And I noticed that my hand was the exact size and shape as Super Blonde’s hand in the mirror.
My chest fluttered with a strange excitement.
I looked down at my hands.
They weren’t my hands.
My arms weren’t my arms.
The were thin and beautiful. Elegant. They looked sort of like Chelsea’s hands. Or Mom’s hands.
I slid my palms down my chest.
I had boobs!
Big boobs!
I tore my T-shirt over my head and looked at myself.
I squeezed my breasts. They weren’t the boobs I was used to. They were so full and pert, but they felt like they were mine.
What had happened to me?
I ran my hands down my flat stomach and over my arched hips.
My waist was now narrow and curvy.
I turned to see my butt in the mirror. My baggy granny panties looked awful. I kicked them off so I could check out my ass. It was… perfect. No cellulite. Nothing.
I was going to faint.
I was going to cry.
I was beautiful.
Undeniably certifiably beautiful.
With the exception of my emerald gold-flecked eyes, which were most definitely the eyes I’d been born with, I looked nothing like me. Well, maybe a beautiful blonde version of myself who may have vaguely resembled Chelsea or Mom.
But better looking.
When I was a little girl, my favorite story for the longest time was The Ugly Duckling. I’d always imagined one day I’d grow into a beautiful swan. But I’d realized some time around junior high school that I’d always be nothing but an ugly duck.
But now?
Now I was finally the most beautiful swan of all.
Tears of joy dribbled down my face while I thought this over. I touched and squeezed every part of my body for twenty minutes before I convinced myself I really had transformed. Even my toes were pretty.
I had swansformed.
I spent another hour pacing my apartment on long legs that took some getting used to. The whole time, I was trying to convince myself this was all just a dream.
But it wasn’t.
And if it really wasn’t some hallucinatory fever dream, a dream caused by a fever so high it was probably causing permanent damage to my brain, how on earth would I explain all this to my family?
Or my boss Doug at work?
Or to anyone?
I stopped pacing and tried to picture it. Me calling everyone and laughing crazily, “I finally turned into a swan!”
They would all think I was insane.
I would just have to show them.
In person.
Then I pictured an absolute stranger going up to Mom or Dad and saying crazily, Hey, Mom! Hey, Dad! It’s me, your daughter! I know, I don’t look anything like her, but you have to believe me! I’m not insane, I really am Jane! And no, I didn’t kidnap her or kill her. It’s me, Dad! Me! They would want to know what the insane woman (me) had done to their beloved daughter. With my luck, I’d end up in prison for murdering myself, Jane Johnson.
But I desperately wanted to call everyone I could think of and tell them the amazing news!
I had transformed into a different person!
A beautiful person!
I shook my head. Just thinking the words sounded ridiculous.
I couldn’t call anybody.
I was probably still asleep and dreaming.
Once again, I pinched myself. Ouch! I splashed water in my face over the bathroom sink. It was cold and wet. But I was still a supermodel. I jumped into the shower to see if I could wash it off.
Nope. Still beautiful.
When I got out of the shower, two things were on my mind.
One, what was I going to do about my job?
Two, if I stayed like this, what was I going to do in general?
I didn’t know the answer to either, but I knew my life was about to change.
Drastically.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
Before that happened, I needed to go shopping.
None of my clothes fit my new body. I’d grown almost nine inches in a matter of five days.
As impossible as this all seemed, I was starting to accept it was actually happening. I felt wide awake. In fact, I felt better than ever. I was literally a new person.
I ended up putting on a dress because all my sweats and jeans now looked like Capri pants on my long legs. The only bra I had that fit my new boobs was a sports bra. And my shoes were all too small, so I had to wear flip-flops. My heels hung off the backs, but they would work for now.
When I got in my car, I had to decide between going to work or going for clothes. If I went to work, would anyone believe I was me? No. I’d probably get trucked off to a mental hospital.
Clothes it is.
Since I didn’t have much money to spare, I went to the Goodwill store in Santa Monica. I knew Chelsea was right about it. They got all the castoff clothes from the rich women in the neighborhood who went through new clothes like candy, but they sold everything at regular low Goodwill prices. It didn’t take me long to find some outfits that looked cute on me because everything that fit looked cute. To be honest, I was marveling at how amazing I looked every time I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. No wonder beautiful people were so obsessed with themselves. They were in awe every time they saw their reflections.
I had to laugh at myself.
I would never be like that.
While holding up different tops in the nearest mirror, I noticed two teenaged girls, maybe 15 or 16, rifling through the racks to my left. They were watching me closely while whispering and giggling.
I tried to ignore them.
“Looks like the walk of shame to me,” the first girl said just loud enough for me to hear. “Her dress is on backwards.”
My dress wasn’t on backwards. What were they talking about?
The other one said, “No, she’s probably homeless. Look at those dirty flip-flops. They don’t even fit. She probably found them in a dumpster.”
I frowned in the mirror. My new frown was much prettier than my old frown. I tried to ignore the girls and held up another top.
“I bet she’s a coke whore. Fucks random guys for drugs.”
“No, heroin. And meth. Total skank.”
