When magazines came out, every new page I flipped onto I came across a familiar face or name. People in my class got featured as writers, models, and photographers: everything that I was too scared to apply for. I felt like a failure.
Three years ago I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, disgusted by what I saw looking back at me: a girl who still had to deal with the pain of braces four years after their first installation. Someone with cuts in her cheeks, caused by the wires attaching the brackets to my teeth for “just another month,” as my orthodontist would say, to provoke false relief.