My life doesn’t work out that way.
I’m not a heroine in a fairytale.
I’m just…disposable.
“Enough,” I mutter.
I tug at my beanie, making sure it completely covers my silver blonde hair. I used to love it, used to love the unique color, long and sleek and bright like moonlight, used to love the way…
Heloved it.
Loved the hunger in his eyes when he would stroke his fingers through the strands, loved how it would catch on his beard when he leaned close and inhaled the scent of my shampoo, loved the way he would wrap a piece around his finger in an absentminded motion when we were in bed together, talking about everything and nothing.
Because I loved all of that so much I had brushed it obsessively, carefully detangled each and every knot. Oiled the ends. Used a protective spray every single day. Slept only on silk pillowcases.
That stopped being my life on that rainy, heartbreaking mountaintop years ago.
Afterward, I let my hair get so bad, so matted and tangled, I had to cut it all off.
And today, it’s more nuisance than asset.
It’s why I hacked away at the strands with a pair of rusty scissors I found in the dumpster behind a thrift store, cutting enough off so I could shove the rest of my hair under the beanie and the distinctive color wouldn’t give me away.
As rough as they looked, the scissors were surprisingly effective.
Then again, sometimes the best stuff never makes it to the shelves, and those discarded treasures, the items no one sees value in, are what I seek out.
Because I’m one too.
Or, at least, that’s what Brooks used to say.
My throat tightens, but I ignore it—ignore the fact that I’m one of those discarded items.
Because he didn’t see me as a treasure.
I was just trash casually tossed aside.
Slamming the lid on the past, I check again that my hair is tucked up into my knit cap, that my gloves are fully covering my hands and secured in place by the long sleeves of my black sweater. My leggings are dark and go straight down to my ankles, an inch of which are exposed. I scowl, even knowing I can’t do anything about that—I’m tiny, but I’m wearing another thrift store find and the children’s leggings are doing what they can. Still, I tug them down, try to cover the slight gap of skin showing.
I know the security system.
But…I need every advantage I can get.
So blending into the shadows.
Wearing all black.
And gloves.
And tucking my hair carefully into my hat.
And hoping the distraction Angela promised to create pulls the guards away for long enough for me to slip past them.
And—
“I’m stalling,” I whisper softly. And I am.
Because the self-preservation portion of my brain can’t imagine I’m doing this. Then again, the self-preservation portion of my brain has shriveled up into nothing over the last years.
