Purple Leather Pants

Were I as paralyzingly self-conscious as her, I’d do all I could to blend in. But here was a girl who dressed to stand out; who actively sought the attention, only to shrink from what little she got. It’s not as if I didn’t like her idiosyncratic style, and I was perfectly happy to have some of it rub off on me, but dating her felt sometimes as if I’d been cast in a remake of The Elephant Man, in which they’d given him a bullhorn so he could scream at everyone in the square not to look at him.