Senior Year

The art classroom was silent. Jamie was patiently waiting for her friends to enter with the other kids. She had organized the stools in a circle, leaving a space big enough for six persons. She did not want the kids to feel like they were on an AA support group, but that was the best way she and her friends could reach them and talk to them, face-to-face.

The door opened and in came Christopher with two girls and a boy. One of the girls was thin as a stick. There was a fat girl. And the boy was a redhead, with lots of freckles. The three sat on different stools, away from each other. Jamie smiled at his boyfriend with gratitude, and he smiled back.

Louise was the next to come in. One girl and one boy. Both muslims. Or at least that's what she deduced for the way they were dressed and for the way they looked. She didn't want to judge either way, so she forgot the assumption she made. Louise then called a someone. A shy boy with a colombian flag t-shirt came in. Then Louise rolled her eyes and took someone's wrist. 'Come here, don't run away,' she said. A beautiful girl appeared.

Jamie mouthed thank you to her friend.

Fiona and Mark came together. They brought a big group of kids with them. A bald headed girl and a boy with a mask. There was a jewish boy -again, Jamie tried not to suppose by the way he was dressed-, a girl with a nasal cannulae. Some other kids that looked pretty normal for what meets the eye were there, too. Fiona and Mark sat near Jamie, who was on the professor's desk.

Lastly came Harry. Jamie looked at the kids. An asian girl, a girl with sunglasses and a boy with a hearing aid.

"Okay, I think this is all," said Christopher, next to his girlfriend.

"They are more than I expected," she said. She smiled at the unknown faces, "um, if you don't find a place to sit, feel free to chose the floor." As soon as Jamie said that, everyone was looking for some comfortable zone to put their butts on.

Then the boy with freckles spoke. "I'm not an alcoholic," and everyone laughed. With this, Jamie felt more at ease.

Thank God he broke the ice. "I know, this is not Alcoholic Anonymous, don't worry," she smiled. "Gosh, where do I begin," she muttered under her breath.

"Maybe you could tell them your name," Chris said, giving her a squeeze in the hand, trying to calm her down.

Jamie took a deep breath. "Hi," but her voice cracked, so she cleared her throat. "Hi," she said again, "my name is Jamie, enchanted to meet you all." Some of them greeted back. "Er, I don't think you know what this is for, um, I'll explain why you are all here."

Another long, deep breath.

"We've been - no, not a great way to begin. We - my friends and I one year ago were part of The Ugly Ones. You know what that is, right?"

"Obviously," said quietly the girl with the hijab who was next to the boy she also thought was mulsim. "We are all part of it." A 'yes' was heard in the room.

"I know," said Jamie. "We've been - we've been - okay this is going to sound creepy, but we've been watching you. Don't look at me that way. I'm not good at all with speeches. I-" Jamie was trying to explain herself but the sunglassed girl talked.

"I don't find it creepy. At least you can watch people," she smiled sadly. But those words encouraged Jamie.

She opened her mouth to talk again, but the asian was faster. "How in the world is it possible for you to be part of The Ugly Ones? You are all gorgeous."

Mark touched his heart. "Thank you, I know." He said that in a joking manner, that made everyone guffaw. "Jamie, tell them your story," he commanded.

"Why me?"

"You are the one who started this idea," said Chris smirking. Jamie punched him.

"Thank you for your support, love," she said with sarcasm and he answered 'no problem', she rolled her eyes. "Okay, well, I'm gonna go straight to the point. I had acne - still have, actually. But one year ago I had a lot of acne. Some of the juniors and sophomores might remember it."

"I do," said the boy with the colombian flag t-shirt. "You still looked pretty."

"Back off, pretty boy. Mine," said Christopher pointing at himself. "Anyways. You can go on, J."

She shook her head. "People called me so many things. Volcano, crater, the pimple girl, oily face, blah, blah, blah. Then Chris came along, helped me with acne and now I'm good with myself. Even tho I'm a slave of the treatment I'm using. The point is that now I understand I was beautiful with or without acne."

