dead girl in the pool.

1

tap.

tap.

tap. 

alice huffed. she needed this perfect, not mediocre like she was getting. 

so, she tried again. a few bangs and grunts later, she found herself on the floor. a pathetic husk of what she was meant to be. 

she thought back to her freshman days; soft, innocent, naive. oblivious to the concept of coating herself in pink on the daily. in fact, her father often kept her from wearing the colour. she didnt know why back then, but she felt as if she did now. 

alice was not the fondest of her mother. perhaps it was because she made her dress like the plastics on a wednesday, or maybe it was because she forced her to cake up her face on the daily. it could easily be both. she couldnt count she amount of times she had accidentally burned her fingers on a curling iron and had to go without neosporin and bandaids, because god forbid she hide the beautiful manicure she despised so greatly.

her hands made her way to her head, gripping her hair tightly in an attempt to keep herself from crying. she didnt want this; she wanted her dad. she wanted deb.

as soon as her mother had forced her lifestyle onto alice, the teen lost everything. she was hardly allowed to do anything. hell, she couldnt even text her dad without her mom making sure she worded everything correctly.

alice had tried many times to object, but said objections only resulted in yelling and her stuffed pig, chloe, being taken away. chloe was her only comfort in this household, as it reminded her of a time when she was happy in life. her dad had gotten it for her as a christmas present, and her mom had smiled and taken pictures of her holding it. oh, how she wished she could go back.

but alas, she was stuck. stuck in, what she considered, hell. she didnt have a say in anything, not even who she dated. her mother constantly set her up with the most popular jock boys in school, despite the fact that alice had told her multiple times that she was a lesbian. eventually, she gave up arguing, but made sure to tell each boy she was out with. most of them were shockingly respectful, and she had even met one of her best friends through a blind date. kurt

at times, kurt was the only person keeping her from fleeing the country. well, maybe thats an exaggeration, but she didnt see that as the worst option. on their 'date', kurt had been extremely supportive of her and came out to her as bi himself. alice promised not to tell anybody, as he wasnt ready to come out yet. she understood how he felt.

alice, who was still on the floor, smiled at the thought of him. she didnt know if there were any other lgbtq+ folk at her school, but it was nice knowing there was at least one.

she quickly shook her head. she needed to get her mind off of everything quickly before she started crying, which, knowing her, wouldve happened if she had dwelled on anything for a second longer. she got back into her chair and picked her stylus back up, staring at the artwork on her computer screen.

alice did commissions, and did them quite often, despite how much they stressed her out. if she were still living with her dad, she wouldnt put herself through this; but, since she was living with her mom, she wanted to save up as much money as she could to rent an apartment for at least the summer before she went off to college.

trying once more to finish this linework, she swiped her pencil across her drawing pad. spoiler alert-- it didnt work. biting her lip, alice choked back a sob, scribbling with her pen and pushing herself and her chair back.

"gosh darnit!" she wailed, refusing to curse. "can i please just do this one thing right? is that too much to ask for?"

she couldnt stop the tears that started slipping out of her eyes, now matter how hard she tried to keep them in. her chocolate hair got caught under her long nails, which made her even more frustrated.

come on, alice, she thought to herself, get this done. youve got school tomorrow.

* * *

after about another 2 hours of work, alice set her pen down, smiling. she had nearly fallen asleep twice, but the art was done. as she looked at the piece in front of her, however, her smile started to slowly fade.

on her screen was a lovely drawing of a lesbian couple; one with a darker complexion and one with an asian complexion. they looked nothing like her and deb, and yet they looked exactly like them. she quickly signed the artwork and saved it as an image, immediately shutting her computer off after doing so. with a sigh, she forced herself off her chair and into her bed, clutching onto chloe for dear life. with her brows furrowed together and her eyes shut tight, she curled into a ball and, slowly but surely, drifted off to sleep.