AN: I’m resubmitting this because I like it. I like to write about crazy drama. Don’t you like to read it? Hit up a review. – D.g.

Deserted Dystopia

She lay on the concrete floor of his garage bedroom, wrapped in a steel gray sheet that held more warmth in its color than her almost bluish pallor. Sparkling green eyes, glowing in contrast from the thick black paint smudged around her lashes, stared straight upward blank and thoughtless. Her silk and lace cami was wrinkled, the same color as her bottle black self-shingled chin-length hair; she knew she looked like a mess, but she had to see it. She had to see how much of a rumpled picture of perfection she really was. Slowly, she pulled herself up to her bare feet and walked to the mirror in his room (what other boy would have a vanity mirror in his room?) trailing the linen behind her. The reflection was a grim one.

A whore.

A sloppy slut, even worse, willing and eager to slip into bed with anyone holding a cigarette and an inviting smile. Her make-up was destroyed. The mask was falling apart, and she could see the fragments of the girl that used to be. A small purple welt darkened a spot at the curve of her neck; she touched it with mounting shame. In the background of the framed picture, the thin shoulders of the sleeper moved like a cat’s drowsy stretch.

He is beautiful, she reminded herself. Just remember that he’s beautiful.

Beautiful and not in love.

“Emo Emery,” she whispered to the puffy face in the glass, “don’t cry.”

Nobody listened.

She pulled the sheet out from around and between her legs and draped it hastily over the mirror. Covered, like a shroud, and reflecting nothing. Every mirror showed the same thing. Every picture she took revealed the same jarring figure—not her, not anyone else, not right. She turned back toward the muddled pile of mattress, blanket, and body. Her black skinny jeans were still draped on the desk chair. Slowly and quietly, she pulled them on and slipped her feet into the electric blue plastic flats tossed carelessly in the corner. A blue jacket was somewhere else, and her thin black clutch was on the dresser. One last look over the crime scene, and she decided to leave a calling card. The sheet was partially removed from the mirror. Pulling a tube of scarlet lipstick out of her bag, she scrawled a loopy message over the reflection of the simple masculine headboard.

Love can make you beautiful;; beautiful can’t make you love

– Emery

It was a goodbye note. She wouldn’t be back here anymore. This was the last time. She wore a satirical half-smile as she left the dull, empty house, knowing she was lying to herself again. No matter how much she hated herself in the morning, she would always fail, cave in, come back.

Outside, the morning sun had already scattered last night’s dreamy clouds. She pulled her oversized, white-rimmed sunglasses from her jacket pocket and slipped the frames under her ruffled mop of hair. Her black Honda was still parked hap-hazardly near the curb; she opened the unlocked door and pulled her cell phone from the clutch once she was seated on the stained carpet seat. Emery dialed without thinking as she pulled onto the sleepy residential road.

“Hey, Bea—meet me at Joco.” She steered with an elbow while rummaging around the various pockets and compartments of her car for a cigarette; no success. “Yes,” she sighed into the speaker. “I did it again.”

Joco Café

At a bistro table in the front, Emery Doe sat poised with her knees crossed and a slender white stick smoking between her skinny fingers. She was another waif with a long neck trying to be Audrey; but never able to cross the room without tripping, laugh without snorting, or take that long drag without regretting it. A clear plastic cup filled with some frozen coffee blend waited untouched before her. Emery hid behind her glasses, eyes darting distractedly from this to that. The busy shopping street she faced was rather slow for a Saturday morning—usually the trendy and the spendy would be out by now. She was waiting for the phone to chime, buzz, anything…for him to notice that she wasn’t there.

“Morning doll,” Beatrice Malone greets quickly before kissing her best friend’s cheek. She had snuck up behind Emery with her own paper cup of mocha. Her elf-sized form, donning a short red smock dress, black leggings, and ladybug-printed flats, dropped into the chair across from Emery. The mane of blonde and auburn that slanted over one thickly-lined eye was held back with a black plastic band. “I’d ask how your night went, but I have a feeling I already know.”

“He called around ten,” Emery began; she tapped the end of her cigarette onto the stone ground. “He said he was sorry.” Bea rolled her eyes. “He said he wanted to hang out, like we used to…”

“Cut to the end we all know,” Bea finished before taking a sip of her drink. “People change, Em. They can’t go back to what they were, no matter how much they say they can.”

“I’m not talking about middle school,” Emery argued with newfound energy. “This was…three months ago. We were us, and now…”

“Now you’re fucking.” Bea always had that bluntness that Emery wanted to romanticize, explain away, cover up…she had to tell the truth more often than she liked. “Leave him alone. He’s bad for you.”

“No, I’m bad for me,” Emery mumbled. “I was the one who fucked this up.”

“Did he tell you that?” Bea challenged.

“He didn’t have to.” She reached for her drink for the first time and took a long sip; the cool, coffee taste snapped her senses awake. Now she could see more people walking the streets around them, staring at Emery the drunken mess and Bea the urban Barbie. “I’m in love with him.”

“Em…”

“I have to be with him…but it kills me to know he…” Emery sighed and pulled her glasses off. Crimped black pieces fell over her swollen eyes. “It’s like cutting.” The expression on Bea’s face changes to something between concern and anger. “It hurts so much, but it’s when I feel love, and I have to feel.”

“We made a pact,” Bea interrupted in a quietly stern voice. “We said we’d stop it. You’re supposed to call before—”

“I’m not,” Emery ended. “It’s just…something new.” She sighed and fell back against her chair. “Something new to get over.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Bea encouraged. “He is…beautiful.” The words stung Emery. She thought of the message she impulsively wrote on his mirror—what if he took it the wrong way? What if he thought she didn’t love him? She imagined him waking up, looking around the dissembled room with disheveled brown hair over his face. He would see the message and…cringe? Smirk? Find his cell phone under an old shirt and call?

“Love makes you beautiful,” Emery referenced as she grabbed her clutch and stood, “but beautiful doesn’t make you love.”