"Okay, my turn!" Said Louise. "My name is Louise. Newsflash, I'm black," they laughed. "There's no treatment for it, but why would you need treatment for something as beautiful as this?" She touched the skin of her arm. "Bullies were jealous of me, so they made fun of me. And then, bam! I started posting videos on YouTube of me singing. Became pretty famous on the internet and now bullies back off."

The beautiful girl that Louise stopped from escaping snapped her fingers. "I knew I recognised you from somewhere."

"Yeah, Louise is a star. Story time for me," said Mark. "But you tell me. What's my flaw?"

Everyone remained silent.

"I don't see one, in none of you actually," said the skinny girl.

"Ah! But people thinks I have a flaw for being gay and-"

"You're gay?!" Said almost everyone. 'Stereotypes' said Mark shaking his head. Fiona raised her hand and proudly said:

"I'm the sister-in-law."

Mark nodded. "My boyfriend is her brother. By the way. The name's Mark. My name, not George's, my boyfriend."

Jamie looked at Chris, waiting for him to start his story. She knew how much he hated to open up, to tell everyone about how he was a year ago. If you looked at him now, you would never imagine he once was obese. He liked it that way. When they returned to school after Christmas vacations a year ago, all the girls thought he was a new boy. They flirted with him, but he had Jamie, she was everything he needed.

He sighed, preparing himself to tell them the truth. Someone else spoke first.

"Don't even tell me you have a flaw too, because you don't," said a girl.

"I do," he admitted. "Or had. I had this eating disorder called binge eating. I'm called Christopher and I was obese, I was so fat I could not even touch my feet. Just imagine a panda," he said with a bittersweet smile. "Jamie helped me. She knew I had lots of possibilities of dying from diabetes," like my dad, he thought.

Every girl said 'awww'.

He kissed her hair. "Good thing she exists, right?"

Fiona jumped from the desk, straightened the classy dress she was wearing and saluted everyone. "Bonjour! My name is Fiona and-"

"Wow, you are beautiful," said the boy with the hearing aid, his voice came a little different. But Fiona knew it was for his condition. She found interesting and fascinating the way he pronounced those words.

"Thank you," she started playing with her hair. "I - I am albino, for your information."

"What's an albino?" Asked the girl with the nasal cannulae.

Surprisingly, Fiona did not answer that. "It's the lack of melanin on the skin, the hair and the eyes," said the boy, pronouncing the words as different and unique as before.

She nodded and looked at Fiona for a long time. No one did know that, but she was actually trying to find the flaw. The albino looked like an angel. The gay and the 'fat' appeared to be greek gods. The black girl could easily be a model. And 'pimple girl'? She was gorgeous.

"Now that you've all talked, can we present ourselves or...?" Started the muslim boy. But then the fat girl talked.

"What's up with the bae right there?" She was talking about Harry. He looked at Louise who was biting a smile.

Harry opened his mouth. "I'm just the hot boyfriend of that hot girl," and there was one more time a chorus of 'awww's. "But, yeah, now you can say your names and stuff."

The blind girl was the first one to stand up. "I'm Serena. In case you did not notice, I'm blind," and she sat again.

A blonde boy stood up. "Yeah, hello, my name's Howard, I have OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder."

Next one to speak was the muslim. "I know you thought it. My sister and I are muslims, yes. Her name is Marid, which means rebellious and my name is Adeem which funnily means rare. Marid can't talk to men, so, nice to meet you."

The atmosphere was nice. The kids were starting to smile to each other and if it wasn't for the fact they didn't want to be disrespectful, they would be talking too. Fiona asked Jamie for the deaf boy. She wanted to know his age.

"I think he repeated a year, he was on an accident due to his hearing condition, he should be with us as a senior," Jamie explained.

Fifi nodded and then they heard how the boy with the colombian flag and the gorgeous girl started to talk.

"Eres latina, ¿no es así?" He asked.

