Connie had come to the bitter realization that her twenties had been just as, if not more, confusing than puberty. Everyone had the answers when her legs were crossed. Like the instructions on the back of a box of tampons. While she was confined to a desk for eight hours.
She didn't feel like an adult. Not even while burning holes between the blurred lines of her eviction notice. She was still that thirteen year old girl in ruined panties. Her legs were longer and her hips wider. Thickened brows and her nose seemed pointier. An impossible flower that grew in the dark. With full petals, but deeply planted in the soil of her thoughts.
Connie Maheswaran. 22 and a senior in college. Still waiting on a text from a guy who made nice promises. Curled up in the back of her mother's car, daring herself not to look outside the window. Something about the past made her stomach turn. The thin trees painted themselves against the screen of her phone and the faintest reflection of sun light inspired a shutter from her shoulders.
"You're gonna be so behind, Connie..." Priyanka breathed as if she'd been holding her breath the entire car ride.
"I need a break."
"In the middle of your last semester?"
It wasn't melancholy that had emptied itself in Connie's gut. It was that missing light bulb adults were supposed to get. That high after buying the first pack of cigarettes legally. That feeling, she thought, was supposed to have lasted. 22 years old and she still found herself looking for castles in the clouds. Believing the poetry within lies because every boy was a potential prince. Regarding stars as little sleeping diamonds too pretty to belong anywhere plainly. She hated her spirit and wanted to sleep for at least three months. More than that if it allowed her to wake up with all the answers.
"You could've called if you needed money," Priyanka picked and picked and picked...
And Connie withdrew into a silence that matched the lingering sunset. It poured itself between the wispy palm tree and wasted in the car a nice golden orange.
No text from that guy she'd done more than kiss. Not even a heartless 'Hi'.
The car pulled into the driveway The lurch as Priyanka halted and shifted gears had been the kindness gesture Connie had received in months. As her face collided with the back of the passenger seat, it shook tears she'd been holding for too long. Big girls weren't supposed to cry.
"The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides." ~ Audrey Hepburn