Pious Penelope.

Loving him wore her thin. Her haggard face, at twenty years old, was proof enough.

People think she is vanity incarnate, the way she preens in the morning. First, the concealer for the darkness under her eyes. Next, the foundation to mask the blotchy paleness. The mascara just on the outer corners of the long eyelashes, the only part of her face untouched by four years of battle. She puts Vaseline on her lips, pursed like an old dowagers'. The drops for her bloodshot eyes are always last. They do not know that this is her way of coping. She needs her war paint on before marching out into the chill of the grand arena.

Thinking back to before, she would have never thought herself to be complicated. Troubled, yes. Alone, yes. Complicated, no. Despite everything, when she was young, she had known that to love was to devote, and everything had been so simple. Then she loved.

He did not love her. That was simple.

She knows she is ruining herself. Age makes itself at home when a life is empty.

Their fights killed her dead. Every so often, a welling up at the injustice of it all would leak over the brim. The circumstances and triggers would always be different, but the motivation would always be the same.

Why the fuck am I, at twenty, living like Penelope, unraveling myself instead of the shroud?

Can't you see that we can't be 'friends'?

Can't you see that we don't work as 'friends'?

Can't you see that I don't need more friends?

Can't you see what the boys that come around see?

Can't you see me?

She never says this.

She will be quiet for a while, at first. She always imagined that the air around her, when she is like this, was thick with black flies.

He would intuit it right away, as he is prone to do. He will make some remark.

She'll say something back, clipped. He'll turn away. She wants him to see.

There will be a pouring out of words from her, and short bursts from him that will make her feel and look ridiculous.

She will get upset. He will be dispassionate. She hates that he is so disgracefully absent. He will use the word 'basketcase'.

She will think of leaving. He relents enough that she will want to stay.

For a few moments, there is something sparked between them. There will a tenderness in their separate touches, she will curl herself around him and kiss his neck. He will run his fingers through her hair and hold her. It is always temporary.

Some friendship, she thinks.

In her contradictory fashion, she thinks of how she is a burden to him. She wishes she did not love him, if only to give him the peace and quiet he deserves. She wishes she did not love him first.

She was got too easily, which is strange, for how hard her shell is around other men.

Three Day Wait

Going to see my parents. Three days will pass and then there will be three more stories.