Trapped in Forever

12 ~ Put on the Red Light

The chapter you've been waiting for, ladies and probably no gentlemen ;) Thanks so much to Noelle for letting me borrow Grady and Juliette. I loved writing them and I hope I did a good job! Sorry for the length too. I lost track of pages :\

The girl only a few feet away from me, seated in a black and white upholstery chair that reminded me of the one in my parents’ bedroom beside their pristine, white bookcase, filled with books my parents hardly read (Tale of Two Cities, Frankenstein, Breakfast at Tiffany’s; their only purpose was to give my mother the feeling of sophistication), and in front of a large, rectangular vanity, bottles of MAC mascara scattered across the surface along with the bronzer, eye shadow palettes with multicolored dust collecting in between the colors, and an alone tube of bright, red lipstick; this girl was barely recognizable.

Circular soft, sponges were also laying atop the vanity with the ivory of the foundation they smeared onto my skin staining the material. Then, when they were done patting my cheeks, forehead, and chin with the chilled liquid and while Kara was still mulling over her Old Fat Clothes for me, Veronica popped open a compact and grasped a black brush with white tips, sweeping it across the bottom of the compact and then dusting the powder across my nose and eyes, telling me to close them. Hangers clattered together in the background, muffled opinions of what would and wouldn’t match my skin swirling around my eardrums, and more popping noises that old me that my makeover had only begun.

As she applied the primer across my eyelids, Reese stressed the importance of using it, along with more than one eye shadow color (“Three is best,” she reasoned, pressing one of the dozen brushes Kara seemed to own, all designed for applying makeup, into beige eye shadow, “because it really makes your eyes pop. And you know what they say about eyes.”) But for me, she used four different colors—beige, darker beige, brown, and black, apparently deciding that Three was for Regular Usage but Four is for Ugly Emergencies in Tiger Sweaters.

By the time they were done, the dusty remnants of what they had brushed, plucked, and smeared across my skin floating in the air like weightless butterflies, no limits whatsoever, the clanging of hangers and muttered opinions had ceased and a black, and tight, outfit laid out over her comfort at the foot of her bed, concealing the bird cage patterns stitched in the fabric. Earrings and a necklace—gold with the word Bad chained in the center—laid beside the top and a pair of surely paralyzing heels placed perfectly on the carpet below.

After they convinced that wearing this would go perfectly with my hair and makeup, skin color and four eye shadows in all, and picked up my discarded sweater with tips of their fingers, appearing to at least try to stifle that grimace tugging at their lips, and told me she’d get me a bag to go, practically darting across the room with a muffled shout, “Hey! Out of my parents’ room! I was conceived on that bed so don’t you dare do the nasty on it!” Veronica grinned, gave a little clap, and grasped her powdery hands around my elbows and dragged me to the mirror, telling me that I looked gorgeous.

“You seriously can’t see any trace of that hideous sweater,” she told me, my feet stumbling as she pulled me from the bathroom, back into Kara’s room, and toward the vanity. “It’s like you’re a whole new person!”

And the thing was—that earthshattering, breathtaking thing that grasped it’s fingers around your shoulders, smiled at your shock, and pushed you over, watching you tumble through the air as the earth fell, as if it just decided it didn’t want to catch you, to break your fall, and that’s what life became, an endless fall—she was right. It was like the multitude of ivory sponges, soft bristles grazing against my nose, and four eye shadows had masked me, drowned whatever bits and pieces of myself I clung to, and gave me a new identity.