Closure

It's not about her and it's not about anyone else. It's just about the 'grown ups' and she understands. With brilliant and child-like simplicity - but she understands.

She felt like a girl in a movie all through the car ride: the impossibly short denim skirt, the exaggerated headphones, the abundance of rings and bracelets and chains, the classic Ray Ban Wayfarers...

The agressive vulnerability in her eyes simultaneously clashed with and contributed to the feeling of alienation growing within her.

Up front, on the driver's seat, he went on and on about her father, with one laid-back arm resting on the window and a despicable grin perched on his blasphemous lips. Beside him, she told tales of men and cars and credit cards while repeatedly coating her artificial lips with more lipgloss. In the backseat, the kids laughed and played video-games and blew bubble-gum bubbles, and the whole world could be on fire, but they still wouldn't budge an inch (which didn't mean that they weren't listening - far from it).

And then, smack in the middle of the snotty pitch black SUV, sat the girl and what was left of her most immediate family. Her mother and sister discreetly clung on to each other on the seat next to her as if their lives depended on it. Her sister pretended to be asleep just so her mother would hold her, and her mother feigned a phone call just to have an excuse to dodge the spotlight.

The girl was left with herself. Not that that was good news to anyone, but it was just how it was. Left alone with an out-of-place craving for home and for her dad and for her cigarrettes. Left alone with her detached thoughts about the trees, the bridges, and the factory buildings that raced past the bulletproof window on her side. Left alone with the self-proclaimed recklessness she just couldn't get rid of.

When night came she couldn't sleep. The car ride and the Versailles dinner had exhausted her, yet she couldn't bear to stay still in her bed. She missed more than just home and dad and cigarrettes, but she wouldn't allow herself to admit it. It was too soon and too impulsive - even for her - to let herself succumb to such feelings. 'It's the heat,' she silently repeated until she finally got the energy to get out of bed.

Staring straight into the mirror, she removed every single garment from her body, letting each one fall to the floor with calculated theatricality. But her eyes were not her own - 'they are yours', she whispered, barely moving her lips. And as the ice-cold water shot down and enveloped her shivering body, she forgot. She forgot about her soul, her self, and everything that came with it. She forgot, and then there was closure.

*