Sunburn

Guilt overcomes comfort at all times, gauranteed. Sanity remains questionable.

I didn’t do it. That’s what I keep telling myself. How could I have? I wasn’t there, they have no evidence, they couldn’t have saw. I didn’t do it…

It’s like everything is posing for another, lies on top of lies on top of lies and pretty smiles filled with secrets, mistakes, and more lies. It’s like there’s a photographer following them, calling out poses to go through, like a grand masquerade as they march along these blank and hollow halls of the place. Smiles and pretty faces covered in a mask or a jersey, and skinny-willed girls looking at their food. I sit there alone because I am unmasked and forever shall be.

After fame comes downfall. That happens all the time no matter what anyone says, it happens anyway. I didn’t have any part in this.

I look up to the mirror, and find someone wearing the mask I have done upon myself, my stilettos higher than they should be, jeans skin-tight, powder and marker outlining any imperfection on my face, highlighting it more. The girl that stared back wasn’t me to begin with. It couldn’t have been me, for the girl looking at me did do it. I didn’t do it. I in my ripped jeans, a baggy t-shirt, and tennis shoes that have been worn far too many times, couldn’t have possibly done that, because she never wanted to. What use could she do with it, anyway?
There was no mistake in my decision, nothing wrong here or there, I was looking at two different people, people that should never even be me, stereotypical on both sides of the mirror. The other girl looks at me, her image-perfect head cocked to the side, and a twisted look of distress ruining her features. A hand reaches up to go through her hair with her fingers reflexively, and then stops mid-length in awe. A hand raises and lowers curiously, as if examining oneself. One eye blinks, then the other. And soon the girl turns from the mirror, at the same time as I do.

I turn back around, and the girl left the room. I smile… I would never have done this. Not at all. I reach for the necklace curiously, staring at the criminal’s goods, a large diamond bigger than my thumb, a broach that would weigh down one’s hair rather than pinning it, and more amount of carrots in a single diamond then money I get in my allowance weekly. Never could have afforded this, never would have cared to bother. I would have never wanted these things. Except bliss is irrevocably sweet, she tells me from behind.
The taller, slimmer, and beautiful girl walks in fashionably, like a model, and she reaches around my neck as if hugging another. My eyes narrow instinctively as she grabs the broach and necklace out of my hand, and as if like a puppet on a string, she curves my hand around my neck and attaches the necklace, feeling the weight pound against it, as hot as coal and it burned.

Another hand raised up, and gathers the mess of hair into a pony tail, and then elegantly swirls it into another braid, and slides the clip smoothly into the bunch. And my hair falls with the broach, and smashes against the hard, unforgiving wood floor. It smashes into a million pieces on the ground.

My heart pounds with nerve, sweat trickles down my face, and fear is overwhelming, though guilt takes on another side. The beautiful girl smiles cruelly, playfully, and she claps her hands together with a wicked laugh as tears begin to form into my eyes. My face turns tomato red as I look down to the shards of diamond sticking out like glitter on the floor, the pure golden pin bended, officially unusable. I clutch at the necklace around my neck, or rather, the strings force me to. I trace along it with my hand, feel out all the crannies in the enormous pendant that could be larger than my neck. The girl only laughs harder as I look about the room to find anything that I could use to clean this up, and throw it somewhere where nobody could find it. But there was none, none that I could find that wouldn’t drag attention or suspicion onto me.

My heart pounds harder, looking myself up and down. The girl’s laughter pierce my ears, and she sings tauntingly. “You did it! You did it! You stupid girl…” I cover my ears, hoping to block out everything, but it only becomes louder. She screeches louder, going on and on, just like the whispers behind my back, just like the repeated rumors, just like the impatience with others. Just like the repeated hatred that comes through me, jealousy, outrage, something horrible… It burns like fire as it comes up my stomach, reaching into my lungs, and my mouth opens, and I scream out loud, blood-curdling, and one that could kill.

I grab the pendent, and pull it off the golden chain with all the force I had at the moment. I bring it back into a ready position, waiting for the girl to feel intimidated. She just laughs and laughs, higher and higher up the chromatic scale she goes. I throw it into the mirror with an excellent backhand, and the mirror splits into geometric shapes as the glass shards fall to the floor, onto my bare feet, and rebounding off the had floor. The girl in the mirror stares back through a larger piece of the broken mirror, her hair now distorted, her eye make-up smeared, though her laughs still echo without stop throughout my mind. I cover my ears and let out another scream, as if it would help it stop, except they only grow louder

Delicate designs of red stain the floor, like paint in a picture. Everything is broken up like a delicacy, or a fine piece of art.

It was her that did it. I could never face the shame… never. I could never steal. She forced me to. You’d never understand. Though, like a sunburn, it never leaves you.
 

Author's Note

just tell me what you think...