Changed

"Wow is that Bree Daily?" Voices whisper as lockers slam shut and I walk past. Usually these comments would send me running over the hills. But not this year. It's the first day of school and I'm different. And I know it and they know it too. I changed this summer. I grew a few inches, my self esteem reached sky high, and my clothes are no longer blending in with the cement. I remember last year as a freshmen, I didn't want to be freshmeat. So I bought gray clothes, gray shoes and adopted an attitude that basically killed any social activity. I was an Outcast. But by my own hand of course. And if I thought no one noticed, I was sadly mistaken. My friends dropped like flies when they saw what I was wearing. I used to be the fashion guru of the eighth grade. People, mainly the ones who wanted to dress like me, would come to me for advice. Advice I would so happily give. Until last year when I became the dregs of coffee how I acted. Even the Goth's ignored me. I should have seen that as a red flag. But did I heed the warnings? Of course not. I was a girl dressed as a dude. In over baggy clothes and a hairstyle to make the dead roll over in their graves. So what changed me? Was it my friends avoiding me in the cafeteria? Or maybe the guidance counselor asking me if I was being abused at home? Or perhaps it was the way my parent's thought I was depressed and suggested therapy? What ever it was, something changed. Like a flip of a switch in a room that hasn't seen light in so long. Or the sun shining after it rains for a really long time. I remember the week before school, I was in the bathroom at the Mall and I happened to look at me in one of those full length mirrors. You know the one's that show all of you without hiding anything? I had avoided mirrors all year because I never liked who stared back at me. The girl in the mirror wasn't me she couldn't be me. She was a zombie how could I let myself get this lifeless? My eyes used to be emerald green and would sparkle with a kind of intensity people would stop and stare at. I used to get compliments on my eyes a lot every day some one would say "I love your eyes!" or 'Are you wearing colored contacts? Your eyes are so pretty!" or even " I wish my eyes were like yours instead their blue." Now however; they were pale green like slim or algae rooming on the bottom of a pond. My face was worse it had no color I was literally a vampire. I hadn't gone to the community pool or gone outside at all this summer. I had isolated myself. So naturally I had lost all my color. My mom had started to call me Vampire because I stayed in the dark of my room with only my computer screen light for days at a time only coming out to use the bathroom and steal food from the refrigerator in the middle of the night. I had lost a lot of weight too. You could count my ribs and it was getting harder to tell if I was a girl or not. My clothes were baggy and my hair was an inch long dark blue, and spiky. It was like I was trying to deny that I cared. I was different. And not in a good way. I wasn't me anymore.
So that day in the Mall, I tried on clothes that were so girlish my mother thought I was sick. Pink blouses,blue blouses, fancy blouses you name it and jeans to make every boy's head turn. Cami's that replaced bra's and complimented my girlish figure were added to the pile of Oh My God My Daughter is back. I thought my Mom would object, but she was actually smiling with the mounting pile of clothes. It was like she knew I changed. I could definitely feel it. With each shirt I added, a piece of the Dead Bree fell off and the New Bree was shining as if it had been there the whole time waiting for me to realize Dead Bree was never my style. After all who could want to be so lifeless the dead look better than you?

The next item was shoes.

My shoes were always black I had never had a pair that didn't scream These are Guy's Sneakers! or made my mom cringe when they were the same exact pair as the year before. So it surprised me that I had found the perfect pair of Dan Skin shoes and a cute pair of brown flip flops with little sunflowers on them. Dead Bree objected but New Bree said, "Why not? They look cute and they go with that skirt!" Three guesses who I listened too. Last on my list was makeup. I hadn't worn it since eighth grade and I didn't feel odd for buying almost all of the beauty products. Blush, mascara, eyeliner, eye shadow, and lipstick. I even persuaded my mother to get my hair styled. Being an inch long, I opted to change it's color and washing it with soap; something I had taken for granted and basically given up on this summer. So that if I lifted up a strand of hair it would stay straight up without any problem. That night, I went through my closet and got rid of all the cement gray baggy clothes that I had let become my life. My parent's didn't object either when I told them that I was sick of gray. I washed my hair and cut my nails and painted them a light green. I worked on my hair for an hour it took nearly the whole bottle of brown hair dye to change the dark ugly blue color that had dominated it for so long. You should have seen my parent's faces. It was like their color loving, sweet talking, brown haired girl was back. And I loved the attention. Sure I wasn't how I was before with my long hair, but I'm letting it grow so that when it reached shoulder length, I could get it styled to the look it used to be, a mix of Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus.

This morning I got up early way before the chickens, ate breakfast and set to work on my appearance. My attitude had made me lifeless that much I knew and if I changed my appearance I could change the way people thought of me. First was the makeup. I put on eyeliner and eye shadow to hide the dark circles from staying up late and lack of sun light I applied mascara to my eye lashes bring out my eyes. I covered my vampire like complexion with blush . I plucked the hair that made my eyebrows look like a caterpillar had taken up where my eyebrows should have been. I put on a light rose pink lipstick and admired my work. I looked better not the old me but almost. Next were my clothes. What I wore this time of year last year, was the definition of don't look at me. My plan was to blend in with the ground. Cement gray and no life. This year it was different I was different. I chose a long wavy brown skirt that flowed down to my ankles and a light blue shirt that screamed I know fashion. For shoes, I picked my matching brown flip flops with the sunflowers on them, that I had seen in the Mall a few days ago. New Bree was right, they are cute.

My mother drove me to school fifteen minutes early so that I had time to find my homeroom. I almost begged her to take me home. I would do home school, no one would see me. At least that's what the last part of Dead Bree tried to convince me. But I can see now that I was right not to say anything. No one was commenting on how I looked in a bad way. In fact no one had said anything bad at all. I had even seen some of my old friends. They had smiled and commented me on my clothes. Sarah had even asked if I wanted to sit with them at lunch. That was more than I had hoped for. Maybe it wasn't just how I dressed, but the way I presented myself. After all I was different. I was me.