My Bully Became My Fan Chapter 05
Donna was waiting on the front porch when we pulled up. She was maybe forty–five, with graying hair and laugh lines around her eyes. Nothing like the foster parents I’d imagined.
“You must be Scarlett,” she said, not staring at my stitches like everyone else did. “I’m Donna. Mike’s inside making his famous tacos.”
Famous tacos.* Like this was just a normal Tuesday and not the day my entire life changed.
Mike turned out to be this big teddy bear of a guy who taught high school history. He took one look at me and said, “You hungry, kid? Food fixes everything.”
*No it doesn’t,* I wanted to say. *But I’ll take the tacos.
That first week, I mostly stayed in my room. They’d given me this space with actual matching furniture and curtains that weren’t held up with safety pins. I was terrified to touch anything.
But Donna wouldn’t let me hide forever.
“Scarlett, honey, come help me with dinner.”
stood in the doorway, watching her move around the kitchen like she belonged there. Because she did. This was her home, her life, and I was just… visiting.
But she was patient. Every day, she’d ask me to help with small things. Setting the table. Washing vegetables. Nothing that could go wrong.
“Cooking is love made visible,” she’d say while teaching me to season chicken properly. “Your mom
loved you plenty, sweetie. She just didn’t have much time to show it this way.”
Slowly, I started to trust that they weren’t going to throw me out for existing.
Mike was different but just as kind. He’d knock on my door at weird times with homework help or random questions about movies. Never pushing, just… there.
“You know,” he said one night when I couldn’t sleep, scars tell stories. Doesn’t mean the story’s over.”
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I can write a different ending.*
The makeup thing started by accident.
I was trying to cover my face scar for a school event, using drugstore concealer that made everything look
worse. I’d been at it for an hour, getting more frustrated with each failed attempt.
I look like a clown. A scarred, pathetic clown.*
Donna found me crying in the bathroom, makeup smeared everywhere.
“Oh, honey, no. You’re doing it all wrong.”
She sat me down and pulled out this huge makeup case I’d never seen before.
“I used to do theater makeup in college,” she explained, opening containers of things I didn’t recognize. “Scars, bruises, cuts–I could make actors look like they’d been through war zones. Or make it all disappear.”
*Make it disappear.* The possibility hit me like lightning.
She worked for twenty minutes, blending and layering and doing things with brushes I didn’t know existed. When she turned me toward the mirror, I gasped.
The scar was gone. Not covered–actually gone. My face looked normal again.
I could be normal again.*
How did you do that?”
“Color theory, mostly. And good products. You want me to teach you?”
Do I want to learn how to look normal again? Do I want to become someone else entirely?*
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Please.”
Learning makeup became my obsession, but it wasn’t easy.
My first attempts were disasters. I’d spend hours in front of the mirror, only to end up looking worse than when I started. Some days I’d get so frustrated I’d wash it all off and give up.
This is stupid. I’ll never be good at this.*
But Donna never let me quit.
“skills take time, honey. You’re not trying to cover a scar–you’re learning to rebuild yourself.”
Rebuild myself.* That’s exactly what it felt like.
watched YouTube tutorials for hours, practicing on myself until my face was a mess of different techniques. Some influencers made it look effortless, but I knew the truth now–they’d failed a thousand times before getting it right.
The scar on my hand was easier–just straight doncealer work. But my face was trickier. The cut had healed with this raised, pinkish line that caught light differently than normal skin.
There has to be a way to fix this.*
started researching professional techniques. Special effects makeup, medical tattooing, advanced color correction. I spent my allowance on products and practiced every day, documenting my progress with phone photos.
Before and after. Before and after. Slowly getting better.*
By senior year, I could do it in fifteen minutes. By college, I was experimenting with different looks, posting before–and–after photos on my private
Instagram.
That’s when people started asking questions.
“OMG how did you do that??”
“Can you teach me?”
“I have scars too–would this work for me?”
Maybe I’m not the only one who needs this.*
I started college at UC San Diego, majoring in business because it seemed practical. But my real education was happening in my dorm room, filming makeup tutorials on my phone.
My first TikTok was called “Scar Coverage 101.” Just me, a ring light Mike bought me for Christmas, and twenty different products laid out on my desk.
“Hey guys, so I have some scars I like to cover up, and thought I’d show you how I do it.”
I got twelve views. Twelve.
Well, that’s embarrassing.*
But I kept going. The next video got fifty views. Then two hundred. Each one taught me something new about lighting, angles, what people actually wanted to see.
For months, I was just another girl with a phone and a dream. I’d post videos to crickets, watch other creators blow up overnight, wonder what I was doing wrong.
*Maybe I’m not cut out for this.*
But something kept me going. Maybe it was remembering how it felt when Donna first showed me I could look normal again. Maybe it was knowing there were other people out there feeling as broken as I used to feel.
Someone needs to see this. Someone needs to know it’s possible.*
Then I made “30–Second Scar to Flawless.”
I’d gotten so good at the routine that I could transform my face in under a minute. The time–lapse video showed the whole process, set to trending audio.
posted it before bed on a random Tuesday, same as always.
When I woke up Wednesday morning, my phone was dead from notifications.
What the hell?*
I plugged it in and watched the numbers climb, 2.
million views. 2.5 million. 3 million. Comments pouring in faster than I could read them.
“This is life–changing!”
“I’ve been hiding my scars for years!”
“You’re incredible!”
But also: “Tutorial please!” “What products?” “Can you help me?”
By Friday, I had 200,000 new followers and fifty brand emails in my inbox.
*Holy shit. This is actually happening.*
I called Donna, crying.
**“Honey, what’s wrong?“**
“Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s right. My video–it went viral. People want to learn from me.”
could hear her telling Mike in the background, both of them celebrating like I’d won the lottery.
Maybe I had.*
But even as the success grew, something felt hollow. I was helping thousands of people feel beautiful, but I still went to bed every night thinking about Madison Blackwell.
Success feels good. But it doesn’t erase what she did.