She smiled. "Ya sabía yo que tú eres colombiano, se te nota en el acentico." No one understood a word.

"Y tú obligado eres venezolana, ¿no es así, preciosa?"

They laughed together. "Así es, mi amor. Que ladilla que más nadie hable como nosotros, ya extrañaba decir groserías cada minuto. Es más chévere, ¿verdad?" He nodded. "¿Nos presentamos a los demás?" And he was the one to nod this time.

"What the fuck are they saying?" Asked Mark.

The two kids stood up. "My name is Mercedes, I'm venezuelan. And he is..." she did not know his name, tho.

"Juan Luis, bebés, I'm colombian," he continued.

Jamie was shocked. She expected every kid to be shy, quiet and not social at all. But those two were as loud as latinos are. Why were they here, then? No, they were here because she saw how they were being treated. But why were they treated like that? Yeah, that was the right question. She wanted to know, but without the need to ask, they told her.

"Being hispanic makes you a wallflower," Juan said shrugging. "At least now I know I have a latina friend here, ¿verdad, mi vida?" Mercedes laughed.

"Sí, papi, así es," she responded.

After both of them, everyone stood up, one by one, saying their names, and the thing that made them different. The thing that made them so beautiful.

"Clarisse and fat."

"Alexander, I have cancer."

"Ben, mental illness."

"Joshua and jewish."

"Dan and people say I'm like a girly viking, because I don't look like a man, at all."

"I'm Christine. I'm chinese. The think I'm a nerd, but trust me, I'm not."

"Becky, I'm bulimic."

"Cher, mental illness, too."

"I'm deaf, my name is William," and he looked at Fiona.

"Caroline, cancer."

And the girl with the nasal cannulae was the last one. "My name is Esmerald. And I don't have enough oxygen on my body, so I have to take this with me everywhere. And everyone asks me 'where's Augustus?', 'when will you die?', 'you are so ugly'. I don't seewhy, but, okay." She sat down.

"Guys, God bless your souls. Seeing how you said your names without being afraid of it, makes me think I was a pussy before. Oh, but I am," said Mark, refering to his gender. His friends laughed, but others were perplexed.

"How can you joke about something that causes you so much struggle?" Asked Clarisse.

"First it was self defense. We've all done it," he said, refering to his friends, too. "Like, we laugh from ourselves like if he didn't care."

And Jamie used that moment to say the words she'd been wanting to say since the reunion started. "But, now that we accepted it, we just say it because we like to laugh. We are okay with it. That's what we want to do with you. We want to help you understand that we are perfect the way we are."

"But we are different," said Dan.

"What makes you think that being different is being ugly?"

And those words, Jamie realised later, were the best words she could've say, because those words convinced the kids to stay in The Ugly Ones (the name was fully intended to be sarcastic and ironic) club and to grow up together.

Being different is not ugly.

Being different is a bliss.

AND THAT'S HOW IT ENDS

• • • • • • •

Aaaaand it's a wrap! Believe me when I tell you, I'm crying bruh. I've grown up with this story. I've learnt to love myself thanks to TUO. I hope you did too.

If you want to ask me questions about the book, go to my ask. The username is ' alittleofmercy '. I won't be on Wattpad as much as I used to be. I need to focus on school and ask is the best way to reach me.

I think I'll be posting news on my twitter ' alittleofmercy '. And my Pinterest, Tumblr and WeHeartIt will be full of stuff I'll use for future works. So if you want to know about it, just go to my profile and click on the links!

Beautiful readers, I don't know how the hell I can thank you. You stood by my side through the whole book. Just knowing that you had the guts to actually read this thing makes me beyond happy. hanks to all of you. Every single one of you.

I quote Mark, God bless you. And your souls, hearts, minds, everything.

I really hope the epilogue makes sense. Tell me if there are grammar mistakes, typos or whatever. For the last time until my semi-hiatus is over I'll say:

Stay honest,

~Mercy

• • • • • • •

I M P O R T A N T

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