A Thousand Paper Stars to Rewrite Our Painful Youth

I was living inside one of those old-school, overly dramatic YA novels.

I ran a little shop called The Sparkle Box.

Today, the 'heroine' and the 'mean girl' visited my store.

They both zeroed in on the exact same crystal barrette.

A stream of textmy private Commentary commentspopped up in front of me.

[The two sisters are fundamentally the same.]

[God, I hate this heroine. She wants it so badly but plays the untouchable Golden Girl.]

[Seriously, this tired catfight trope? Don't they have other boys? Don't they have other barrettes?]

Of course, we had others.

I reached beneath the counter and hauled up a massive cardboard box.

"Let me grab you both a fresh one," I said, pulling out a handful of the sparkly clips. "And I'll even throw in a quick braiding service, on the house, sweethearts."

As I was ringing up a sale, a mother and daughter started arguing right in front of my counter.

The mother was furious about the hair accessories.

"You need to focus on your studies! What's the point of obsessing over this useless garbage every day? Can't you be more like your sister and give me some peace?"

The momMrs. Davies, I thinkpicked out a few notebooks and school supplies to purchase, ordering the girl to put the rest back.

"I am absolutely not buying you any of that. You spend all your time at school not studying. Are you just trying to flirt with boys and get yourself into trouble?"

The words were unnecessarily cruel. My shop is right next to Westwood High, and several students were milling about, glancing at the girl, whispering.

The mom just dumped the girl and the school supplies and stormed out.

I sighed. I scooped up the barrettes she'd been forced to put down and pulled the girl back to the small entryway behind the counter.

"These are on me, but you can't tell anyone, okay?"

The Commentary comments flashed again.

[Don't help her, she's the villainess.]

[Why is she already so obsessed with 'serving the look'? Her mom's right, she should be focused on school.]

[If she had focused on school, would she have failed out of college and stolen her sister's boyfriend?]

Id known for a while that the world I inhabited was just a tired old YA novel, and I was just a tiny NPC who ran a trinket shop. Thankfully, online shopping hadn't quite taken over yet, so business was decent.

The students from Westwood High came here for cute notebooks to copy song lyrics and sparkly hair clips to dot their heads with. But they were still asking their parents for money, so fights like the one I just witnessed weren't uncommon.

I shouldn't have gotten involved, but I saw the girl bite the inside of her hand, trying desperately to hold back her tears, bracing herself against the humiliation. That lost, flinching pain was something I'd felt in my own teenage years.

I hadn't realized who she was until the Commentary comments named her: Juniper Daviesthe resident mean girl, the villainess of the novel. The one who skips class to do her makeup, constantly envies her "perfect" older sister, Phoebe, eventually falls for Phoebe's crush, and ultimately tries to sabotage her, leading to her own ruin.

The comments was quick to mock my kindness.

[The shop owner is just setting herself up for bad karma.]

[It's not kindness, she's just trying to buy loyalty so she'll bring more customers.]

I was about as innocent as they come. I tried to press the clips into Juniper's hand and move on, but she stepped back and bowed, her voice thick with unshed tears.

"I will pay you back."

As she straightened up, her knit cap slipped, revealing a choppy, uneven patch of hair at the back of her head.

It was only then that I realized Juniper's hair hadn't been cut at a salon.

Her mother, in a cruel punishment for vanity and to make a few quick bucks, had dragged her to a makeshift street vendor who bought hair, and let them hack it off with rusty shears, not caring that the girl would be ridiculed at school.

The hair clips and scrunchies weren't for fashion; they were to hide the mess, to avoid the strange looks and whispered comments. Now, exposed, her face burned crimson. She snatched her cap, clamped it back on, and looked ready to flee.

I gently stopped her. I put on my brightest, cheeriest smile.

"I forgot to mention, buying barrettes here comes with a complimentary styling session."

I pulled out my salon scissors and a comb.

"Let me just even up the ends for you, sweetie? A clean edge makes braiding much easier."

But first, a proper wash.

I led her back to the sink, adjusted the water temperature, and washed the loose strands off her neck. She was rigid with awkwardness, her hands clutching the seams of her uniform pants, yet she couldn't stop looking at the conditioner and hair oil I was using.

"My mom never lets me use stuff like this. Once I secretly used her face wash, and she said I should be studying, not thinking about showing off..."

All shed wanted was to calm down her teenage acne and tie her ponytail tight enough that it didn't pull on her scalp.

"Am I wrong to want to be pretty, Sis?"

I expected the comments to erupt in a flurry of moral judgment. Instead, it was eerily silent, the only sound the running water in the sink.

I gently wiped the water splashing near her eye.

"It's completely normal to want to look pretty."

You shouldn't feel guilty, and you definitely shouldn't be punished for it. You just need a little patience and guidance, a chance to define beauty for yourself, on your own terms. Thats how you avoid going from one extreme to the other.

[It's totally normal for girls to care about their looks. Guide her, don't chop her hair off, thats so abusive.]

[But she still ends up trying to steal her sister's boyfriend. That cant be excused.]

Just as I finished styling Juniper's hair, the book's heroine, her older sister Phoebe Davies, walked in.

"I'm so sorry for the trouble, and thank you for looking after Junie."

Phoebe was polite and well-mannered, pulling neatly folded bills from her textbook to pay for her sister.

