“
But then, with a rush, I can suddenly hear them all: every single unkind word I've ever been called
Circling in the air above my head like angry flies: buzzing and buzzing, as if they're desperate to find somewhere to land.
Ugly. Freckles. Nobody. Boring. Loser. Spotty. Carrots.
GEEK.
But for the first time, they can't seem to settle or stick on me.
There's nowhere for them to go.
Still smiling, I reach a hand up and start batting at them: hitting the words, one by one, until they're dead on the floor. Empty ghost words that have no meaning, no use, no purpose, no truth in them.
Definitions that aren't in my dictionary any more.
Because from this point onwards, nobody gets to choose the vocabulary I use for myself but me.
Smiling, I lean forward and give my beautiful, flawed and irreplaceable face a quick kiss in the mirror. After all, none of those social-networking statistics said that my sixth best friend couldn't be myself.
That's not cheating at all.
”
”