• I was always the girl who no one took a second glace at, the one who smiled shyly as people looked at her before their gaze drifted away to someone more interesting. I can't say that felt good, but it is an utter lie to say that I do not prefer that to what I am now...whatever that is...

    When I was 'that girl' I had a routine. Walk to school - unless I could get a lift in my mom's shabby red beetle - then see if I can sneak into the library for a couple minuits before the first bell. The librarian liked me, knew me by first name and let her gaze linger on me longer than most before the familiar slide of her gaze, following anything more interesting than the girl before her.

    I was always reading something new, not having to take anything out of the library - I finished it in seconds. I wasn't ugly, although I think in some ways it would be better I was, it would give me something to distinguish, no - I was extraordinaly plain. Dark hair, possibly dark brown, maybe black - not that it really mattered - and hazel-y eyes. I was one of the only people in the school to wear the optional black beret, certainly the only one that didn't mind the thing. Our uniform was nothing much. You had to wear white, dark blue and black but any clothes would do. I opted for a dark blue pleated skirt and crisp white polo shirt.

    To look at me or hear about me people would assume I was a 'smarty'. In truth I was not, I could have been - but I was always to shy to speak out in class, to give answers or to say that I just didn't understand. So I never got a lot of things, and teachers never knew what I did know. Every single one of my reports was the same, each year. Four stars out of five for each class - they didn't know what else to put, they didn't know or care what I was like.

    I don't remember the exact day when my changes started. I think it was very, very gradual. Like a snail making it's way to the top of a garden fence, you can watch it for as long as you like - it you wont notice it has even moved until you find it's at the top.

    Cherry Tildian (Short for Cheryl) sat two rows across from me in French. She was everything I was not. Outgoing, funny, interesting, popular and gorgious. She had choppy blonde hair at the time - though she was always changing it. The had big, sea blue eyes to die for and always had picture-perfect eyeliner and a winning smile. She was thin - of cource - and had a natural, even tan all year round (Her rich parents jetted her off to wherever she liked at a moments notice). And even though she was popular, she had a good report. The teacher loved her - she could pass banter with them like the best of friends and manipulate them into doing her tests for her discreetly. Cherry was the girl everyone wished to be. Who I wished to be.

    I didn't know then that I could be - would be - exactly like her. My wish, unlike many others, came horribley, horribley true...