The first change was my curtains. One day, I decided the sun was giving me a headache and closed them for the first time since I had moved into the dorm some three weeks back. Then I just forgot to open them again.
I stopped going to the salon; my skin lost the glow of years on top of tanning beds, and I didn't care. I painted my eyes with heavy black eyeliner. I bleached my already-chemically processed hair white. I threw my Gap jeans out and replaced them with thrift-store finds, black jeans and skirts.
It wasn't until one night, amid the desperate flickering candles, laying another coat of black polish over my left-hand fingernails; I sat back and realized that I wasn't me anymore. I fingered my silver ankh necklace that I had picked up the week before, before I even knew that an ankh was. I picked it because it caught my eye. Because when I saw it, all I could do was imagine the silver shining over the deep black of my shirt.
Suddenly, I was a very different person than I had been a month before.
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"Gross," was the verdict. I sighed into the mirror, ashamed at how much I liked my reflection. My eyeliner had run when I washed out the bleach; it streamed down my face in thick black rivers. At least, my right eye did. My left was smudged nearly to my ear. I had never felt so sexy in my own bathroom back home.
"You don't like it?" I asked, surprised at the sarcasm I heard in my voice.
"You look…not very flattering. Different. I don't think it's your color."
Shane picked at her nails nervously, dying on the inside. She wanted to throw a shoe, an expensive fling-back with an expensive brand and a lot of weight, at my head and tell me to stop being so childish. I saw the eerie sort of desperation in her eyes. She was actually afraid of what I wanted to do to myself next.
I shook out my new hair; the color was paler than anything I had ever been before. Much different than the chestnut brown I had eradicated anyway. It made my fading tan look all the more pasty and sick.
"I look mysterious," I said after a moment's thought, "very…vampy."
""Yeah," Shane said in a sad way, "you do look like a vampire. That you do…" she trailed off. "
"Well, I like it," I decided. Then, to ease the shock creeping onto Shane's carefully painted features, I added, "And anyway, I have to wait if I want to dye it back."
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I didn't for once think the problem was with my room. It had plain white walls and blue curtains. It had a small, twin-sized bed with a very expensive mattress that my mom gave me before I left home. She had said that a good mattress was something worth the money, because a good sleep was invaluable.
My desk was white too, a cheap white-washed particle-board piece of junk that the school gave me. It had two drawers that smelled like glue. I kept some blank notebook paper and my diary in them, until I got sick of seeing the same shit written over and over in delicate, neat black pen, with flowers dotting my i's. I flipped through the book, re-reading sickeningly sweet, mushy paragraphs about unicorns and Barbie's. Then I threw it across the room and watched it shatter like glass into a million pages and litter my floor in a confetti of shallow problem and boy troubles.
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"Friggin goth," Michael told me one morning, "you look like crap babe. What the hell happened?" I leaned sleepily against the doorframe, half-closing the door to hide the gleam of candles, the oujia board on my floor, the smell of thick, smoky incense. I knew I looked like crap; I was half asleep, with my damaged hair in a pony tail, in a black scream-o band t-shirt and a pair of pink lacey panties. School was not an option for me. Not today. I had just gone to sleep!
"Mmm-ff." I said, tasting the plaque on my teeth, the dried saliva on my lips. Michael looked beyond horrified. He had never seen me without makeup before.
"Uh…why don't I like…catch up with you later?" He said, flustered. "When you're like…awake."
"Yup," I said, hoping my breath didn't travel far enough to disgust him. He was already backing up a little, staring at my bruised eye sockets. I didn't wait for him to turn and leave; I shut the door and slipped back into my expensive mattress. Somewhere across the room, I heard a short cackle of laughter. It died away and I fell asleep.
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I had two classes on Wednesday; English and Cultural Studies. I showed up to English sans makeup, wearing only a t-shirt with no bra, and a pair of my oldest jeans, a pair I kept for sentimental value. They were torn to the point of almost non-existing. I left my hair in the ponytail. I didn't even have my compact mirror.
"Oh my God," Shane said when I slipped into my seat, hunched and exhausted, "are you okay? Are you sick? You do not look good."
"I'm tired," I explained, "I didn't feel like…it." I couldn't bring myself to call my morning ritual "dressing up". I also didn't want to imply I didn't want to make the effort to look good. Even now, I felt it was a horrible sin, sloth, to continue existing like this. I could tell Shane didn't get it. She watched me for a second, mouth slightly open, fingering her pearl necklace, then turned away and ignored me, though kindly, until class was over. I slunk back into my dorm without waiting for her to say anything.
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That night, I reached the climax of my transformation.
I put down my CD player blaring Rob Zombie and walked across the room to the mirror mounted on my closet door. My plan was to pull out a pair of pajamas and my robe, but when my reflection slinked in front of me, I realized it wasn't me.
Not metaphorically; I was used to seeing the pale, thin, gaunt figure every morning. What I saw was something completely different. In fact, for a second, I could only stare and assess. Blond hair, dull and looking as though it was dusted with ashes. Deep, round eyes with deep shadows that looked as though there were pushed too far into its head. A grinning mouth with yellow, broken teeth. It waved at me, showing off fingers as grey as its skin, tinged at the tips with the color of a bruise. A black and white suit.
I shut my eyes and didn't let myself open them again until I was sure with every fiber of my being that what I was seeing wasn't real. I stood, breathing carefully, pushing the image out of my head. When I opened my eyes again I said aloud, I would see my own reflection. I would see Judith Ann Marko, tanned and golden and beautiful.
"What's-a matter, Judes," said the thing in my mirror, "Never seen a ghost before?"