Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)
Katie Ray
Knowing your soul, I hardly see the face that won my heart.
~Cyrano de Bergerac
This is not a story about a pretty girl. Well, at least, I’m not the pretty girl in the story.
It’s not a story about how a beautiful girl and a beautiful boy meet and fall in love under perfect circumstances. Well, that is, I’m not the beautiful girl involved.
This sure as hell isn’t a story about happily ever after. More just the happy you feel in a moment that you catch like a bloom, holding it, breathing hard, photographing it, calling it sweet words, until it fades.
It’s a story about being unpretty, about the unavoidable reaction to our appearances. It is the story about seeing past outward flaws and that maybe, just maybe, people care about what’s inside.
I am smart enough to know that beauty is temporary, fleeting, a short fuse that can’t be relied on. We are taught that we have flaws and that flaws are our imperfections, but maybe they’re our own personal beauty marks, what sets us apart, what makes us different. Yet, we are taught to conceal them, cover them, or remove them completely. We are taught to HIDE them. I say, embrace them. Allow our imperfections to be the very thing that makes us stand out.
It’s easy for me to say that. I don’t have a choice.
Chapter One
CeCe
As I followed a line of students up the stairs of the administration building I started to note the double takes and neck swivels in my direction. I passed two girls heading toward me, and one of them, sporting blonde hair with the ends dyed a washed-out blue, caught sight of my face and faltered. She grabbed her friend’s arm as if she had gone weak.
“Oh my God,” Blue Hair said, loudly enough that her friend and I and half the campus could hear.
I paused for a moment to give her a good look at the right side of my face. It wasn’t the place for a lesson in manners, so I opted for my death glare, which had been known to instill terror in the cockiest of freshman volleyball recruits.
I summoned my best serial killer voice. “You should see the other girl’s face.”
Blue Hair’s eyes widened. I gave her another hard shove with my eyes before she grabbed her friend’s arm and hurried down the steps. I turned and headed for the entrance doors, careful not to make eye contact with anyone else, determined to ignore the piercing stares, bruising comments, and all the weapons the world could brandish.
Despite the mob of students milling inside the building, the lobby space felt unusually peaceful. A baby grand piano stood in the corner of the room under a glass-roofed atrium. The musician was playing something classical. I stopped and glanced at an easel by the door that read “Student Wellness Initiative. Co-sponsored by the Health Services and Edgelake Music Department.” The piano piece sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Not enough notes for Mozart, not tragic enough for Beethoven. I knew Shazam didn’t work on live music—no embedded RIAA code—but I surreptitiously pulled out my phone anyway and recorded a few seconds of the song. Maybe I could identify it later.
Before I turned, a crowd of students parted and I briefly glimpsed the musician’s hands. His long, supple fingers moved expertly over the keys. I could see the tendons in his tanned forearms working to make the music sound effortless.
My phone suddenly buzzed, jolting me back to my reason for being here. I pulled it out of my pocked and glanced at the screen reminder—my first class of fall semester was beginning in two minutes.
The piano player had started another song. This one I recognized as Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” Morning sunlight fell through the atrium ceiling, illuminating the room like a cathedral. I felt a sudden surge of the despair that I usually held at bay. It must be the Beethoven.
I wove through a maze of hallways until I found Honors Shakespeare. Even science-minded students like me had to take six credits of literature, and I’d already read some of Shakespeare’s plays freshman year.
I walked into a small discussion room with three long tables set up in a “U” formation. Choosing a seat was easy. I always sat at the far right end of the table nearest the door. All the other seats were across from me or to my left. It was easier if I let people get to know me a bit before I gave them a good look at the right side of my face. Or maybe it was just out of habit. The room filled up quickly. Most of the students seemed to know each other already. This was an honors-only class and most of the students were aspiring English professors. They probably already had acceptance letters to Ivy League schools.
“I know it’s a tight squeeze,” said the professor, identified on the syllabus as Dr. Sarah Watford. “They wanted to put us in a lecture hall, but I wouldn’t let them. They offered to give us this meeting room. It’s so much more intimate, isn’t it?” She had a melodic voice, surprisingly low for such a tiny person. Her blonde hair fell slightly below her chin and had streaks of silver in it.
She began her introduction, starting with her teaching background, until the door creaked open and a student walked in. She stopped mid-sentence and stared at the intruder. I looked over and caught his brown hair as he turned, looking for an open seat. All of the chairs were taken.
He cleared his throat and mumbled an apology for being late. Watford spotted a stack of chairs in the corner of the room behind her podium.