Brielle's Bitch

The start of something better

I pushed my meal around with my fork as I acted uninterested, when all I really wanted to do was devour my food like I usually did when I was alone, away from judging eyes. However I couldn't, being a big girl I never enjoyed eating in public or around others in general.

I always felt like people were judging me. Watching me and thinking 'What a fat bitch!' We had been seated for about 30 minutes and I had only eaten a 1/4 of my food. I was just dying to finish it off, Lauren style, but the cruel thoughts and stares that I would be sure to get from other patrons stopped me right in my tracks.

"Are you full already? You have hardly touched your meal Lauren." I defiantly nodded my head, angry that I let the mean thoughts of others make me waste a free meal. "You know what, I think you're not really finished with that meal, you just don't want to finish it in front of all these people..." Mrs Truman said, covering her mouth full of food, and pointing at me with her fork.

I looked down at my meal again, still playing with the now cold chicken breast. "Lauren, you need to stop worrying about what others think about you, and start doing you. You can't let the thoughts of others dictate and validate you as a person. Only you truly have the power to do that." I silently kissed my teeth.

How the fuck did she know how it felt to be in my shoes? She was perfect! She had no right to tell me to stop thinking about what others thought about me. All I ever wanted was validation and acceptance from society, to be looked at as a person with feelings. I was used to people like Mrs Truman feeding me bull crap.

'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me...' That had to be one of dumbest quotes I have ever heard. Who made that shit up? Seriously! Words hurt! Yeah physical abuse hurt, but verbal abuse had the power to do damage permanently, side affects tended to be detrimental, and sometimes even fatal.

I cleared my throat and put my fork down. "Mrs Truman...no offence, but you have no idea what it's like to be me, you're perfect, so don't tell me I should stop worrying about what people think about me." She stopped eating, and stared at me. "Is that what you think? That I'm perfect?" She waited for me to answer her rhetorical question. I folded my arms, with a look of annoyance on my face.

"Perfection isn't real! It's unattainable, no one is perfect! It took a long time for me to start loving myself, but what I realised Lauren...was that the only person who could do that was me. No one else could do that but me! I used to hate the complexion of my skin, stay out of the sun, so I wouldn't get any darker... " Mrs Truman's sweet voice started breaking, as she started getting emotional.

" It got so bad that I even started looking at skin lightening treatments, ruling out the fact that the potent and harmful ingredients could do some serious damage to my skin. I used to hate not being able to gain weight, being so slim and the constant snide remarks about how thin and tall I was got to me. But one day my mother found one of the bleaching creams... " Mrs Truman wiped away her tears, as she was reminded of the painful memories of her self hate.

" She was so upset with me, she couldn't stop crying... " Mrs Truman paused, and covered her face with her manicured hands. I felt a tear slide down my face. "She took me, and put me in front of a mirror, and told me to look at how beautiful and unique I was. 'Why would you want to alter the beautiful complexion that god gave you' she said to me.

I was so ashamed of myself that I couldn't even stand to look at my own reflection. To think that I was about to let what society thought about me, coax me into modifying myself, just to conform to their standard of beauty, it made me break down into a hysterical fit of tears. My mother comforted me that night, as we cried together. What I realised that day was, I wasn't the one with real problem, they were, and if they didn't like me the way I was... They could go somewhere and fuck themselves, because I was a beautiful Nubian goddess."

I chuckled through my tears as did Mrs Truman. "I can tell it's going to take some time for you to start learning to love yourself, but with my help you are going to learn to love yourself for the Nubian ...voluptuous beauty you are Lauren." I smiled, wanting to so badly doubt what she had just said, but for once I decided that I wasn't going to try and doubt anything positive, that was said about me.

One of the waitresses, walked towards our table. "Finished?" The waitress said. Mrs Truman spoke up. "Yes, could we get her meal to go please?" The waitress nodded. "No problem, would you like any desserts?" Looking back and forth between us. "No thank you, Lauren?" I hesitated before answering. "None for me." Mrs Truman gave me an 'are you sure look?' And I nodded. "Ok ladies, I'll be back with her meal in a take out bag, I hope you enjoyed your meals, come back soon."After getting my 'to go bag' we left the restaurant.

On the way back to sixth form, we were having an sing off/jam session in mrs Truman's car to her mixed CD. Putting what had happened back in nando's behind us, it seemed like our blossoming friendship was the start of something better. "I don't need you, I don't need you... But I want you..." Mrs Truman screeched as she 'sang' along to Jhené Aiko's 'The Worst'. It sounded more like she was hollering, I burst out laughing at her trying, but definitely not succeeding to hit the right notes.

However she surprised me when she started rapping along with Jhené, "Everybody's like he's no item, please don't like em, he don't wife em, he one nights em, I never listened, no, I shoulda figured though; All that shit you was spittin' so unoriginal. But it was you, so I was with it then to tell you the truth, wish we never did it..." She actually did a good job. Then when Brandy's ' I wanna be down' came on. Thats when ish started getting crazy!

"How do you know about this tune?" Mrs Truman said, she then started driving with one hand and started waving and clicking her left hand , gyrating in her seat, singing off key once again! All I could do was laugh, and fear for my life at the same damn time. "I wanna be downnnnnnn, with what you're going through!" I sang, mrs Truman's eyebrows rose. "Wow! You've got a voice on you!" She said, I was embarrassed that she had heard me aloud, until that oldie came on I had been singing quite quietly letting mrs Truman's horrendous voice take over.

Our singing, and restricted dancing continued through out 4 more songs, Mariah Carey's 'fantasy', Aaliyah's 'Back and forth', Miguel's 'Adorn and PARTYNEXTDOOR'S 'Persian Rugs', "Miss what do you know about PND?" I said, she gave me a dirty look whilst chuckling and shaking her head, continuing to gyrate and drive. 5 minutes later we were back at sixth form. I sighed, kind of upset that our time together was cut short. "Well Lauren, It was nice while it lasted" she said as she applied the handbrakes.

"I know miss, we should do it again." I took off my seat belt. "Remember what I said about loving yourself, Lauren. And don't forget about that short essay! I want that on my desk first thing when?..." She cupped her ear with her dainty left hand. I giggled. "Next week." I picked my up bag off the floor, and opened the car door to leave. "Bye Mrs Truman." She smiled. "See you next week, sweetheart."

A few steps away from her car, I heard a car horn beep at me, I turned around to wave at Mrs Truman. Except it wasn't Mrs Truman's Range Rover, It was Elijah's BMW. He stuck his head out the window, whilst grinning. "Yo Raspuesha, get out of the way man!" Then everyone in the car erupted in laughter, including Brielle who was seated in the passenger seat covering her mouth in shock. I stepped out of the way so he could drive past me, then when they were out of sight, I stood dumbfounded, my confidence knocked back down to negative 10, he had said it so loud that the few people who were lingering in the car park were snickering.

I wasn't even really upset about what Elijah had just said, it was the fact that Brielle didn't even try to defend me... But me being a good friend, I waited for her to finish up with Elijah, so that we could walk to class together.