Angela Orosco's favorite color was white. White was pure and innocent. It wasn't dark or corrupted.
Angela always wore something white, whether it was a piece of jewelry or article of clothing. If she ever dirtied her white sneakers, stained her white sweater, or lost even a fragment of her white pearl-and-lace necklace, she wouldn't be able to rest until it was fixed- until it was luminous and beautiful once more. She's had to throw out a few material possessions in her lifetime because they could not be repaired. The damage was permanent. She couldn't stand to look at them. Nothing that sinless should have to go through such torment- such cruelty- such suffering.
Sometimes, Angela would lie on the floor in her bedroom and pull out her hair. She'd sprinkle the strands on top of her white carpet, like glitter on paper. She only did this because she knew she could throw them away. No mess. And it was all her doing. It was the accidents- the phenomena she didn't plan- Angela couldn't bear. One particularly muddy day, she had even decided to roll around in the liquid dirt with her favorite pair of white pants on. No strings attached or violent washing, cleansing. She had stared at those pants for hours afterward- she had to change before Daddy saw. Muck, grass, slime abundant. It was like a painting, and Angela was the artist. No one had forced her fingers around the handle of a brush- making her paint their painting. It was what she wanted.
Angela never wanted the rips or the tears or the blood. Her blood. All over the carpet. All over her clothes. She'd cry herself to sleep. She just wanted to be pure. No one's mistakes (discolorations, sins) but hers. She'd scrub her body, but it never worked. Soiled, unclean hands gripping her breasts. Scratches and bruises. Constant, eternal. Clothes, material possessions, were easier to mend and heal and nurse and take care of.
Angela wanted to be free, like birds. Pretty white doves. Or the vicious and merciless swans. Angela realized that most beautiful things were the most dangerous. She was an angel with wings like ivory. They suffocated and strangled. White was the chaste one, the virtuous color, at first glance. But it's the easiest to dirty, the pressure to turn rotten great and wondrous. Looking deeper, the flaws start to seep through. And they're deep- painful. Bleeding.
Fatal.
It wasn't Angela's blood anymore. She didn't know how to clean it. So she left it as is. The flames licking at her white soul.
It was black and disgraceful.