Fish Eyes

24

Wednesday had come and gone; Dalia had gotten no texts, calls, nothing. Lawrence always worked on Wednesdays.

She was trying to power through her rejection. She wasn't actually serious about not caring about embarrassment; she cared a lot.

"Maybe if you were honest with yourself and others, this wouldn't be a problem," she said to herself in the Trent bathroom mirror. She never touched the rim of the sink, but that day was an exception. She was going through some shit. With her body slouched over the sink, she looked in the mirror.

It was too early in the morning for the bullshit.

Her moment of weakness didn't render her reckless; after she collected herself, she turned on that very sink and washed her hands.

She took one last look and realized that nothing she had just experienced was a loss. Of course, Lawrence didn't want her. Of course, that sucked ass. But still, since meeting him and everyone else, she understood herself more than ever.

She liked feeling worthy. She always knew that.

But it didn't take being the best to be worthy. It didn't even take being good.

Worth, she learned, was about seeing it in other people. In her time as a teenager, she would look at the prodigy, athlete, vixen and girlfriend; she vied to be like them.

And she realized, it didn't take her being some prodigy, athlete, vixen or girlfriend to be worthy. It took valuing them for their beauty and allowing them to reciprocate it.

It didn't take being the best to be worthy.

It took being open and accepting to change; it took making risks and spending time with those and that she loved.

They were all side-characters in her life story.

The algorithm was simpler than she had been making it all those years.

With a paper towel in hand, she exited the bathroom to see Julia and Wendy speed down the hallway away from where she stood. Her eyebrows scrunched up, and she looked around to see if anybody else thought it was weird.

No? Okay.

Dean came out of the bathroom next to her and she asked him, "Do you know what's up with Wendy and Julia?"

"No, Didi was normal when I drove her to school this morning."

At least someone was happy with their quirky nicknames.

She twisted her head to the side in confusion but decided that there were more important things to think about than Wendy and Julia becoming track stars all of a sudden. In the opposite direction from where they had come, Dalia made her way towards her locker.

The door on it had jammed, and she struggled to try and open it without bursting into frustrated tears.

She kept yanking it, to no avail. "It's okay, girl. You've got a whole day ahead of you."

With one last mighty pull, it opened. A bouquet of sunflowers dropped onto the floor beneath her.

"Excuse me?"

She picked them up and looked back and forth between them and her locker until she realized there was more.

There was her folder. Her heart sunk. Lawrence was sending her a Dear John letter.

Even though her heart was in the pit of her gut, she had to respect him for his presentation. If there was any way to go out, it was this.

She picked up the folder and opened it, searching for her letter. There were pictures of her, they just weren't... by her?

The first one was her sitting on a stool, smirking at the camera.

There was the West End. And the bomb ass cupcake shop downtown. And the train station. And the photography suite. And her house where she was naked from the waist down. It was all there.

Her fingers felt one last picture at the bottom. She couldn't imagine what the picture could have in it; did he sneak a camera somewhere she didn't know about?

She pulled it from the bottom of the stack. It was a picture of her staring at the camera, wide-eyed. Her eyes widened to match the picture. It was from the first day they ever met. He kept it.

In the process of opening the folder, she'd dropped her flowers on the ground. She regathered herself and picked them up to look at the tag on them.

Dear Fish Eyes,

I love you too.

the end