Beast(4)

I’ve heard girls whisper that it’s gross, that I’m nasty. I am aware.

One of the worst days in my life was when I went to get my back waxed. The fact that Mom was willing to take me to her salon was mortifying enough, but I was desperate. Last summer my friends and I were going to Splish-Splash and I wanted everyone to see I was capable of de-cavemanning. Sue me, but I thought if certain young ladies could see that I’m loaded with enough solid muscle to throw a cow over each hairless, smooth shoulder, their perceptions might change. Unfortunately, I found out manscaping one’s back is impossible if you have the dexterity of a T. rex. I couldn’t reach it all myself and needed the help of trained professionals, so Mom brought me to her nail salon. Cue the laugh track.

The lady brought me behind a curtain and I stood there, glued to the floor.

She looked all the way up at me and took a step back. “What do you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“You.” She flicked her hands like she was shooing a big fly. “Where do you want wax?”

If she only knew how hard it was for me to walk behind this shabby white curtain, maybe she might not look so disgusted. I swallowed and thought of Splish-Splash. Of being a normal fifteen-year-old. “My back?” I said in a small voice. “My shoulders?”

“Take your shirt off.”

I did as I was told.

She clicked her teeth and sighed. “Lie down.”

I did that too. It took four hours. Four of the most painful hours ever, but when I was done, everything was smooth. The lady sat slumped in the chair and my mom gave her a big tip.

We both knew it was gross if Mom said anything, so she didn’t, but when I got home, I hung my hair in my face and turned around and around in the mirror. It was all gone. I didn’t look like a throw rug. I looked like a person. It was amazing. I was ready for Splish-Splash. I was ready for Fern Chapman to jump up and sit on my shoulders so we’d win at chicken in the pool.

Fern. What can I say about Fern? She’s gorgeous and smells like a flower. She’s the type of girl I want next to me so JP can nod, like I did good. She has big blue eyes and she’s small enough that I can definitely save her from a burning building or a car wreck or something. Pocket-sized, as JP would say. She’s perfect.

Splish-Splash was not. I couldn’t go down the slides. Against the rules to go down with a hat. So I sat by the deck chairs because I didn’t want anyone to look at my face. I straight out lied. Said I didn’t want to go down the slides and then ha-ha-ha, everyone laughed and said, “Good—you might break them.” And to top it off, turns out waxing my entire body was worth a pile of shit tacos. No one said anything. Said anything nice, I mean. JP was like, “Where’s the floor-to-ceiling carpeting?” More laughter. Slaps on my sore, bare back because it’s so incredibly funny.

And if I was the butt of everyone’s joke, why did they stay even farther away? Girls skirted around me, like they were afraid of me. At the snack hut, I offered to buy this girl from my Spanish class her french fries because she was fifteen cents short. Nothing weird or crazy about that. I was freaking gallant. I was the full-on “pull out the wallet, extract three dollars, and say, ‘Here, let me get that for you’?” kind of guy. I stood over her and looked down nicely, smiling the whole time. The friendliest way I know how. And what did she do? She mumbled something I couldn’t hear, made the ohmygod face to her friend, and bolted. Left her fries on the counter. It’s like no matter what I do, I’m disgusting.

So I put a shirt on and sat down on a plastic lounge chair under an umbrella and pretended to read really important texts. All that did was get me a front-row seat to JP giving Fern Chapman his towel when they came out of the pool together. She took it and smiled at him.

Dr. Jensen clears his throat.

A poke to my arm and the day at Splish-Splash fades. My leg. The white walls. Dr. Jensen checks his wristwatch. “You here?”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “I’m here.” Still here in the hospital.

“What do you mean by finding a doctor to change you? Can you elaborate on that?”

“Elaborate?”

“It means give further expla—”

“I know what it means,” I snap. In probably not the best way, but I’m not stupid. Never have been, never will be. I just don’t want to elaborate beyond saying thank you for the referral.

Dr. Jensen flips some papers on his clipboard and makes some notes. Bores a hole through my head with his precision dagger stare.

My thumbs molest each other. “Like maybe plastic surgery or something,” I mumble. They work miracles. Surely they can snip away the ogre and tweak me into looking like a normal human person. I’ve seen the Discovery Channel.

“So what does a plastic-surgery referral have to do with your broken leg?” he asks.

“No, not like that….Like saying ‘plastic surgery’ sounds bad. But it’s just, you know, it’s something that I would, um…” Something I would get the nanosecond we won the lottery?

“I need more words.”

Heat rises up. My cheeks burn. “It’s just, this isn’t what fifteen is supposed to look like.”

“Trust me, fifteen looks like many things, and there are far worse fates than being almost six foot four, two hundred and sixty pounds. Sounds like a football scholarship if you ask me,” he says, taking his pen from his pocket. I roll my eyes. See, this is why I hate football. It’s the only thing people think I am capable of doing. Big + Ugly = Football. Dr. Jensen flips a page up, scribbles something. “When did you first place a value on your looks?”