“I bet she’ll be toothless within a year from shooting up.”
“Then she can charge more for blowjobs.”
They both laughed like hyenas and leaned into each other.
Disgusting.
I sized them up in a second.
They were cheap copies of the mean girls who’d tormented me in high school. I glared at them. I wasn’t afraid of two pretty little bitches. As a kid, I’d grown a thick skin early on. Being the number one nerd girl meant constant insults. At first, people made fun of me all the time, but only until they realized I could cut them up worse then they ever could me. By the time I was a sophomore at North Valley High School, the insults had stopped. Thankfully, college and adulthood weren’t like high school and I hadn’t been treated this badly in years.
But listening to these two girls cut me up now stung like I was 13 all over again. Old wounds.
They hung their clothes up on the rack and walked past me on their way to the shoe section.
As they passed, one muttered, “Dirty slut.”
The other said, “Moldy ho bag ."
Teenagers. So full of insecurity and hate. The only law they understood was the law of the jungle, or The Lord of the Flies, or Hunger Games, or whatever it was. Standing tall with my hands on my hips, I said, “When you two narcissistic imbeciles drop out of Santa Monica College because it’s too hard, and you can’t find jobs because you don’t have a single brain cell between the two of you, you’re going to realize that all of Daddy’s money and all the plastic surgery in the world isn’t going to make anybody hate you less. So shut your fucking mouths and keep the insults to yourselves, you ugly little twits.”
They weren’t ugly on the outside. They were better looking than I was. But they were monsters on the inside.
They both stared at me wide eyed, frozen with fear.
One of them started to tear up.
I scowled, “Aww, is da wittle baby butthurt?”
The other girl snarled at me, “Just because you’re better looking than us doesn’t mean you’re not a stupid bitch. Let’s go, Emily.” She pulled her friend by the arm.
Emily’s eyes were red and she snuffled at me, “Bitch.”
I smirked. “I’m the bitch?”
I watched them walking away.
The second they turned into the shoe aisle, Emily started sobbing.
What was her problem? They started it.
I shook my head and turned back to the mirror and looked at myself. Slowly, the realization that I wasn’t a five foot nothing nerd girl with thick glasses sunk in. I looked like a supermodel who was better looking than both of them combined. There was no mistaking it. But, no matter what I looked like on the outside now, I’d been a little nerd girl for 99.9% of my life. One day of being beautiful didn’t erase all that. And pardon me if my new reality was a wee bit hard to believe.
I could barely wrap my own head around the idea.
Emily’s friend was busy consoling her while glaring at me.
Was it possible they started making fun of me because they assumed I’d been born with the looks they could only dream of? Of course they did. No one on this planet would believe otherwise.
Wow, just wow.
Although I still suspected this was all a dream and I was probably still in my bed, sick with the plague and hallucinating while teetering on the edge of death, I didn’t need to be a bitch. Even in my fever dreams. Being mean for no reason was not me.
No matter what the circumstances.
Chapter 11
An hour later, I walked out of Goodwill with five new outfits and two pairs of shoes that cost me a total of $85.00. You had to love Goodwill.
I wore my favorite combo that I’d just purchased: a striped tank top, artfully shredded skinny jeans, a necklace of flower pendants, and white sandals. Nothing fashion blog worthy because to be honest, I didn’t really have the knack for dressing that Chelsea and Mom had. I’d never bothered to learn.
But I was happy with my haul.
On my drive home, I reminded myself to be more considerate of other people’s feelings. Even if this was a dream, an impossibly realistic HD dream with sight and sound and smell and the heat coming off my steering wheel (it had been baking under the sun in the parking lot), I didn’t ever want to treat other people the way I’d been treated.
If none of this was a dream, and I’d actually turned beautiful in a matter of five days, then I really needed to be nice to people. Probably nicer and more considerate than usual.
Lost in thought, I thumbed the ring on my finger.
The one I got from Wes.
Which was now on my ring finger.
I didn’t remember putting it on. I remembered falling asleep clutching it in my hand. It hadn’t fit my ring finger before. It had barely fit on my stubby little finger. But now I had long slender fingers so it fit my ring finger fine.
It made perfect sense.
It made no sense at all.
When I stopped at a red light on Santa Monica Boulevard, I looked at the ring in direct sunlight. It was now shiny gold, not tarnished brass or whatever it had been before. The circle of the ring was also thicker and had a weight to it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it had turned into real gold. It had that authentic yellow color that you couldn’t fake. If it was real gold, it could easily be worth thousands of dollars. The obvious conclusion: this was a different ring. But I didn’t own any gold rings. And this one had the same two hearts engraved on the top that I remembered, except now the engraving was much nicer, more complex, more dimensional and artful, like a piece of custom jewelry.
Back at my apartment, I jingled my keys into the lock and opened my front door. As I was about to step inside, Blaze’s door whipped open. As I stepped through mine, he stepped out of his.
I watched from my open doorway as he passed.
He flicked a glance at me. A sudden grunt escaped his lips as he stumbled to a stop and stared at me. He was just as handsome as the first time I’d seen him (underwear model hot) and just as unattainable. Unlike last time, he wore a tight fitting V-neck shirt that did nothing to hide his muscles and tattoos.
