Entres Nous

By the time she turned fifteen years old, she knew she wasn’t that girl. That girl that boys turned their heads when she walked by. That girl that could snap her fingers and spin the world a different way. That girl that could lick her lips, trace her fingers up her delicate skin, and scream ‘sexy’. That girl that spelled out the word ‘risk’ with each bat of her long eyelashes.

No.

She was a different kind of beauty that could only come with a maturity similar to a rose. In a vast land filled with young women trying value themselves in the eyes of others she stood tall like golden royalty amongst cottagers, her eyes like two ebony stones staring straight ahead into better lands. Her knowledge was incomparable; her ability to speak a forte in every word.

It was no wonder that by the time she turned twenty her attitude would have strengthened as tough as her bones, every spiteful comment, every hurtful memory, and every backstabbing bitch, sliding off like rubber against a freshly polished floor. The beauty she had once longed for took her a while to realize she had all along. It was the incentive she needed all along to create a sort of confidence that shun through every flaw, turning it faultlessness.

Carbon-colored locks that rolled down to her skinny waist made envious girls cringe. Thick, pinkish lips that sucked on straws as they strolled down coffee places, made boys bite their own. Cold, sexy glances she gave or even just the slightest trace of her finger delicately rubbing against her cheek when in thought, made people turn their heads in glory.

She was above that girl now.

And she meant to keep it that way.

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Her eyes flickered at the colors of the screen, Harry Potter playing through her headphones as she stretched out her legs as far as she could. Everyone else in the plane was asleep, light snores being echoing through the plane’s thick walls, her head leaning against the window. She had slept most of the thirteen hours, waking up every now and then to sketch, the soft movement lulling her back to sleep.

Had time sped this fast?

She couldn’t get it out of her mind. She could’ve sworn that just a couple minutes ago her friends were still embracing her, some encouraging her to go and some pulling her back to stay. But at the end it was her happiness anyway. She was the one who had been offered a six-month internship in an entertainment company. She was the one who had been wanting to travel to Asia for almost too painfully long. So when the opportunity came, she more than seized it.

But loneliness always overcame her in the most silent of moments. Had she been satisfied in New York enough to say that this didn’t count as running away? Escaping from an unfulfilled dream? In the back of her mind every since she was young, she never pictured her life anything less than independence for herself. Her own room in NYU packed with canvases and sketchbooks. Her own money she got from the small works she did. Many friends who had her back.

A boyfriend.

She blinked on that thought, clicking pause on the touch screen and sliding her headphones in the little net pouch underneath. She had had many boyfriends from the time she turned sixteen. She wouldn’t call them memorable. In fact half of the time the only things she could remember about them were the way they kissed, or the way their fingers caressed her skin, or how far they had tried to go with her until she slapped them away. The sad tragedy of it all was that by the time she actually did it with them, she had long forgotten their names.

She just couldn’t help herself. Vulnerability wasn’t part of her character. She wasn’t raised to be weak. In a way she hadn’t truly found the guy she wanted to pour her feelings out to. Sure she had puppy love before. But that was all there was to it. It was called puppy love for a reason.

It never lasted long enough to turn into tried and true real love.

If it wasn’t them, it was her. It tired her to be unhappy with a person who didn’t know how to make her smile. How to make her really laugh until her stomach ached. How to truly put her so out there that it didn’t matter whether she had been raised to be weak or strong. She could finally cry without embarrassment or remorse.

All she had to do was be who she was born as, and he would adore her through and through.

Oh, well.

Her mind started to slowly drift off, her body turning limp as she pulled her thin blue blanket over her shoulders. A thought invaded her brain, as she shrugged it away with a small smile. Things happened for a reason. And maybe her internship wasn’t the only thing she could look forward to in South Korea.

Maybe.