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Stacy

Stacy has a problem. She is sad. She is sad because she is never happy with herself, her appearance, her life, or anything good that happens to her. And anything bad that happens to her is totally unfair.

See, Stacy has a weird birthmark on her face. It's the shape of a dot, about the size of a pencil eraser tip, and it's on one of her cheeks. Half the time she thinks it's on her right cheek, but it's really on her left. But OH MY GOD who cares? It controls her life.

Everything that is unfair about Stacy's life is because of that birthmark. Every time she looks in a mirror, it's laughing at her. No amount of concealer can make it go away, because even when it is covered she wipes at it and picks at it because she KNOWS it's under there. Sure enough, before the end of her first class of the day, there it is. The thing refuses to be covered!

One time the birthmark even ruined her time at the football game. There she was, just hanging out with her friends on the bleachers (the good ones, where all the cool kids sit), and someone whipped out their phone for a group selfie. But they were going to get her birthmark in the picture! She whipped her head to the side to hide the mark, but the picture caught her with her face in half a turn and her expression was just gross. And then the pic was immediately uploaded and everyone saw it, and most of the comments were about how weird Stacy looked. She was humiliated and spent most of her weekend in her room.

Then she met Stevie.

It wasn't like they were strangers; Stacy passed Stevie in the halls every once in a while and probably had a class with her freshman year, but one day Stacy was feeling extra sad because her birthmark was a shade of brown that didn't match her outfit. She went to her favorite place to relax, the local Steak n' Shake, so she could smell the fries and associate sadness with fatty foods. While some people drowned their sorrows in grease and ice cream, Stacy tried to create an irrevocable association between unhealthy food and negative emotions so the thought of eating greasy, disgusting food reminded her of the lowest points of her life.

While Stacy was holding her sadness face first into a frying vat, Stevie was busing tables all around her. At first the other girl was trying not be noticed, because who wanted anyone from school to see them at work? But after the first couple hours, Stevie started to be concerned. Stacy wasn't ordering anything, and she was taking up one of the prime booths during peak dinner traffic. Didn't Stacy know that the back of her head was getting murderous glares from the well-fed family of five elbow-jabbing each other on the bench in the front?

Even though she wasn't supposed to be training for waiting tables until after the 7pm slowdown, she approached Stacy. "Um, hey. Do you, like, want a glass of water or something?"

Stacy was silent. The question caused her jaw to tighten and her eyes to well. She blinked hard once, twice, then pretended to check her phone. Were her cries for help that obvious? "I—I guess. Sure."

Stevie bused another table before rushing to grab the glass of water and sliding it on the table. She even nudged the menu at the edge of the table closer to Stacy and resumed cleaning up someone's milkshake pond on the next booth over. Apparently the cherry was supposed to be the boat—the paintbrush?—or something; there were roll marks all over the place. Was that shape supposed to be a rocket ship?

The family of five got the table next to Stacy's booth and proceeded to hurl more glares her direction as the girl nursed her glass of water. As she sipped she watched Stevie move between the tables, stacking used plates and cups, wiping sticky messes and ketchup portraits from the formica. Stacy wracked her brain trying to place where she and Stevie had collided in school. It was futile; Stacy didn't even know Stevie's name before reading it on the girl's temporary name tag. Yet somehow this girl could read her like a picture book and sensed her greatest need in her darkest time.