her own actions brought her tower of beauty crashing down.
www.im-so-vain.tumblr.com
Vera King is gorgeous. She knows it, everyone around her knows it, it's undeniable. But at a school where "beautiful" is an adjective that accurately describes the physics nerds, gorgeous isn't good enough. Vera would do anything to be as beautiful as Penny Cecile, but when she goes to an extreme, things don't turn out quite the way she planned. Thrown into circumstances where surviving off her good looks is no longer possible, this narcissistically insecure girl has to discover what all those people are talking about when they say 'inner beauty'.
Whenever I complained about my looks, people rolled their eyes at me and said, "Please, Vera, you're gorgeous."
And though I'd never admit it, I knew they were right.
I know that sounds incredibly, terribly vain– I can just see you, shaking your head in disgust and wondering why you ever wanted to read a book about a girl so in love with herself.
But it wasn't like that.
It's not that I was conceited– in fact, I was probably one of the most self-conscious girls you'll ever meet.
But I couldn't deny that I was beautiful.
Even if you'd never seen me; the proof lay in the components which led up to me: my mom and dad.
They are probably the two most drop-dead gorgeous people you'll ever meet in your life.
Neither of them, surprisingly, ever did anything with their looks; though I'll be the first to admit that those looks probably helped in the enormous financial success they've had all their lives. But most people with parents this hot whip out photos from when they used to model, or lead you to a room full of movie posters from the indie films they starred in. My mom is a stock broker, and my dad's in commercial design.
Anyway. Now that you know my beauty-filled origins, you might be able to be slightly less offended by my stating my own knowledge of my good looks. But you'll probably still be offended when I tell you that I wished they were even better.
The thing is, where I lived, beauty was expected. "Beautiful" was a word that described the physics nerds and the other social outcasts at my school. "Gorgeous" described those people who weren't really categorized– the ones that weren't quite attractive enough to be popular, but weren't quite unattractive enough to be part of any of the nerdy clubs. Then there were the popular people; the people I hung out with. One word to describe them: air-brushed. I mean, not literally. But if you saw them in a photograph; makeup-free, just out of bed, making an unflattering face at the camera, that's what you'd think: air-brushed. No one can be that attractive.
Oh, but they were.
I wasn't really attractive enough to be in the group I was in, or if I was, I was just barely hanging on the edge: one pimple, and I should've taken a step down the social ladder.
Maybe now you can understand why I was self-conscious about my looks. Or maybe you can't. Anyway, if you want to stick around, I'll tell you what happened to me when my vanity went crazy. If you don't care, then fine. Just don't stay if you're going to judge me. I don't need another pair of judgemental eyes.
© 2012
Also posted on and more frequently updated on figment.