Juniper, who had finally calmed down, suddenly shoved her sister away, her eyes blazing with hatred.

"Don't you dare pretend to be nice!"

The comments exploded instantly.

[See? She's a spoiled brat.]

[The mean girl is irredeemable. If I were her mother, Id like the sister more, too.]

For the next few days, I didn't see Juniper. She seemed to be deliberately avoiding me. She'd sneak in when I was busy or in the back, drop some money on the counter, and vanish. It added up to nearly twenty dollars, her promise to repay me for the barrettes, saved up little by little from her lunch money.

Finally, I pretended to be dozing at the counter and waited for her.

"Why are you dodging me?"

"I'm not." She instinctively denied it, then looked at me, hesitating. When she saw only genuine confusion in my eyes, she asked her own question, perplexed.

"You don't hate me? Everyone who meets Phoebe first always ends up hating me."

In her mind, her sister was quiet, beautiful, and brilliant. Everyone loved Phoebe and disliked her, finding her too aggressive, moody, and unreasonable.

She knew her mother cut her hair to sell for cash so Phoebe could have tutoring. That's why shed been so furious and upset when Phoebe offered to pay.

"She's always like that. She says she doesn't want anything, but everyone rushes to give her whatever she wants. I want things, and I get accused of wanting too much."

But I could see the truth: she didnt hate her sister. Whenever she picked out a hair clip or a pretty notebook, shed buy two.

Phoebe would quietly wait outside after her night classes, playing with a small hourglass on my display shelf until Juniper was done, then they'd walk home together.

When I asked if she wanted the hourglassI'd give it to herPhoebe just smiled and shook her head.

Juniper, behind Phoebe, rolled her eyes and mouthed a silent message to me: "See? Told you. Don't-Want-Sis." That was her nickname for Phoebe.

Unlike Juniper's openness, Phoebe always kept a polite distance from me, even after many visits. If Juniper wasn't around, Phoebe rarely spoke to me.

Until that night, when Phoebe rushed into the shop, tears streaming, asking if I'd seen her sister.

"She had a fight with Mom and ran out. She hasn't come back."

The fight started because Juniper had bought a lacy, fancy bra and hung it on the balcony to dry.

Mrs. Davies found it and instantly assumed her husband was cheating and had brought some "wild woman" to the house, causing a massive, public row that the whole neighborhood heard.

When she realized it was Juniper's, she slapped her. Then, grabbing the bra in one hand and her daughters hair in the other, she dragged her from door to door, announcing:

"Look at this daughter of mine! She's so young and already buying things like this to lure men!"

[That bra is truly questionable, though. What kind of high schooler buys that? It doesn't look decent.]

[Judging someone by their clothes is cheap.]

[Is she dating someone? Also, the size looks way too big for her.]

It was past nine, and the school was locked. Phoebe had called all of Juniper's friends; no one had seen her. She hadn't come to my shop. Where would she go?

Then I heard the shouting from the alleyway down the street.

"You crazy little brat, who takes back merchandise that's been bought?"

A girl was shoved out of a rolled-up metal door, landing hard in a puddle of dirty water.

"You lied to me!" The girl scrambled up, her voice cracking. "It's not even wearable! You cheated me!"

In the dim light, I recognized the choppy haircutit was Juniper. After the fight, shed realized the bra wasn't what she needed, so she'd tracked down the vendor to demand a refund. He refused, even leering at her.

"What do you mean, not wearable? Put it on. I'll tell you what I think."

I sprinted over and pulled Juniper behind me, blocking the vendors sightline.

"Preying on a little girl like this? You should be ashamed!"

It was too late to deal with the vendor, so I focused on getting Juniper home. She was clutching my hand, tears pouring out.

"Sis, I don't have any money left to buy a new one..."

It had only been thirty dollars, but shed saved it by skipping three weeks of breakfast.

"Tell you what, I'll stock some affordable options next week. You can come pick one out, okay? And just like before, you can owe me and pay me back whenever."

My heart broke. On my next trip to the city, I picked up a few styles of plain cotton training bras in various sizes. I only intended them for girls like Juniper whose parents neglected this part of her development. My shop wasn't a lingerie store, and I wasn't making any real profit.

But then, that weekend, a group of girls, their faces flushed with embarrassment, showed up. I realized just how many girls didn't have a single proper bra. Some were wearing ill-fitting hand-me-downs that gaped open. Some were wearing ones that were too small and had been mocked by boys during gym class. Others were wearing cheap underwire bras, and the wire had poked through the fabric, leaving their ribs raw and redthey thought it was normal.

The internet wasn't widespread then. They didn't know how to pick a size or material, how to wear one correctly. They were too embarrassed to go to a proper store and too shy to even discuss it with each other. Thats why Juniper had made a mistake.

I handed a soft, cotton bra to Phoebe. She instinctively started to refuse.

"It's from Junie. She already paid for it."

That thirty dollars had been for Phoebe all along. Phoebe was developing quickly but was still wearing a child's undershirt with no support. During track and field, boys would sometimes deliberately crouch low to look at her.

"What good is it if she just holds her chest all the time!" Juniper had fretted, desperate to buy her sister a bra, making me promise not to tell Phoebe.

The comments, watching this exchange, was silent for a long time before someone typed:

[Well, the sisters dont have any reason to fight yet. The guy hasn't shown up.]

[Just wait for the guy to show up and mess everything up.]