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AN: This is original fic. It's kinda unstructured, because it hasn't really been betaed. It's okay, though - it's not a big piece of unedited crap or anything. Ah, I'll just shut up. Smiles. So, so many smiles. Everywhere I look, there they are. Toothy grins of days gone by and ice cream at the local shop. Baggy shirts, short shorts, a round face that didn’t change in over ten years. That short bob cut, and the freckles that greet me even now when I look at myself in the mirror. They remind me of how far I’ve come, and yet how little I’ve really, actually changed. I look at myself then, with those sunny beaches of salt and tans and air, and tell myself… I’m not that anymore. I’m not as stupid, not as welcoming. Nowhere near as naïve. Then I look at myself as I am now. With the suits, the apartment, the job, the long hair and the thinner face. I hardly ever eat ice cream anymore, I tell myself. I don’t live anywhere near the sands of my youth. I’m nothing like I was. Oh so completely different. Polar opposite. But then I realise I’m not. The times, all the times, I told myself things would work out. That no one was really using me, and I was imagining it. The summers that I told myself that I would be the one chosen by the boy – not my best friend. The times everyone (my friends) borrowed, took, stole and talked me out of my things, and I let all of it go. I’ve changed, though. Right? Everything does work itself out now. (If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. I’m a pessimist now.) I've had a complete turnaround. So people borrow my apartment when I’m out of town. Use me for meaningless sex that gets me the typical, “It’s been great, but I’ve got that early appointment…” line in the morning. So I keep records of who borrows what, who takes what, who talks me out of anything. I’m more organised, and I know what happens around me. As for the boy… there are no summers here. And if anything shows up even resembling summer, I lock myself in my apartment; refuse to see my ‘best friend’. Refuse to get hurt, to get crushed, or to be ultimately destroyed. And I realise I’m the same. Yeah, I cope now. I’ve organised ways out of being nothing. I’ve rearranged myself to accept the way things are, always have been and always will be. I understand why. Because I can never say no. Because I’m too stupid to realise people are using me. Because all those questions the boy asked me about my friend were to get to know me better, to understand me – not her. Because life is always so perfect, so exactly the way I want it to be, that I expect everything to be okay. For it to be sunny when I want it to be, for it to rain when I’m sad, for my soul to shine in all the ways that it should. Instead, it rains when I feel like swimming. There’s a heatwave when all I want to be is depressed and cry. My chest is tight, keeping my soul locked up so it doesn’t get stolen or bruised any more than it’s already been. And I’m exactly the same as I was. I haven’t changed one single, measly fucking bit and I hate myself for it. I’m so stupid, so naïve… … Every single morning I wake up, shower, wash my hair, blow dry it, style it, eat breakfast, brush my teeth and put on a crisp, clean suit to go to work. And every single morning I stand in front of the mirror by the coat rack and look at myself for a few minutes. I check my hair, my suit. That I look great, and presentable, and collected. I look close enough to see the outer shell of me, and I stop there. I don’t want to look closer. And I never do. I never allow myself to scrutinise the fact that my shirt may be wrinkled, that there are bags under my eyes, that my eyes are almost lifeless. I don’t want to admit that I’m pathetic, scared and lonely, because I’m not allowed to be any of those things. I’m a boss; I have a corporation. Hundreds of people work for me. I have friends being friends only so they can climb higher on the stupid, screwed-up corporate ladder. Even my apartment is crisp, clean, modern. Everything around me shows that I’m a Businesswoman – the façade that I so easily manage to keep in place, even when I want nothing more than to disappear into the crowd and become a faceless nobody. I leave my vast, silent apartment, securing the door at its three locks, drive my silver BMW to work. I greet people only after they greet me, I nod to the security guards, smile at the receptionist. I see my employees talking about me, and even though they think I can’t hear, I see their faces. Their glares. Once in awhile, I’ll be surprised to see pity. Usually there are just a lot of people smiling at me as I walk towards them; and once I’m out of earshot (I have good hearing; I hate it sometimes), I hear the hissing of the word ‘bitch’. Every single time I hear it, my mind makes my legs collapse under me, my knees crash to the carpet, and the tears stream silently down my face. The briefcase in my hand slips from my grasp and falls open on the floor. And then my body is wracked by huge, startling, never-ending sobs, which bring employees rushing towards me. My mind allows me to cry, to break down and feel like screaming. My body (my shell), on the other hand, keeps up its façade of Ice Queen and simply turns and narrows it’s eyes at the person responsible for the hissing. They almost always cower; and I can only cringe. I feel powerless, even though I am seen as someone with everything (that they want, but I don’t). I sit behind a desk all day, signing papers, arguing over phones, negotiating with disgruntled clients. Every single day, life becomes more mundane. I stop bothering to look for reasons to live, to keep going; there’s nothing anywhere for me. No one cares about my life, my troubles, or my snapped core. All those years I listened to people’s problems, giving them advice, a shoulder to cry on, and an open ear. All those years of trusting, of being loyal, of respect – they got me nothing. I have, to my credit, a failed marriage, in which the man I loved so much on every level came out with a pitiful, “Sorry, babe – I’m moving overseas to marry my secretary,” never quite realising just how broken and shattered I became. I didn’t go to work for two weeks. Within a few days, Mick had cleaned out his belongings from our cosy house and raced overseas to marry Tengi, his skank of a receptionist. The divorce paperwork went through quicker than I thought it would; a couple of signatures and my marriage was erased. (Just like that) My receptionist cared enough to see if I was okay… or at least to check if I was alive. I told her I was fine, just taking a few weeks off to sort through some papers and deal with ‘personal business’. She postponed my appointments, forwarded important calls to my mobile, told everyone else I was out of town. A few people checked in on me. Asked me how I was coping. I smiled, told them I was fine, and then felt my insides crumple as they started to babble about their blissful marriage, their excellent relationship, their wonderful life. I bought an apartment, filled it with all-new furniture so I had no physical memories of my year-long marriage. It’s cold. Not in the sense of the temperature, but in he overall feeling it emits. It’s impersonal, boring, (just like me) and was even put in a magazine under the heading, “Top Ten Apartments of Successful Businesspeople”, which I found to be a complete joke. What’s ‘successful’? I have a failed marriage, a string of pointless month-long relationships, needy clients but hardly any friends, and, oh, a company. Fantastic life. I come home each evening and lock myself in, take a long hot shower (it masks the tears), then sit and either eat – which I hardly ever do anymore – or listen to depressing ballads that mirror my life. Once in awhile, just before midnight, I’ll leave my apartment with a coat and keys and make my way to the roof of the building. I sit on a ledge as the wind gusts through, whipping my hair back from my face as I close my tired eyes. The view from up there is amazing, though – the city lights, the sky full of stars. The peace is beautiful. Far away, almost on the distant, foreboding horizon, I imagine I can see the ocean. I imagine beaches of sandy dunes and colourful towels, and waves of aquamarine light. Only ever on that roof, only ever at night, do I allow thoughts of happy innocence to enter my mind. For the laughter of my beaches in summer to come forward and envelop me. People smile at me, truly smile for me, and I realise that these are my friends. (They care) I run through the shallow water, chased by my best friend, who laughs as her hair is splattered with saltwater; and if I look up the beach, the boy is sitting there on the dunes, grinning at the forms of the two girls racing like seven-year-olds. Only ever on that roof, with the wind ravaging my face and the sky becoming a canvas for my life, do I allow myself the pleasure of smiling through my tears. So I smile. This fic is © to me, 2002 (yeah, like you'd steal anyway) |