One Balloon Away

40

Renée recollected the time when she was in her third year of secondary education at the age of fourteen. People didn't really remember her after she came back from Paris, they thought she was the new girl and everybody tried to talk to her. She was the infamous Paris return girl. It was when she had befriended Chloë and became a pom pom girl.

It was hard for Renée after her parent's divorce, but she pushed those feelings down, refused to think about them. Every time she heard her mother's muffled cries from her room, it pained her. Every time she saw her brother working hard to sustain them, it agonized her. The feelings of grief weren't gone for Renée herself, they were like bubbles at the bottom of her heart threatening to explode.

Photography was Renée's one beloved hobby. She strained herself to keep her position as a pom pom girl and the yearbook's photographer. She tried to manage them both at the beginning, but eventually she had to give up the position of the photographer when things got too complicated. She had to choose between herself and the Renée the society had moulded, and she ran away from her true self. She was a cool, popular girl. She had average grades and a great figure. For an onlooker, she was leading a perfect life, what else could she ask for?

But nobody recognized how she was trying too hard to fit the sculpture society had created for her. They were unable to grasp how she pretended to be interested in topics she didn't care about, how she struggled to fit to the stereotype. People failed to understand how storm brewed beneath the illusion of flawlessness.

But there's only a matter of time before the truth seeps through the cracks.

_________
glossary
pom pom girl - cheerleader
_________