"I'm sick of looking like a bimbo. I wish my body and my brain matched."
Jon froze. Karyn's voice had been muffled by the door that separated them, but it really sounded like she'd just said...
"I guess, like, the wish didn't work," Karyn's voice had an uncharacteristically pouty tone, and her whole cadence was...off, possessing the tell-tale chirping quality and upswing in pitch at the end of a sentence that screamed 'teeny-bopper'.
Overcoming his trepidation, Jon opened the door. Any hope that might have stemmed from the acoustic properties of his bedroom evaporated with one look at the face reflected in the mirror. There was Karyn McMillan, the love of his life, examining herself in the mirror with a vapid haze clouding her eyes. Her mouth hung open stupidly, and her lips were parted in a stupid 'O' of dejected surprise.
Jon didn't have to make do with a reflection for long. Noticing his entrance, Karyn whirled, her expression becoming almost giddy with sudden hope. It broke his heart to see that joyful grin marred by the vacant childishness of her eyes.
"Oh-Em-Gee! Jon! The stone like, didn't work." Karyn's brow briefly furrowed in a pathetic gesture of consternation. Jon remembered the many times he'd heard Karyn lament the use of texting short hand in real-life speech. Girls that used it as actual vocabulary had been frequent targets of her mockery. Though, Jon reflected, this Karyn didn't look like she was particularly witty.
The moment passed, and Karyn bubbled along ."You like, know how to fix it though right? We can still make everything all, like better and stuff, right?" Her strained optimism was heart wrenching. Jon felt something hard catch in his throat. The only response he was able to muster was an audible gulp.
"Jon...you can, like, fix it? Can't you?" Karyn got that confused look again. "Wait...what's wrong with my voice? I like, can't stop saying like!" Of course she'd heard her own wish. She knew this wasn't the way things were supposed to be.
As his girlfriend's eyes grew glassy with tears, Jon began to wonder if that made things better or worse.
