Doors Secrets (doorssecrets) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-07-08 12:02:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | plot: secrets |
Who: Ersatz
What: Reveal
When: Secrets plot
Warnings/Rating: None
After the boy with the James Spader smile had left, taking his Andrew McCarthy dreams with him, she'd cried herself out on the windowsill and waited for the night air to dry the blood, teams and come off her skin. She was sticky acceptance, because this shit had happened before, and it would happen again. She was a thick skin, years down the line, and she was willpower that kept her from chasing Bender out the door like she was Claire with a boombox lifted high above her head and say anything echoing as he walked away.
She'd begged the first few times, but she wasn't cut out for some kind of wonderful. Crooked teeth and scribbled tears in her salt-slick diary beneath the blankets, and she'd learned that wanting to be something wasn't enough. There was Barbie in the next room over, with her smile and her pretty blonde hair. Sure, she was disproportionate and she'd fall over if she tried to walk, and she'd never survive the real world on her own, but boys liked girls like that. Boys didn't like girls with utilitarian bobs and awkward grins that could disarm weapons in under thirty seconds. Barbie could carry a watermelon, and she'd end up with the heartthrob saving her from the corner in time for the last dance. She was Francis, not Baby, and nobody could see that Baby lived beneath her skin.
She had been youth for the night, the memory of a time long gone and laced with movies and songs, because she wasn't allowed time for the real McCoy. Everyone but the popular kids wanted to forget high school, and she was no exception. Her life had stopped being a wannabe John Hughes movie by eighteen. Sure, it had hiccuped in her early twenties, but every druggie gets one relapse. She hadn't fallen off the wagon since. It had been years since metaphorical scissors had cut into any part of her skin, and she hadn't bled emotions on anyone's shoes in years.
But she had been youth for the night, and she'd cried herself raw as the stickiness ran down her thighs and marred the floor beside the window. "I will survive," she'd whispered. Happiness didn't come with a hard cock and a pair of strong arms. It had taken her a while, but she'd figured that out. No one was desperately seeking her, and she just had to live with that. A lifetime of never enough settled into her bones, and she knew she would be Gloria Gaynor with a spine in place of the sequins and roller skates.
When the credits rolled, she didn't fight it.
Back in the apartment, it took longer than she expected to wash the memory of always not enough from her skin, and she did what she always did when she felt human and alone. She turned on her laptop, and she Skype'd Amanda, who was more than happy to regale her with tales about her career plans to be a firefighter princess who ran for president on a ballot with her daddy. Their platform would be tiaras and rights for girls and every Monday would be dedicated to ice cream. Mommy could take her to dinners and functions, but only if she didn't make daddy scowl.
"What about your husband?" Max asked.
The tiny face on the screen scrunched up in disapproval. "I don't need one of those, mommy," Amanda explained. "I don't need a wife either. Girls can have those too now."
Max smiled. Thirty minutes later, tank top and track pants, she went for her first run since December and the accident. The hotel could go screw itself.