Page 5 of Something Like Sunflowers

The only one I can count on, at least.

So, I’m facing the truth about myself. For the past month, I’ve been identifying when I suck as a human, and I’m sure that’s a start to something.

The Twelve Steps to Not Being a Bitch?

Because I am kind of a bitch.

Dusty’s right.

I wasn’t always like this, but somewhere between being whisked off to private school in the city in an insane custody battle, separated from my only brother…among other people, and becoming a reigning pageant queen turned news anchor, things got complicated.

Things happened before all that too.

Life got harder.

It’s not like I try to be a bitch. I’m nice to people. At least to their faces, so that should count for something. Dustin says it’s my fault. That I put up these walls, as he calls them, and quite literally force people out of my way. I’m starting to think he’s on to something.

And apparently, in addition to being a bitch, I’m also a personality masochist because I can see just how horrible this all is for me, but I’ll continue to pick apart this girl Bella in my mind.

She’s got this job at a place I want to work, and this nice girl thing going for her. But my boobs are pushed up higher, my hair is longer, and my lips are fuller. My car is top of the line, my shoes cost more than her paycheck, and my nails are baller right now.

I instantly feel better about myself. Isn’t that shitty?

I know it’s wrong, but I’m not hurting anyone by thinking things.

And Pollyanna over there has no clue as I smile brightly on the outside that I’m one hundred percent Wednesday Addamsing on the inside the longer she pays attention to me.

“I’m a big fan,” she suddenly says, using her stylus to push her glasses back in place. “People tend to view pageant queens as vapid, but you are a huge role model for so many of us women who just want to change the world for the better! The work you do with the kids at the library is so important,” she gushes. I feel my pulse quicken, my body becoming sticky and heated.

I’m putting my best face forward, but I’m uncomfortable, extremely so. Despite what people might assume about the once spotlit pageant queen, I don’t like people telling me they like me. Or that I look beautiful. Or that I’m a great person, most of all.

Because I know what they don’t.

I’m not.

And the actual knot…the “things I’m not knot” in my stomach, gets further mangled and twisted the more she falsely elevates me as some sort of revered humanitarian savior. Because the work she’s talking about was all for PR purposes. It was press-motivated. Scripted. Fake.

Just like me.

“After your segment at that inner city elementary school, I signed up for weekly reading sessions with the kids in my neighborhood. I just wanted to say thanks for inspiring me. And I’m rooting for you!” She smiles brightly and gives me a thumbs up before turning away and leaving me by the door with my heart in the pit of my stomach.

Emotions, they say, are like a tidal wave. And mine slam into me full force.

Everything about me is fake.

Just like that entire conversation with Bella. I sat there and picked her apart in my mind—made fun of her looks, her personality, her hair. I fancied myself as better than her in all the ways I could think up just to make myself feel like a nicer person.

No. To make myself feel better about not being a nicer person.

And all the while, she was a “fan” of mine, this great philanthropic pioneer who singlehandedly delivers a love of literature to the children in her community and runs puppy adoptions at the local grocery all before the evening traffic report!

I’m a fake and I’m a bitch. I don’t deserve this job. People like Bella do.

But if I know this and want to change, doesn’t it count for something? Maybe I can’t be the Classy Country employee they want me to be just yet, but I can do what I’m good at.

What I’ve been raised to do my whole life.

I can smile and fake it.

---