She cuts her own hair in the bathroom mirror. She's not quite drunk anymore and it's just past three in the morning and she doesn't allow herself to hesitate. Years of hair fall to the floor around her bare feet.
When she finally locks eyes with her own reflection, her mouth twists up at one corner. Her hair has never been so short; she looks suddenly older, harder.
Good.
She will cut away every extraneous piece of herself if that is what it takes for her to survive. She survived losing her daddy to three bullets and her mother to an endless series of bottles. She survived her rapist—the sort of blonde-haired, blue-eyed frat boy with a daddy whose lawyer could make all sorts of "mistakes" disappear—walking away with only a slap on the wrist after she did everything, everything right.
She will survive this, too.
She just doesn't yet know who she'll be when she emerges on the other side.
A/N: It's been literal years since I've posted fanfic, but I've been obsessed with Elle lately.
