Confessions of an Ugly Girl (21 page)

I’ve been trying to read some of the books in my bookcase that I’d never gotten around to looking at. I realized something: a lot of books have romance in them. When I was in college and seeing all my friends with boyfriends, while I grew more and more lonely, I stopped reading and going to movies, because I felt like everything I saw showed people in relationships and it was painful for me. I eventually got over it but now it’s painful all over again.

Well, if I live a life of solitude long enough, I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

In any case, I’ve been reading the one book in my apartment that doesn’t have any romance in it. It’s a manual on how to fix the DVD player. It’s not exactly a page-turner, so I figured I might as well update here.

And now some of the bratty kids in the neighborhood are throwing pebbles at my window. I’m going to go yell at them to stop. That’s the sort of thing that Martha would do. I’m totally turning into a crabby old maid.

Maybe I’ll go chase them away with a broom.

February 14:

It wasn’t kids throwing rocks at my window. It was Sam.

As I came to look, he hurled a pebble at the window and I ducked instinctively. He had pretty good aim for a guy with no hand function. I opened the window and stuck my head out. Thankfully, Sam stopped throwing pebbles at that point. He was right at the foot of the front stairs, looking frustrated. Actually, he looked awful.

(Okay, Sam never looks
awful
, but he definitely looked tired and unshaven. “Haggard” would be the proper word.)

“Stop throwing rocks at me,” I said.

“How else am I going to get your attention?” He leaned his head back to look up at me. “You changed your phone number. You won’t answer my emails. You haven’t been to work all week.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Please, Millie,” he said. “Just come down for five minutes. I want to talk to you.”

The truth was, I wanted to talk to him. I missed him so much it hurt. But I was still really angry about what happened—I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“No.” I started to close the window.

“If you don’t come down,” Sam said, “I’m coming up there.”

“Oh yeah? How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll crawl.”

I thought for sure he was messing with me. I almost fell out the window when I saw him lower himself onto the steps of the house. As I watched in shock, he started struggling to pull himself up to the next step. “Sam…”

“You can’t stop me,” he said as his butt landed on the next step.

In about five minutes, Martha would catch wind of this. I had no idea what she’d do, but I was worried it would involve cats and broomsticks. In any case, it wouldn’t be good. So I ran down the stairs as fast as I could. Damn Sam, outsmarting me like that. By the time I got to him, he was on the fourth step and I honestly don’t think he could have made it much further. His face was pink and he had a line of sweat on his brow.

I sat down next to him. “I’m here. You win.”

He leaned back, having a lot of trouble even sitting up straight on the uneven steps. He looked like he was going to start crying again. “Millie, why are you doing this?” he said. “You
know
I’m sorry. You’re killing me.”

“You kissed your ex-girlfriend,” I reminded him. “And now you’ve got what you want: you’re free to get back together with her.”

“You know that’s not what I want!” he cried. “That’s not what Holly wants either. She was just lonely.”

“Could’ve fooled me…”

“Holly and I were wrong for each other,” Sam said. “Everyone knew it. My parents knew it, my friends knew it, and Holly knew it. She couldn’t even stay faithful to me. The best thing she ever did for me was turn me down. It would’ve been a huge mistake if we had gotten married. And…” He caught his breath. “I never would have met you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“With you, it was different,” he said. “The moment I saw you, I thought, ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman.’ I know it sounds crazy. I never believed in love at first sight, but you were exactly the person I’d been looking for my whole life. You were
the one
. I knew I had to be with you, no matter what it took.”

I frowned at him. It all sounded so hard to believe. How could somebody look at
me
and think that? But he sounded so earnest when he said it.

“I was just hoping you weren’t already married or engaged.” He paused. “Of course, when I saw the look on your face when you first realized I used a wheelchair, I wasn’t sure if I had a chance with you.”

I blushed. “I didn’t…”

“It’s okay, I’m used to that kind of reaction,” he said. “And you warmed up during our first date. That’s when I knew for sure.”

I shook my head. It seemed so insane... yet he was so sincere.

“I love you, Millie,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Looking into his eyes, I realized he meant what he was saying. He didn’t want Holly. For some reason, he only wanted me. “I love you too,” I said, feeling my own tears well up.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little blue velvet box. He didn’t open it, just held it in his palm. “I was so scared I’d never have a chance to give this to you.”

I stared at the box. I didn’t think I could open it. If I picked it up, I thought my hands would shake so badly that the box and its precious contents would break into pieces and float away. I looked at Sam and saw that his hands were shaking too.

I fell into his arms as he kissed me. It was the best kiss we’ve ever had.

EPILOGUE

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This is Sam, filling in for The Beautiful Matilda. She can’t quite get out of bed, if you know what I mean. Heh.

Millie is attempting to forcibly grab the computer from me, so I’m going to keep this brief, folks. She showed me this journal, and I’ve convinced her that now that she’s moving out of the cat lady’s house and into my awesome pad, she needs a fresh start. Her new journal is going to be titled “Confessions of a Sexy Actuary Engaged to an Incredibly Hot Computer Genius.”

I think her fans will follow.

A letter from the author:

Dear readers,

Thank you so much for reading my story! I would love to get feedback from readers, both good and bad (although I would prefer good!). Please consider either leaving a review on Amazon or you may contact me at
[email protected]
.

Thank you once again.

Alice Wasser

http://confessionsuglygirl.blogspot.com/