Skin Deep

I. h i t c h e d

"And I can go on and on and on, but who cares?"

======

Beep. Beep. Beepbeepbeepbeepbe-

"Can you just shut up already?" I groaned as I made a move to attack the little bot that was rolling around on my floor, knowing that as soon as it heard my voice it would stop immediately. Instantaneously I heard the barely audible ping of my "love score" decreasing. Too bad, it was already in the 10000s and even that was low for a sixteen year-old.

Careful trying not to step on the small piece of metal, I walked over to the walk-in closet stuffed to the brink with clothes and sighed. Mother would probably want me to wear a dress, since it was the first day back; although I wanted nothing but to stay hidden in crowds I pulled out the new burgundy dress that she had brought me from her work, pulling on a pair of tights and some sneakers hastily while checking if I had received any new messages.

Please. I think...not. The only thing my comm did was blare out my mother's prerecorded morning greeting:

Hello and welcome to another new day! What would you like for breakfast, dear?

Quickly, I responded with a Waffles and fruit, thanks before glancing at my reflection in the mirror after hastily running a comb through my hair. The mirror scanned me perfunctorily and assured me that I looked "perfect" as normal. Hah. Just another lie I suppose. (Love score down. Maybe one day I could finally get it down to a 9000 though I would probably have to wait until I was like twenty, considering I was still in the high 10000s. Such a shame.)

Gosh, the normal greeting and the perky voice it was spoken in just made me want to...Never mind. She was my mother, the only person in the world no doubt who cared about me other than my only friend, Cas, who was pretty much my polar opposite. What happened to my father, I didn't know and didn't care, or at least to everyone who knew me I didn't. Deep inside I had always longed for a father figure, but no one knew where he went. I'm pretty sure he left. Couldn't handle what my mom was, couldn't handle how much power she held in our world.

Oh well, then I guess he's just a piece of rubbish anyway. Although I seem to be taking after him, what with some of these fears I have after all.

Shaking the thoughts from my head, I jumped on my hoverboard and zoomed toward the kitchen, the gradually quickening pace waking me up. Just another day in the 22nd century, as usual.

My mother is already halfway out the door when I come into the brightly lit room, soft classical jazz playing in the background.

Before shutting the door and hopping into her tram she says hurriedly, "Dear, have a nice first day back, say hi to Case for me! Maybe..." She doesn't finish the sentence, but her and I both know her admittably wild expectations for me. Find a guy, do the Switching, fall in love, get married, yada yada, though not necessarily in that order it was what my mom wanted for me. What society wanted for me.

Who knew that a society based on love and mutual understanding, hence the love score, would be so intolerant of people who didn't want to make a connection? I mean, maybe we just love ourselves too much (not even--I probably had one of the lowest self-esteems in the whole country) and don't want to depend on someone?

I mean, I've had my fair share of guys like most girls. But you know, it was just for fun! Too bad they all wanted something. Something I couldn't give. What my mother didn't understand was, I didn't need commitment. Didn't want commitment. I saw what losing my dad did to my mother. I was far too stubborn to let that happen to me.