WHY AM I UGLY🎀?

Episode 2 :when the crown get heavy

Carly didn’t show up to school the next day.

For most people, it didn’t mean much. Queen bees take “mental health days” too — or so everyone said. But Sasha noticed the silence. Nora felt it, too. It wasn’t just Carly’s absence that stood out.

It was the absence of fear.

No eyes rolling from the end of the hallway. No whispers behind backs. No fake compliments followed by laughter the second someone turned away. Without Carly’s presence, the school felt like a room with the windows finally open — the air no longer stuffed with the weight of judgment.

And yet, it didn’t feel better. Not really.

It felt unfinished.

Carly’s bedroom was cold.

She sat on the floor, back against the wall, wrapped in an oversized hoodie — not cute, not cropped, just soft and shapeless. Her phone was on the carpet beside her, screen dim, still vibrating now and then with the people pretending to care.

Carly wasn’t crying.

She’d cried the night before — silently, curled up in the bathtub with the shower running, just in case anyone could hear.

She hadn’t told anyone where the ache was coming from. She didn’t know if she could.

Because if she admitted she wasn’t okay, what was left of her?

Being beautiful wasn’t a feeling. It was a job. One she was expected to perform every single day. Smile pretty. Laugh softly. Flirt just enough to be adored, but not too much to be questioned.

There was no space for real.

And Nora’s post… God. That post had shattered her carefully arranged mirrors.

That afternoon, Sasha received a long message from Carly. Not a voice note. Not a meme. A real message, typed with shaking thumbs.

Carly:

“I’ve been pretending for so long, I don’t know who I am without it.

Everyone thinks I have it all. I do, I guess. The looks. The attention.

But I’ve never felt chosen. Just displayed.”

“When I called Nora ugly, it wasn’t about her.

It was about me — how angry I was that she didn’t need to fake anything to matter.

I want to be her. But I don’t know how to undo what I’ve been.”

Sasha just sat with it.

She didn’t know what to say.

So she took a screenshot and sent it to Nora — no caption. No pressure.

Nora read it three times. Then a fourth.

She didn’t feel triumph. Or power. Or even forgiveness.

She felt grief. Not for Carly’s cruelty, but for the little girl inside her — the one who’d probably never been told she could be loved just for existing.

In the city, Lina sat on a late-night bus, face turned toward the window, watching rain bleed down the glass like tears too tired to fall properly.

She hadn’t opened Jules’ latest message yet. But she knew what it was.

He had been trying — not in the performative way men often tried after they realized they’d broken something — but in the quiet, unsure way someone does when they realize they might be broken too.

Her phone buzzed.

She opened the message.

Jules:

“I didn’t see what you became because I only saw what I expected.

A body. A smile. A memory.

You were a mirror, and I only wanted my reflection.”

“I’m not asking for anything now.

I just want to say:

I see you. I see the version of you I missed.

And I’m sorry I ever taught you that being enough had to be earned.”

Lina didn’t reply right away.

But for the first time in years, she let herself feel seen — even if it was too late to be repaired, it was not too late to be acknowledged.

That evening, Nora stood in front of her bathroom mirror — the same mirror she used to cry into.

Her reflection wasn’t prettier. But it no longer looked like a stranger.

She didn’t feel powerful. Or perfect. But she felt present.

She took a photo. Not to post. Not to prove. Just to witness herself.

Then, as if on instinct, she messaged Carly.

Just two words.

Nora:

“I hear you.”

No forgiveness. No apology. No absolution.

Just space.

And that was more than Carly had ever been given before.

That night, Carly lay in bed and read that message again and again.

“I hear you.”

Not “You’re right.”

Not “I forgive you.”

Not “It’s okay.”

Just… I hear you.

Carly began to cry again — not the desperate, silent sobbing of shame. This time it was something different. A breaking. A loosening.

Because for the first time in her life, someone wasn’t asking her to be beautiful. They were just willing to listen.