Chapter 1
Moring
The alarm blares, shill and hollow. She lies still in bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, letting the sound cut into her ears. Her thoughts drowning the alarm to a weak buzz sound. Finally, she silences it. She doesn’t get up, instead she stairs at the mirror knowing she’ll have to face her own refection sometime today. She takes one more deep breath before sitting up straight.
Her room is chaos. Clothes scattered. Books half-open on the floor. The curtains are drawn tight, keeping out the sun. an empty glass and plates on the nightstand. A school blazer crumpled over the chair. Trashcan overflowing. School shoes lost in this pile of clothes and skirt lost in the bathroom. She drags herself up rubbing at her eyes that burn from the lack of sleep. Her school uniform is creased. She buttons it unevenly at first, then fixes it automatically, fingers trembling just slightly.
She glances at herself in the cracked corner of the mirror, quickly looks away. She props herself up in front the mirror and starts with her make up routine. Sometimes she wish she could just throw all her make up away and go back to the simple time to when she didn’t know what foundation shade she was or how to curl her lashes. These days she couldn’t even leave the house without a full face of make up.
Her father’s familiar voice calls from down stair: “do you want coffee or anything?” she desperately needed coffee if she was planning on staying awake in class today.
She sat in the car in silence, fighting to stay awake, the noise of the radio fading into the background. Her mother finally broke the silence: “how did you sleep?” “good” she responded. Lie. “are you ready for school?” “yeah”. Lie. “is all your homework done?” “yup”. Lie. Each morning the same three questions, each morning the same three lies.
