WARNING: MENTIONS OF ABUSE.
"The heart grows brutal from feeding on fantasies."
- Robert Pinsky, In Defense of Allusion
Envy (noun): a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc.
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STELLA KNOX WAS A GIRL WITH SELF-DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCIES.
After several late-night visits and countless empty liquor bottles, Stella Knox was becoming more and more pitiful. She was tired. She was angry.
And, worst of all, she didn't know what to do.
So she did things that made her forget. Sex, booze, drugs-- whether it was heroine or adrenaline flowing through her veins, she couldn't tell.
Stella Knox swallowed her soul.
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"DON'T COME HERE ANYMORE."
Nima Young stood and faced the wall as she dressed herself. Stella reached out from the bed, still high as a fucking kite.
Nima Young recoiled from her touch. Stella flinched. "What?"
"Do I need to spell it out for you? We're done. I'm leaving, and if you're still here when I come back, Walsh will personally beat the shit out of you."
"Why?"
Nima sighed. "I'm about to claim my throne, Stella. And to be completely honest, I'm bored of this."
Stella clenched her teeth. "Bitch."
Nima pulled a pencil skirt over her slender legs. She turned to look at Stella, hands on her hips. At one point in the night, Nima had reapplied her red lipstick. Stella couldn't recall a time where Nima went without the crimson smile. "You're a cliché, Stella. A tale of caution told over and over again. The poor girl who grows into a life of gangs and violence because she has no other choice. You could have never amounted to anything. Don't you see? This story only has one ending."
Nime left without looking back.
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NIMA YOUNG WAS GOING TO HAVE IT ALL.
Her husband won the election. Now she was married to the most powerful man in the city and that, in turn, meant that she was the most powerful woman in the city.
But she didn't feel powerful when she walked into her husband's office and found him in a drunken stupor.
She didn't feel powerful when he stirred from his sleep and noticed her presence.
And when, in an enraged outburst, he shattered a vodka bottle against her temple, a slow realization came to her.
Her husband pounced, hands balled into fists. "You whore! You think that I didn't know? Ungrateful slut. I gave you everything. Everything that you are, everything that you have, is because of me."
She screamed until her throat was rubbed raw, but nobody came.
Nima Young realized this: she had no one. Not even a friend. Nima Young was pitiful. She was broken. What good was power when she couldn't even use it to protect herself?
What was power? Is it holding someone's life in her hands, deciding whether they would live or die? Was it being invincible, impossible for anyone or anything to hurt her?
Or maybe power was something else entirely. Maybe power was having people that loved you. Maybe there was power in seeing someone as an equal. Maybe power was as much about giving as it was receiving.
The truth was: Nima Young was powerless. Always had been, always will be.
Her husband left her, her body crumpled on the floor.
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STELLA KNOX WENT HOME.
Not the warehouse where the gang slept and ate and schemed. Not Nima Young's bed, where she spent most of her nights. She went to the place where, so many years ago, her father was arrested. She went to the place where her mother and her sister lived in a state of blissful ignorance.
She knew that she couldn't stay for long. It wasn't safe, not when Stella had so many enemies. But she couldn't help it. She felt herself falling apart, and if someone didn't pull her together she would crumble into dust and ashes and nothing.
So she knocked on the apartment door and hugged her mother and cried. Then she went to Isabella's room and hugged her and cried.
"I love you, niñera."
"I wish you could stay."
"You know that I can't." Not like this.
"I know. Mamá worries about you."
"I know. Take care of her, okay, Izzy? Watch out for each other."
"Who will watch out for you?"
Stella Knox smiled and patted her sister on the head.
She didn't have an answer.
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A/N: two chapters left oh my
