1269_UgliesFreeBook

UGLIES 277
“More beautiful than Shay?”
They both stood silent, their mouths gaping. The question
had popped out of Tally before she could think. How
had she uttered something so horrible?
“I’m sorry.”
David shrugged, turned away. “It’s a fair question.
Yes, I do.”
“Do what?”
“I think you’re more beautiful than Shay.” He said it so
matter-of-factly, as if talking about the weather.
Tally’s eyes closed, every bit of exhaustion from the long
day crashing into her at once. She saw Shay’s face—too
thin, eyes too far apart—and an awful feeling welled up
inside her. The warmth she’d felt from David was crushed
by it.
Every day of her life she’d insulted other uglies and
had been insulted in return. Fattie, Pig-Eyes, Boney, Zits,
Freak—all the names uglies called one another, eagerly and
without reserve. But equally, without exception, so that no
one felt shut out by some irrelevant mischance of birth.
And no one was considered to be even remotely beautiful,
privileged because of a random twist in their genes. That
was why they’d made everyone pretty in the first place.
This was not fair.
“Don’t say that. Please.”
“You asked me.”
She opened her eyes. “But it’s horrible! It’s wrong.”