Part 25 (2/2)
She smiled grimly. ”Don't worry, I believe it.”
”Exactly. I've seen a lot of city kids come through here. You're different from the rest of them. You can see the world clearly, even if you did grow up spoiled. That's why I had to tell you. That's why...”
Tally looked into his eyes and saw that his face was glowing again-touching her in that pretty way she'd felt before.
”That's why you're beautiful, Tally.”
The words made her dizzy for a moment, like the falling feeling of looking into a new pretty's eyes.
”Me?”
”Yes.”
She laughed, shaking her head clear. ”What, with my thin lips and my eyes too close together?”
”Tally...”
”And my frizzy hair and squashed-down nose?”
”Don't say that.” His fingers brushed her cheeks where the scratches were almost healed, and ran fleetingly across her lips. She knew how callused his fingertips were, as hard and rough as wood. But somehow their caress felt soft and tentative.
”That's the worst thing they do to you, to any of you. Whatever those brain lesions are all about, the worst damage is done before they even pick up the knife: You're all brainwashed into believing you're ugly.”
”We are. Everyone is.”
”So you think I'm ugly?”
She looked away. ”It's a pointless question. It's not about individuals.”
”Yes it is, Tally. Absolutely.”
”I mean, no one can really be...you see, biologically, there're certain things we all-” The words choked off. ”You really think I'm beautiful?”
”Yes.”
”More beautiful than Shay?”
They both stood silent, their mouths gaping. The question had popped out of Tally before she could think. How had she uttered something so horrible?
”I'm sorry.”
David shrugged, turned away. ”It's a fair question. Yes, I do.”
”Do what?”
”I think you're more beautiful than Shay.” He said it so matter-of-factly, as if talking about the weather.
Tally's eyes closed, every bit of exhaustion from the long day cras.h.i.+ng into her at once. She saw Shay's face-too thin, eyes too far apart-and an awful feeling welled up inside her. The warmth she'd felt from David was crushed by it.
Every day of her life she'd insulted other uglies and had been insulted in return. Fattie, Pig-Eyes, Boney, Zits, Freak-all the names uglies called one another, eagerly and without reserve. But equally, without exception, so that no one felt shut out by some irrelevant mischance of birth. And no one was considered to be even remotely beautiful, privileged because of a random twist in their genes. That was why they'd made everyone pretty in the first place.
This was not fair.
”Don't say that. Please.”
”You asked me.”
She opened her eyes. ”But it's horrible! It's wrong.”
”Listen, Tally. That's not what's important to me. What's inside you matters a lot more.”
”Butfirst you see my face. You react to symmetry, skin tone, the shape of my eyes. And you decide what's inside me, based on all your reactions. You're programmed to!”
”I'mnot programmed. I didn't grow up in a city.”
”It's not just culture, it's evolution!”
He shrugged in defeat, the anger draining from his voice. ”Maybe some of it is.” He chuckled tiredly.
”But you know what first got me interested in you?”
Tally took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. ”What?”
”The scratches on your face.”
She blinked. ”Thewhat ?”
”These scratches.” He softly touched her cheek again.
She shook away the electric feeling his fingers left behind. ”That's nuts. Imperfect skin is a sign of a poor immune system.”
David laughed. ”It was a sign that you'd been in an adventure, Tally, that you'd bashed your way across the wild to get here. To me, it was a sign that you had a good story to tell.”
Her outrage faded. ”A good story?” Tally shook her head, a laugh building inside her. ”Actually, my face got scratched up back in the city, hoverboarding through some trees. At high speed. Some adventure, huh?”
”It does tell a story, though. As I thought the first time I saw you-you take risks.” His fingers wound into a lock of her singed hair. ”You're still taking risks.”
”I guess so.” Standing here in the darkness with David felt like a risk, like everything was about to change again. He still had the look in his eye, the pretty look.
Maybe he really could see past her ugly face. Maybe what was inside her did matter to him more than anything else.
Tally stepped onto a fist-size stone on the path and found an uneasy balance on it. They were eye to eye now.
She swallowed. ”You really think I'm beautiful.”
”Yes. What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.”
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