There is a crack in the mirror that runs down the middle of my reflection, distorting my face, cutting it ruthlessly in half and making me out to be one of Picasso's paintings.
I like it better this way. There's something about seeing the two halves separately, one blurry, the other with an eye cut in half, that makes me able to stand myself. There was never much that I liked about myself, and m y beauty is one of the things I hate most. For someone that can't stand to have another person look at her, who just wishes she would die and leave her life behind, beauty is the worst possible gift.
My eyes, lacking makeup that I don't need, are red-rimmed; but it's from anger, not tears. That's the other curse: my unhappiness, my restlessness at being stuck in this body. It's like a cage--a five-foot-four-inch, walking, breathing cage, and the only way to escape is to die.
Believe me, I've thought a lot about doing that. Drowning, possibly, so that when they find my body, I'll be too bloated for them to enjoy my dead beauty.
I reach out a hand and follow the crack in the glass with the pad of one fingertip, tracing it past my face, all the way down to the sink. It's the attention I receive that I don't like. The boys that come after me just because I look pretty. That, and my inability to resist them. I always think, maybe this one will be different, he'll actually care about me...but they don't. They never do.
I'm not a virgin. At 21 years of age, and all those boys? They don't care who I am; they just want me for sex. And most of the time, they don't get it. But there's a few times...
I pull back from the mirror, turn away, and shut off my thoughts. No one's home but me--I live alone--so I run down the stairs, into the kitchen, to the cabinet with the stolen liquor. I pull out a bottle of bourbon, and it burns going down, fierce and warm, but I feel so much better now. I'm not drunk; all I needed was to block out those thoughts. I finger the bottle neck, take another sip, and look out the window. It's dark out; after midnight, and suddenly long-forgotten lyrics slide unbidden into my head.
"Down on the inside, pretty on the outside..."
I hate this song, but I'll always remember it. The memories, the thoughts that I'd been trying to hold back, come rushing at me and I close my eyes in surrender.
That song, "Ridiculous," by Bowling For Soup. I hate them. I almost tell him that when we walk into his room, but he shuts me up with a kiss. This is where I lose my virginity. To this boy that I'll never see again, to this song with its somehow true chorus, if I pretend the singer's talking about me. I remember swirling colors, soft, rustling sheets, the bitter taste of alcohol. The scratch of beard stubble on my skin when he kisses me; the scent of his cologne. But most of all, I remember the last words he ever spoke to me. "You're already lost," he whispers. "I needed to have you before you're gone."
I shake my head and curse. No matter what I do, that memory always comes back to haunt me when I least expect it.
I put the bourbon away, slamming the cabinet doors closed a little too hard in the process, and walk outside, to the curb at the end of my driveway. There, I sit down, breathing in the thick air, shivering from the humid, summer night. I tilt my head back and let the streetlight illuminate my pale skin as I stare hard into the inky black sky, wishing I could see the stars that are supposedly so beautiful. How I'd give to escape this world of lust for beauty, of people who don't care, of emptiness.
I feel empty. As I'm sitting here, alone in the middle of the night on the side of the street, I remember why I let some go so far as to persuade me give in to sex. I need to feel that comfort, that affection that comes from people who really care. And even then, when I give them what they want, I never feel it. I sigh into the dark air, thinking I'm alone.
"What are you doing out so late?" someone says. The voice is like jagged ice and warm velvet at the same time.
"Crap," I mumble.
I hate being pretty.
Then I turn to the voice, and I see him for the first time.
A/N: Okay, so new story. Sort of iffy...the vampire part will come in the next chapter. More interesting stuff then, too, like her name and what she looks like, you know. Please review (the button's down there v v v) and tell me what you think...
Dusk
