Melissa

George picked up an issue from last April that she had looked through countless times before. She browsed the busy pages with a crisp flip-flip-flip that stirred up the faint smell of paper.
She paused on a photo of four girls at the beach. They modeled swimsuits in a line, each striking a pose. A guide on the right-hand side of the page recommended various styles based on body type. The bodies looked the same to George. They were all girls’ bodies.
On the next page, two girls sat laughing on a blanket, their arms around each other’s shoulders. One wore a striped bikini; the other wore a polka-dot one-piece with cutouts at the hips.
If George were there, she would fit right in, giggling and linking her arms in theirs. She would wear a bright-pink bikini, and she would have long hair that her new friends would love to braid. They would ask her name, and she would tell them, My name is Melissa. Melissa was the name she called herself in the mirror when no one was watching and she could brush her flat reddish-brown hair to the front of her head, as if she had bangs.