the ugly duckling

ok i hate this story. i know its badly written, but it was a little therapeutic for me to write it. it was intially a lot longer, and rambled on a lot more about the weird clique-ish "friends", and on the general manic obsessive thought patterns of the awkward adolescent, but i've skipped that because it became boring.

The music is deafening. The wooden floor throbs, vibrations pulsing though to her brain. Her hearing’s been numb for hours. She sighs, then quickly sucks in her stomach again. Her borrowed top would split at the seams if she relaxed (her damn chest is bigger than her friend’s). She has to make sure the top doesn’t ride up from the front though. The zip at the front of her pants turns neon white in the black light. Her mother’s slightly loose shoes make it impossible to move her feet in time to the rhythm. Thank GOD the sixties style is back, or she’d have to wear her flats, which would have been much worse. She discreetly tugs her bra (it was new) but the straps were loose. The granny panties help in sucking in her stomach though. She wistfully looks at her beautiful friends. She wishes she could own clothes like theirs (straight out of teen magazine), but her family spends all their holidays with her grandmother in stupid Lahore.

She sees the class 7 “hunk” pass by in his low slung leather pants and his Valentino shirt. Her heart sinks a little at how good he looks. She feels even more gauche and awkward. She knows that he’d never even give her a second look. He sidles past, through the little gap between her and her friends. He flips them a little hello. They all stare for a second, giggle in unity and say hi back. She feels fat and awkward, and doesn’t say anything because he's dissected the group and has his back to her. Why was he being so rude?
She notices who’s behind him only when he’s almost on top of her. She stifles a groan. “Hi! I’ve been looking for you the whole night! You look beautiful!” She can see her friends snickering behind his back. They get a hello from the most beautiful male on earth, and she gets accosted by his friend. He’s standing too close, she can’t breathe because of his cologne. She can see bits of the fuzz on the side of his lip that he’s missed. She feels like pushing him away, but there isn’t room. A sheen of sweat dots his upper lip. She notices his ears stick out a little, like her cousin's. She suddenly feels desperately sorry for the poor boy, and how scary it must be for him. She smiles at him, but then notices her friends have almost doubled over with laughter. She doesn’t know exactly what they’re laughing at, but she knows it's probably some mean comment about him and her, probably about sitting in a tree or something. She wishes she could change the topic because the poor boy is looking extremely embarrassed, and (even in the dark) his ears are beginning to turn red. He reminds her of her little brother suddenly, who looks like that when he says something he doesn't know is stupid and all the grownups laugh at him. She tells him that she'll dance with him at a better song (to spare him from asking her). Then she turns her back to him and faces her giggling friends, desperately tries to change the topic. She notices that the cute senior they’d noticed at the entrance was coming to their side of the room, and tells them. It works, and they forget about laughing at her.
Unfortunately, the cute senior comes straight for her and asks her to dance. She feels like crying because he didn't ask her friends too, and if she made the mistake for going alone with him they wouldn't talk to her for weeks (for being a bad friend). She tells the cute senior she hates the song and quickly turns her back.
Three boys who's parents rent apartments in London with her friends' parents come by. They don't bother saying hi to her because she told one of them she wouldn't go to the last party with him. Her friends drag her onto the dance floor with them though.

She suddenly notices the time. She almost falls over on the floor. She quickly says bye, then RUNS (loose shoes and neon zip and all) out the house, through the lawn, through the massive driveway to the gate, just in time to stop the bouncer from going in and announcing to everyone her mother is here to pick her up and could she please come to the gate. She jumps in the rattling car, prays no one will be coming out to notice her leaving.

Her mother, clueless, is happily humming along to the tape.
"Did you have fun sweetie?"