Again, sincere apologies for putting up another belated piece. ^^;; This one was written around December, and had a large amount of italicized script that I thought was fairly crucial to the story, but fictionpress refuses to allow any italics in my documents no matter what I try. Eventually I gave up, so I hope you get the gist anyway. It's not that hard, I promise.

*****

Perfect

*****

Her legs were still shaking from the winter night; she was inside now, but frost liked to linger. Propped up against her stained walls, nestled beneath yards of stained sheeting, she surveyed the skirt delicately draped over her pillow again and again, fingering it taxingly with trembling hands, as if searching - desperately - for some flaw, some hidden mistake to prove that it wasn't as perfect as it appeared... but of course it was. It was God woven.

She slipped slowly off her bed, measuring every step, every breath, weighted under the presence of that article of sanctity. She rummaged through the shopping bags on the floor, still fresh with the scent of a gourmet chocolate stand, a potpourri filled Hallmark, a smoky gothic hangout. And there were the boots. She didn't smile as she lifted them carefully out of their box, she just clutched them tightly between her long, black-nailed fingers; they were as precious as the skirt.

Prone on her bedroom floor, she double checked that no one was home. Still, the house lay dormant. Her parents were out to eat, she knew, and her sister... well, who gave a damn where that whiny little bitch was. She was probably poring over her computer screen in her own room, the only thing she seemed to love. So the first floor was empty.

Wonderful.

She hurried down her flight of stairs, which were obnoxiously decked with excessive holiday cheer, but tonight she didn't care, or even give the brimming banister a second glance. She darted into the little half bathroom near the front door and locked the door behind her. The mirror opposite the toilet was beckoning her to come try it on for size, to see what perfection really looked like strapped across the frame of an awkward fourteen year old girl.

Going on fifteen, she reminded herself mentally. Not that anyone would care, or even notice. Maybe her parents... maybe Rana... maybe they would buy her a little something, as if to remind her that she was still alive, but only just to remind her. Praise wasn't something she was accustomed to. No, the only ones who would really care were the doctors and the psychiatrists... the therapists and the counselors... the only ones who ever pretended to give a shit. And of course, when you're paying someone two hundred dollars an hour for their precious time, you expect them to give a shit. You expect them to side with you when you're furious, console you when you're miserable, bring you back to life when you're hollow and dead. But what does it mean, really, when they're being paid to do it? Like a prostitute for your soul. The young teenager toyed with this thought for awhile, then broke into her first smile since she'd left her cardboard friends at the mall. A prostitute for your soul... and I keep coming back for seconds....

She pulled the plaid pleats up over her hips. It was a tight fit; she wondered for one horrifying moment if she'd grabbed the wrong size, but then with a gentle tug it slid up to her waist, and she silently thanked Jesus that she'd not eaten today. Not much, anyway. She'd spent the entire day at the mall, so an Icee and an apple danish from a nearby vending machine had to suffice. I should've skipped the danish, she thought miserably, aware that hard diet was the only way she could ever wear this skirt in public. She knew what people had said about her the last time she wore a miniskirt to school. Rana told her. Rana always told her. She wasn't sure whether or not that was a good quality in a friend... because she knew what people said about Rana when *she* wore skirts. The reactions teenage boys had to each of them in turn were quite different. She hated Rana for that.

But I'm not going to show off my legs. A sudden steeliness came into her eyes as she pulled on the thigh-high boots, so adorned with buckles and straps that the actual shape of the shoe was nearly impossible to make out. And that's how she wanted it. People could say she was a whore behind her back; she didn't mind. That was a positive reaction, as far as she was concerned. A whore is desirable. A whale is not. She blinked back sudden tears, wrinkling up her burning nose. These shoes are so damned hard to fit into....

There. She took a quick glance at the thin watch on her wrist. Seven o'clock. She had an hour to admire her effort before her parents came home, before they would drag her limp body into the kitchen and force pills down her throat. She'd acquired quite an impressive assortment of anti- depressant and anti-psychosis drugs within the past four months. In the beginning she'd fought against them, fought for a clean mind unmarred by chemicals, but now they had become a part of her, and it made her bleed to take them away. She had melded into artificial happiness.

She crawled up onto the toilet so that she could have a full length view of herself. Something invisible cracked beneath her face. There was something about her appearance that seemed so surreal. Something flawed. In only her skirt and boots, on which she had spent every dollar she'd owned, she scurried to the mirror to see what was the matter, to see what was wrong when she was wearing perfection from the waist down.

No... no, there was definitely something amiss, but she couldn't pinpoint it. She searched desperately with her eyes to find something she could fix... anything she could fix.... Her hair... her ugly, curly brown hair... but she had fixed that. Artificially blonde and subjected to hours of ironing. No, no, her hair was fine. Her eyebrows? Her mother always made fun of those, always too thin or too thick, too dark but not the black she'd dreamed of. No, she had worked hours on those, too, so that no one could scorn with her mother's voice. So that she wouldn't buckle and cry at her mother's voice. Her face? She caressed the dull white helplessly. It wasn't her fault that blood looked so pretty on it. That caked red destroyed her complexion and encouraged blemishes. But Covergirl had never let her down before. Everything could be fixed with foundation and concealer, layers and layers of it, until it peeled; she couldn't see that. All she could see was that the flaws were hidden, and that was, after all, her mission. So it couldn't be her skin. Her eyes... her eyes... they were her only feature that was almost pretty, long lashed and almond brown, but she couldn't accept "almost." She destroyed them with so much eyeliner that she hardly *had* eyes anymore, just a sunken glimmer inside of black holes framed by a solid face of ivory. But all she could see was black, and that, to her, was a beautiful color second only to scarlet.

Frantic now, she moaned and let her mother's voice infiltrate her mind, swimming around in her ears as she choked down a sob. "You really ought to thin those eyebrows out a bit more; you really ought to try some baking soda in your toothpaste; you really ought to use more powder to cover up the shine; really, you ought to be more like me." Well I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry that I'm not you....

Maybe - her eyes glimmered manically - maybe it was the skirt. She tossed it and twirled it, spun it and swirled it, but her streaming eyes detected no fault.

She collapsed onto the floor in a crumpled heap of hysterics, completely defeated. It was perfect, she admitted bitterly. It was twenty minutes before she had collected herself. Picking herself delicately up off the floor, she unlocked the door and trudged slowly up to her room to hang the skirt up next to all the others.

They were all perfect finds. Too bad she wasn't perfect to match.