Makeup lets me decide how the world sees me, even if my world at home refuses to.
And my mom hates it.
Every morning, like clockwork, she pushes her head through my doorway, just staring at me until I notice her. And before I can say anything to she shuts me down every time.
“Your makeup doesn’t match your skin. It looks caked. You think that’s going to make you look better and it’s not.”
She never wears anything more than mascara and lipstick, but suddenly she’s a beauty expert when it comes to makeup.
It’s not just her words—she’ll just snatch my makeup away whenever she feels like it. Like it’s her personal sport, to strip me of the anything that makes me feel good about myself—tearing me down, piece by piece, until all that’s left is whatever version of me she can control.
It’s never about eyeliner or foundation.
It’s about power. Control.
And I’m getting tired—tired of her stupid fucking rules, tired of her trying to erase the one thing that’s actually mine.
? ??
This summer is brutal—103 degrees, the kind of heat that sticks to your skin like punishment. And while everyone else is living in their pools, I’m stuck in summer school.
Three straight weeks of intense workouts that feel like boot camp. Thankfully I only have three days left. One more regular year before graduation.
School and happiness never belonged in the same sentence for me, but the closer I get to finishing, the closer I get to leaving this house.
And I can’t wait to get out of this hellhole.
That’s the only thing I’m chasing—freedom and happiness.
I push through the front door, passing the glowing TV in the living room, sitting between two stiff white leather couches. Down the hall, my room is the first on the right, mom’s at the end, Sonny’s room off to the left, and the bathroom smack in the middle of us all like a battleground.
Sharing one bathroom is hell, but at least I’ve got my own room. We only moved into this house a year ago, and already it feels like a cage that I’ve been locked in forever.
I drop my backpack on the bed, kicking off my Vans, just to stand back up to line them neatly in the closet—right next to the mirror that never lets me forget anything.
And today, I’m drained.
Summer school is five hours a day, five days a week and it’s eating me alive. Not just the workouts, but the fake small talk and pretending to care students I won’t care about a year from now.
I barely let my head hit the wall before my door flies open.
My mom stands, leaning on the frame of my door, arms crossed like a cop waiting to interrogate me. “Do you have anything to tell me?” She demands, her lips pressed tightly, eyes locked on me.
Frowning, I think fast, because I’m really not in the mood for her bullshit today. “Uhh… I don’t think so?”
I already know the drill. She snoops through my phone whenever I’m asleep or in the shower, always looking for something that has to do with boys.
I swear it’s like she wants me to like girls or something.
But as long as I’m not knocked up, locked up, or strung out somewhere, she has no reason to worry.
“Are you sure?” Her voice sharpens. “Because I saw the shit on your phone last night. And I could’ve sworn I already told you no boys until you’re eighteen—but here you go again, thinking you can do whatever the fuck you want. How many times do I have to keep telling you the same thing, you’re not going to get it until I beat it in you huh?”
I roll my eyes—she’ssodelusional. Nobody my age waits until they’re eighteen. If she had any clue of what I’ve already been doing, she’d be dragging me out by my hair right now.
She thinks she knows me—but she has no idea who I am outside these walls. And if she ever found out, it’ll ruin her and her preciousimage.
“I thought so,” she snaps, charging at me before shoving me onto the bed. Then she’s on top of me, pinning my wrists down with all her weight. My arms burn under her grip.
