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The air breathes around me, alive in the way things you don’t love are alive—buzzing, flickering, humming. The coolers whine in the corner. The lights pulse like they’re thinking of dying.
I watch, but I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. Something. Someone. A feeling. It’s the kind of ache that doesn’t settle anywhere, just floats under your skin, making you itch.
Alexa Valentine. It sounded like a dare when I said it, like the name belonged to a girl with lips as red as stop signs, a girl people would crash their cars for. It sounded like it belonged to me, even though it didn’t. Not yet.
Who I was before doesn’t matter. Maybe she’s still out there, some shadow of me walking barefoot in the fields I left behind, a girl with skinned knees and a bad temper, kicking sand in her crush’s eyes in the first-grade because she wanted to see what rage looked like on someone else. Or maybe she died the night I told the devil what I wanted, her body sinking into the floorboards, her hands still clenched into fists.
There’s a poster of Aaron Carter right above my futon bed. Poor boy has seen a lot of unholy things.
He kisses me then, his mouth tasting like beer and sweat, and I let him. I let him because it’s easier than thinking, easier than admitting that we are not soulmates and he is not my person.
I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I just sit there, my breath stuck in my throat, looking at Lars’ face like I’ve never seen it before. Like he’s a stranger, someone I’ve accidentally let into my bed, someone I don’t know how to get rid of.
I don’t laugh this time, but I want to. I want to shove the phone into my mouth and scream until it cracks. Instead, I press the receiver closer to my ear and say, “Fuck you. I’m wearing whatever I want.”
I don’t care. I’m going to smear on red lipstick, line my eyes like warpaint, and sit in front of that reporter like I own the room. Because Lars is dead, Ricky is a joke, and the only thing I know how to do is make them watch me.
Men like him are wallpaper, always there, always leering, always thinking they have a right to the space I take up.
We go to these parties because it’s what you’re supposed to do, and because someone told me once that all the real decisions in Hollywood happen in kitchens at 2 a.m., over someone else’s expensive tequila.
He’s a nice guy, objectively attractive, but every time he texts me, it feels like my soul is getting sanded down by a nail file.
At home, the bleach smell is still there, sharp and clean and failing to cover the rot beneath. I sit on the couch, the chain dangling from my fingers, and think about the teeth in the sink, the bags in the river, the corners of my mind that will never feel clean.
When I’m done, I shove the pieces into the black trash bags and line them up by the door like guests who’ve overstayed their welcome.
It’s harder to keep things clean now. There are more eyes on me, and some of them are too curious for their own good.
I took him home, let him think he was in control, let him undress me slowly while I planned how to take him apart. This time, I used a knife.
Fame is a fire, and I want to burn with it until there’s nothing left.
I don’t feel bad. Not for any of it. The thing told me to do it, and I listened because it was right. We all rot eventually. We all fall apart. Why should I feel bad about trading blood for glory?
