Bottled Beauty

Bottled Beauty Ch. 7

NOTE: I DO NOT OWN THIS STORY. This is written by an amazing writer named Bianca. I am just posting it to share. The only thing I do own is the cover art.

Night was the only time Los Angeles wasn’t scalding hot. The streets were cool, the sun was gone, and a chilly wind swept over the land. The sky was sparkling bright with the city lights shining on it and the faint stars trying to show their glow.

     I had fled to the one place in Los Angeles I knew I would be alone: a simple park bench nearby a small lake. The park was deserted of its usual flood of people. There was an old myth that the ghost of people who once lived in this area disliked visitors at night when they were trying to rest, and most people heeded this superstition and left the park alone as soon as the sun disappeared from the sky.

     I had never believed it, though. If anything, I felt comforted knowing that someone was perhaps watching me, even if it was in tired annoyance. It helped me feel less alone in the little park of Los Angeles.

     My face was wet with tears as I sat on the bench, my long white dress trailing behind me like cobwebs. The edges had fallen into the water and the rest was covered in a thin layer of sand I had stirred up as I had run away from the beauty pageant. Away from my family and the faces that had been staring at me in horror. Staring at a teenage girl who wasn’t beautiful.

     I could see myself gently reflected in the water, the reflection rippled from the tear drops. A teenage girl with limp brown hair no longer held back in a clip, but straggly and messy. My eyes were no longer blue sapphires, but wet red pools of tears.

     “Celia...?” came a soft voice from behind me.

     I turned around, almost expecting to see a ghost emerging from the ground, but it was Milo. I turned away from my friend and wiped my eyes hastily with the back of my hand.

     He sat next to me. I glanced over at him. He was dressed the same as he had been at the contest, in a plain shirt and a pair of jeans.

     “How did you find me?” I asked quietly. I didn’t want him to see how upset I was; I kept my eyes trained at the water and the shallow grasses that grew there.

     “I saw you run out of the auditorium from backstage,” he explained. “It looked like you were heading towards the park so that’s where I went.” I saw him lean towards me. “Are you okay, Celia?”

     “Yeah, I... No,” I said honestly, relenting. “The past few days I felt like I was on top of the world and now I feel like nothing.” I shut my eyes, feeling foolish, and tried to stop the flood of tears. My face burned.

     “You aren’t nothing, Celia,” Milo said soothingly, moving closer. “Did you feel like that before you used the perfume?”

     “No, but I—”

     “Stop,” he interrupted me. “If you didn’t feel that way before the perfume, then you shouldn’t feel it now.”

     “Still...” I said, a breeze messing up my hair and sending a shiver down my spine. It was cold. I wrapped my arms around myself. “Cara gave up her recital for me and I didn’t deserve it. How can I forgive myself for that?”

     “It was Cara’s choice, as guided by the perfume as it was,” Milo said, “and you can’t go on blaming yourself for that.”

     I turned to protest but noticed he was fiddling with something in his hands. It took me a moment before I realized what it was: the perfume bottle tag.