks down laughing.
“That was good. I didn’t even see it coming.”
I smile at her, feeling comfortable and at peace when it’s just the two of us sitting here and joking with each other. I’m going to miss her so much when she goes off to college. I never noticed until recently how much I really need her sisterly love and acceptance.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t want her to be constantly with me when I was younger. Or maybe it’s the fact that I know she won’t be around for much longer.
I’m so used to us being with each other eight days a week. Pretty soon we’ll barely be talking.
She pulls me into a tight hug and I hug back tighter. “You look great, okay?” she charges. “And whatever you wear tonight is going to be beautiful.”
“Thanks,” I say softly.
When she leaves the room, I sit on my bed looking into my open closet. I try on the red dress that Delta suggested and study myself in the full-length mirror on the other side of my bed.
I blink tears out of my eyes. No, forget this stupid dress. I can just imagine what my mom will say about it when she sees me.
I’m ready to take the dress off when I think about Delta. I look in the mirror again.
I remember a time when I knew what happiness was. I remember a healthier, more confident me. I don’t look at the dress, but at my face.
Why did I think I’d look so bad? The problem is that I look like I want to cry. I don’t look trampy in this dress. I actually do look kind of pretty, I guess. I mean, not gorgeous, but not as bad as I’d thought I would.
I’m not going to let my reflection dictate what I wear tonight. The mirror can mock me all it wants, but I will wear this red dress and I will wear it proudly.
I’m going to feel beautiful at this dinner if only because Delta told me I am beautiful.
Taking a quick step forward, I grab a sheet off of my bed and cover the mirror with it. I want to just crumble against the wall and retreat inward, but if I give in then all hope is lost. I’m going to be confident. I’m making that decision, as hard as it is for me.
“I don’t need to see you anymore,” I say to it. I take my shoes, jewelry and makeup and head into the bathroom. This way I can look at my face without my hideous body getting in the line of sight.
I’m just holding on to that thin little lifeline that is my sister’s love. Hope is all but lost for me.
As I walk into my bathroom, I’m surprised by how nicely this dress actually feels like it fits. I thought it was smaller. Still, it fits comfortably. It barely feels snug on me. It feels nice to discover I was wrong. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. I grin at my face in the mirror.
When I look back, I’m pleasantly surprised by how happy I seem to be.
Thanks, Delta, I think to myself.
I look back on every season in my life and realize that my sister’s been with me through every valley, every mountain, and every other moment of my life. I’ve never truly been alone, because she’s always got my back.
Tears spring back into my eyes, so I dab at them with a clump of toilet paper. She’s always been there. Soon she won’t be with me through it all anymore. She’ll be out of state if she’s lucky, and I’ll be high and dry, trying to survive in this house with my mother constantly tearing at me.
How am I going to prepare myself for the storm that’s coming? As I try to put my eyeshadow on, I’m screaming on the inside. I know that I won’t be able to do this on my own.
It’s going to be so different without Delta. I wish she could stay for a little while longer; I just want her here with me. I feel helpless just thinking about her absence.
But I love her and I want her to be able to escape this place.
Still, what am I going to do when she’s not with me? Who am I going to run to when Mom’s mood goes from mildly annoyed to critical danger? Who will I complain to about school life and boy trouble?
I’ll be completely alone.
So what do you think? Do I do a good job of including drama and comedy into this scene?
If you want to share with me, feel free to post a small excerpt as a comment or link me to a larger excerpt. I love to see what other people's work-in-progresses look like.
Is anyone done with their novels yet? I know that it's only the midpoint, but I'm curious to see how early people finish. Let me know how your journey's been going in the comments below!
--Britni M
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