Jolie Laide

When I was fifteen, I hosted a French exchange student. Dimitri was a bit of a dick and wore pastel sweatsuits that looked like baby onesies but he was French, looked just like Pierre in my textbook and was living at my house; I was crushing hard.  Toward the end of his visit, Dimitri left his journal on the kitchen table and I, being in the prime of my snooping days (since retired), settled in to have a look. I couldn’t really read French so I scanned the pages for my name until there is was:

Julie est jolie-laide.

My C-grade French coarse translation – Pretty Ugly.

Can I describe the hurt that was barreling toward me as I read those words? No, because something else happened: with a whoosh and my heartbeat pounding in my ears, I went outside myself and became my trusted friend.

Julie, that isn’t what…