“Say cheese!”
Annabel, Esther, Chloe, and Tanya appeared in the doorway. Annabel was holding up her phone, and the flash went off again. They were taking pictures of me.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
They were in the toilets by then, laughing and surrounding me.
“Oh my God,” Chloe said, practically doubled over with how much she was screeching at the sight of me, “is this really how you think lipstick is worn? I knew you were useless but this is another level. And to think we just thought we’d get some funny pictures of you posing in the mirror! This is priceless.”
“How did you even know I was here? What are you doing?” I asked.
I tried removing the lipstick, rubbing the back of my hand against my lips. Sure enough, some of it came off, staining my hand as if I had painted it myself, but when I looked in the mirror most of it was still there, except now loads of it had smeared across my chin and cheek.
Annabel took more pictures. “You look like such a freak!”
“Please stop!”
“You didn’t really think Julian wanted to go out with you, did you?” Esther said.
It’s horrible remembering this. Writing this down. But I need to. I need to get this out of me before it eats me up inside.
“Julian plays football after school on a Friday and has to leave his phone in the changing rooms,” Tanya said. Even now, after years, it’s awful how much she enjoys tormenting me, just like the other three. Does she really not look back at when we used to be friends and feel bad? Or is she just glad it’s me and not her? “We snuck in there and texted you from his phone. It was Esther’s idea. It was so funny.”
“Of course he’s not interested in you, you idiot.” Esther smirked.
“God, you look so ridiculous!” Annabel said, taking another photo. “Like a horror movie!”
It wouldn’t come off, no matter how hard I scrubbed. I even started running the taps and wiping it that way, and that just made it worse, creating an entire circle of red around my mouth, dripping down my chin.
I couldn’t bear it. Pushing past them, trying to ignore their laughter and jeers, I ran home, unable to hide my tears, slamming the front door behind me.
“Poppy?” Mum and Dad came out of the living room straight away, clearly anxious. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Leave me alone!” I shrieked.
They saw the lipstick then. It was so hideous and obvious, how could they not?
“What’s happened to your face? Has someone hurt you?” Dad practically sounded hysterical. He grabbed hold of me by the shoulders to look at me closer. “Did this boy hit you?”
I was so confused, and then I realised. I’d made such a mess of the lipstick, such a state of myself trying to clear it all up, that it looked like a wound, an injury, a smear of blood all around my mouth.
It hurt just as much as if it really had been an attack.
“It’s lipstick!” I shouted. “He didn’t hit me! He didn’t even show up! He didn’t even know there was a date!”
“Oh, Poppy.” He hugged me then, but I wrenched myself free and ran upstairs.
“Just leave me alone!” I said, slamming my bedroom door.
“Please open the door.” Soon enough the whole family was outside.
“Poppy,” Dad said. “Come downstairs and we can watch a film with popcorn. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“I’m sorry,” Wendy said. “I’ll kill him at school, just you wait.”
“Please leave me alone,” I said. “I just want to be by myself for a while.”
Eventually, after more begging, they did leave, and I was left sobbing into my pillow. But after a while, I lifted my head up, and found the pillow stained with red. There was no way that was ever going to come out.
“Fuck!” I screamed. I never swear. It feels weird even writing down the word, as if I’m going to get into trouble when these are my private thoughts. But it was all I could think of saying at the time.
The lipstick was still in my pocket, so I took it out and threw it across the room, watching as the cap flew off and rolled under my desk. What looked so expensive and beautiful before, a way to turn me into someone I wasn’t, now just looked tacky and cheap. I picked up what was left and crushed it into the desk, watching the insides crumble and fall apart against it. Another stain. Another mark that would always be there to remind me of what happened.
“Poppy.” It was Wendy, knocking at the door.
“What part of ‘leave me alone’ don’t you understand?” I snapped.
“I’m sorry, but you have to see this.”
When I opened the door Wendy was standing there holding her laptop to her chest, face grave.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’re, uh, on Facebook.”
I knew. When they took those photos. I knew they’d do something with them. I just didn’t know what exactly, or how fast they’d act. But I should have realised that they wouldn’t even let me have a moment’s peace.
Wendy came into my room and sat on the bed, beckoning me to sit beside her. I saw her glance anxiously at the stained desk and pillow, but she didn’t comment. After I sat down, she passed the laptop along.
Facebook was open. It was logged into Wendy’s, not mine, but even on hers I was the top attraction, the first post that came up. A photo album of me in those toilets, staring at the mirror, then desperately trying to remove the lipstick, then turning towards them all.
I’m crying in the photos, but the lipstick is the worst. It looks even more horrific than it did in real life. I can still picture each image now, as if my brain has decided to play a little slideshow just to entertain me.
One of the captions read: Poppy Greer’s New Art Project. That hurt the most.
I was a clown. It was smeared all over my face and even on my teeth.
“It’s not that bad,” Wendy said. The liar.
I barely listened to her, scrolling through all of the various comments.
Do you think she’s ever even heard of the word “makeup” before?
LOL! Obviously not! She looks so ugly in school she never wears it.
Makeup wouldn’t save her anyway!
What the hell does she think she’s doing? I knew she was a saddo but this is so tragic.
I feel sorry for her, she has no friends and has to pretend she has a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day.
What a loser.
OMG she’s such a clown! This is so funny!
This actually should be her art project. I can’t stand the way she shows off about her work. She’s not even that good. Stuck-up bitch.
Remind me tomorrow to show her how lipstick is really meant to be worn! Like, hello, not on your teeth!
She thinks you have to eat it!
She eats everything else so no wonder! HAHA!
Another post popped up. A relationship status update.
Julian Davis is now in a relationship with Esther Driscoll.
Of course. Why would he ever have been interested in me? When he could have her?
Wendy took the laptop away and closed the lid. “Don’t look at it anymore.”
“How am I going to go to school on Monday?” I whispered, fresh tears streaming down my cheeks.
“You can and you will,” Wendy said. “Don’t let them beat you. You’re the best person I know.”
The best person she knew, dumb enough to believe Julian asked her out.
After she left, I took a final look at myself in the mirror. I still looked a state. I have some face wipes on my bedside table, and it took three of them to finally scrape the remaining red away, leaving my face sore and pink. As the wipes fell into the bin I couldn’t help thinking how gruesome they looked. How ruined.
Without really thinking I punched the mirror hard. I’m hardly strong, so I was surprised when it cracked at my hit, one shard falling to the carpet stained with blood from my knuckle. When I picked it up, I stared at it for a long time before taking the jagged piece and scratching it across my arm.
There was a sharp pain that made me gasp, nothing for a moment, and then an angry rush of blood that looked exactly like the lipstick that had been smeared around my mouth. The skin was warm and prickly, and tears fell from my eyes, but I was weirdly excited by it. By the pain.
Fingers trembling, I did it again, smaller this time, cutting next to the original mark. The sharpness came again, making my heart thud in my throat.
And then I stopped, putting the jagged shard in my bedside drawer, wrapped in tissue. I sucked on my arm until the blood settled, then panicked, staring at the vicious red cuts left behind.
What had I done? And yet I felt better. Horrified. But better.
Later, when Mum came in to say good night, bringing a hot chocolate with whipped cream and mini-marshmallows, I told her I was sorry. I had smashed the mirror in anger. I wore a long-sleeved pyjama top to avoid her questioning the marks on my arm.
“That’s alright, you were upset,” she said. “We’ll remove that mirror tomorrow. Don’t go near it in case there are bits of broken glass on the floor.”