We stared at each other for a long time.
His eyes blazed pure blue, like million dollar sapphires.
My body responded and I tried not to squirm.
His eyes swept over me, bright with desire.
No man had ever looked at me this way.
Not even my two exes Aaron and Harvey, and I’d had sex with both of them.
No. Man. Ever.
Blaze looked… hungry. And hunt ready. He drawled, “Heeeeeeey. What’s your name?”
Was this really happening? He stuffed his fingers in the pockets of his tight jeans and leaned against my doorframe. I guess it was.
“Chelsea.” I blurted it out without thinking. Was that a bad idea?
“Hey, Chelsea.”
Too late to worry about it now. I still held my doorknob and tried not to stare at his bulging muscled arms. “Did you have a name?”
Why was I asking? Probably out of habit. I didn’t really want to know this guy.
Did I?
“Brodie.” His smile curled into the same sexy dimples I remembered.
“Hey, Brodie.” I had to wonder, did it make Brodie a douche that he had ignored me when I was a little nerd girl and was drooling over me now? I wasn’t entirely sure. Whatever the case, I had no idea what to say.
“You just move in?”
“Nope. Er, sort of.”
“I don’t remember seeing you here before. Just some short girl with glasses. You her roommate?”
“Uh, yeah.” Despite the unreality of my recent swansformation, I was trying to function like it was really real. And if I now looked like someone else, I needed to be careful about what I said to who. The less the better. I stared at him. “Anything else?”
He ran his hand through his charcoal dark hair. His muscled arm flexed and he blushed. It was hard to tell with his tan, but he was blushing.
Because of me.
Will wonders never cease?
I smirked, “My roommate told me what you did to our door.”
“Right. That.” He smiled and dropped his arm. He was nervous. This hot stud was nervous. Again, because of me.
More wonderment on my part. A sly grin curled across my lips. I could get used to this.
“What?” He chuckled, met my eyes with his, looked away while grinning to himself. Eventually, he looked at my door carefully. “I can probably patch and paint it this weekend. But I’ll need to take a color sample down to Home Depot to match it.” He ran his fingertips across the scuffed black gouge. “Yeah, I can patch this. I’ll have it finished Sunday. That work for you?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Was this what life was like for beautiful women? Beautiful men offering to drop everything and do stuff for you without you asking? I supposed it was. Every fairytale princess I’d ever read about had Sir Lancelots galore slaying dragons for them or fighting wars over them since the beginning of time. It was how the world worked.
How to respond? Did I tell him not to fix my door which he broke? Of course not.
“Sure, Blaze. Sunday is fine.” I smiled absently. I couldn’t stop staring at his perfect eyes and his perfect everything else.
“Brodie.”
“Sorry. I meant Brodie.” Wow, I was already acting like a dumb blonde after half a day.
“Who’s Blaze?”
“Oh, it’s stupid.” I giggled. I shouldn’t giggle, but I couldn’t help myself. “Since I didn’t know your name until now, I was calling you Blaze in my head since we met.”
He narrowed his
eyes, confused. “We just met now. I’ve never seen you before. I would’ve remembered you. Believe me,” he chuckled. “You’re unforgettable.”
My anger suddenly flared and I almost barked, What, did you forget Jane already? You never asked her her name, you shallow shithead! So why do you need to know mine now, you pencil prick! Let me guess, is it because you already forgot about that plastic blonde you fucked last night and kicked to the curb this morning? I glared pure hatred at him. Are you so shallow that your dating strategy is to just fuck whichever blonde is closest? And I happen to be standing here? I hated this guy from head to toe. I tried to hide my scowl, but it wasn’t working.
“You okay?” He didn’t know why I was angry.
I didn’t want to stir up a bunch of drama, so I took a deep breath and calmed myself. “What were we talking about?”
“You were telling me how you knew me before we ever met.”
My chest tightened as I remembered I was pretending to be someone else. My preference was to avoid complicating things more than necessary. Keep it simple, stupid. I faked a laugh, “Oh, right. I meant my roommate Jane was calling you Blaze because she didn’t know your name. She told me all about you and your… chair.” And your plastic girlfriend who you treated like trash.
He chuckled. “Guilty. I was kind of a dick that day.” Yeah you were. “Had a shit ton to get done. Tell Jane I’m sorry when you see her.”
I almost blurted, You tell her! She was the one who had her feelings hurt by your rude ass! Then I realized he had just apologized. And I didn’t need to be a crazy bitch because his love life was none of my business. The only thing I couldn’t decide was whether he was apologizing because he cared or because he wanted supermodel me to like him. Before, he’d acted like the real me wasn’t worth a second of his time. Now he was hanging all over my door and it disgusted me. I started to close it in his face. “I’ve got to go, Bluh—Brodie.” My preference at that moment was to never see this manwhore again.
“Hold up,” he smirked, leaning his weight against the door so I couldn’t close it. “What are you doing tonight?”
Was he serious? I couldn’t believe this guy. I smirked, “I have to work.”
If I Were Beautiful (If I Were... #1) Page 8
