I’m not deaf, nor am I ignorant. I hear what they say, their conversations concerning me; I have them memorized. First, it’s the intake of breath as I scuffle by, my thighs slapping together, my breathing labored. The words “That’s her! That’s Gayle the Whale!” soon follow, hidden poorly behind hands covering the pouty, glossy lips they usually come from. Then there’s the joke; usually about where someone can find the nearest harpoon, or an inquiry as to if I enjoyed Captain Ahab’s’ leg. Followed, almost in the same breath, by that God awful laughter that never fails to find its way into my dreams.
Words are tricky things. It’s true, words can hold an awful lot, but they can also be as void and unfeeling as the hearts from the people who speak them. Laughter, though; laughter is not something that can easily be faked. You can always detect falsity within an untrue giggle; but when it comes to me, there is no falsity; their laughs, genuine.
When I start to feel the burning behind my brown eyes, the tightness that grips my throat, I feel quickly for Grannie’s pin in my pocket. The familiar feel of plastic thorns and the cool metal of the needle relieves the aching pressure on my chest, and it’s as if she’s still here with me. I could practically hear her voice in my ears, so fragile, so delicate, that it seemed that at any moment it would fall and shatter like glass. “Gayle, even the most beautiful of roses have their thorns.”

The twenty minute bus ride home felt like days of travel. I could feel the familiar burn in the back of my throat, rising up from the pit of my stomach. I had to sit on my fingers to keep them from my mouth. The bus slows to a stop. I stood up, refraining myself from looking up, should I meet the eyes of any of my peers. And then I hear it; elephant noises as I tried to balance my way through the mass of legs and arms in the bus aisle. I turn to look at who could be making such a sound- why? Shouldn’t I be used to it?
The next thing I knew my feet were no longer on the ground, my hands outstretched, the shouts of “TIMBER!” ringing in my ears. Without hesitation, as if nothing at all had happened, the driver of the bus closes the door and away he drives. I lay on the pavement, watching the faces of the laughing kids, a smile-less face with striking blue eyes amongst them, as it hurries off.
I try to wipe the gravel and blood from my hands and knees, the cuts on the heels of my hands stinging as I wipe at the tears streaming down my cheeks, a sob lodged somewhere in the back of my throat. Walking through the front door, I hurriedly scuttle across the floor to the bathroom, trying to make as little noise as possible. I didn’t scuttle fast enough.
“Gayle. Gayle, did you just walk in that door?” The words are slurred and dripping with resentment. A whiskey bottle clenched tightly in her claw, her eyes drooping with drunkenness and fatigue, she glares down her nose at me silently. Unfortunately, the silence doesn’t last forever.
“I thought we discussed this.” I’m not sure what hurts worse, the disgusted look my mother gives whenever I’m in her sights, or the screams and sobbing that are climbing their way back up my throat.
“I’m trying” is all I can manage to get out.
“TRYING ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!” she roared her bottle narrowly missing the side of my head and obliterating when it meets the wall behind me. “Is this what you want? Huh? You want to embarrass the only person in the world who gives a single damn about you?”
“No, mother.”
“Then why won’t you try? Do you know what the girls at work say about me? Well, do you? They say I feed you junk, they say that your being fat is my doing. Dammit, Gayle! I did not want a fat daughter! WHY WON’T YOU TRY?!”
“I try! I try!” I say as she grabs at my hair, my shoulders, shaking me until the edges of my vision go blurry. She hasn’t seemed to notice the gagging sound coming from the bathroom every night, the acidic smell of vomit that lingers in the air even hours after I’m through, she hasn’t seemed to notice my passing of a meal. “I’m trying…”
When she’s tired herself out, I make my way down the hallway into my room. The tears start before I can even reach out for the handle, continuing on and growing stronger with every minute that passes as I gaze at the hopeless pile of grotesque fat in the mirror. Before I realize what I’ve done, there is blood rushing down from my knuckles to the tips of my fingers, the shattered remnants of the mirror lie glinting at my feet. I glance at the dresser across the room, knowing the contents hidden underneath the XXL large t-shirts.
I cross the short distance between the contents and I, opening the dresser and pushing aside the t-shirts thoughtfully, almost in a trance. The pills rattle as I struggle with the lid, eventually popping it free. I lose sense of time, staring at the pills in my hand.
“It could all be over,” I think. “The tauntings, the beatings, me, everything. Done.” When I finally glance out of the window, the sun is starting to set, a few stars are peeking through the veil of reds and pinks.

I open my door just enough to let me through, and tiptoeing down the hallway, I hear the snoring, the slow, heavy breaths. The thick smell of alcohol is so strong it’s like I’d just walked into a wall. She should be out for the night; she’ll wake up just to see what’s left of her embarrassment.
I grab a cup from the cupboard, filling it with just enough water to do the deed. I don’t know why, but I get the strange urge to step outside, step out into the world that treated me like an outsider all of my life, and whisper my goodbyes into the wind. I open the door, breathe in the evening air. Before I can manage to exhale, something catches my eye. Red and green; a rose. Grandmother’s rose. I must have dropped it when I fell from the bus. Pinned onto a note that reads: “Beauty is looking passed the thorns, beauty is looking at the petals. Beauty is looking past the flaws, beauty is looking at you, Gayle.” There was no signature, but there didn’t need to be. It was him, the boy with the sad blue eyes, they followed me everywhere. But unlike the others, there were no crinkle at the edges when he laughed at me, because he never did.
Looking over the street and the colossal bouquet of roses in his hand, there were crinkles at the edges at his eyes; he was smiling sweetly at me. And suddenly, the weight that I’d been carrying on my shoulders for so long, the weight that had coated my skin and dragged my self-esteem and self-worth down, didn’t matter anymore. I was me, and I was beautiful.