undeveloped film

queen of aces: who do you love more?

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WHEN SHE WAS FOUR, she loved climbing into her parents' bed on lazy weekend mornings, when hazy sunlight just started to stream in between the blinds in her room. She trudged in her fleece patterned pyjamas to their room, so massive and grand in her four-year-old-eyes, and slipped in between her half-awake Mama and Pa, snuggling into the warmth of the blankets between them.

Her Mama would wrap her arms around her baby girl, and her Pa would smother her in kisses and raspberries, and that would be her world; pure, unconditional love.

Sometimes her older sister of seven would slip in too, even though she was recently claiming that she was growing too big to fit. But everyone knew the truth; that king-sized bed would never outgrow their family, so warmly snuggled together those weekend mornings.

Some days her parents ask her questions, a tradition which seeped past her childhood days and stayed strong between them until much later on. But at four, the questions she received were much less important, but she still thought long and hard at them, her little face scrunched up in consideration.

One Sunday morning, they asked her, twin sly grins on their faces, "Who do you love more?" gesturing between them. That day her face scrunched up, eyebrows drawn low and little lips pouting, but it quickly straightened out as she found her answer.

Her voice was clear and bright, absolutely confident with her answer. "I love me the most."

There was a silence after that which the girl didn't notice, as she was too busy forcing down a yawn, snuggling deeper into the mattress, trying to get swallowed whole. She missed the thoughtful look on her parents' faces, on how profound yet utterly simple their baby's answer was.

The girl was already asleep when her Mama pressed a kiss to her crown, softly saying, "That's right, Princess. Always love yourself the most."

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WHEN SHE WAS FIFTEEN she crawled into her own bed, much smaller than that king-bed that their family used to curl up on, still wearing the jeans that pressed uncomfortably into her hipbones and a baggy sweatshirt that felt oppressing in the heat. It was a Friday evening after another monotonous and utterly miserable day at school and she wanted to scream. She wanted to scream because she hated it, she hated feeling like this, she hated wanting to crawl out of her skin, she hated herself-

no.

Head pounding at the sheer force of holding back tears - because she couldn't start sobbing everyone was asleep - she pressed her eyes shut and tried to remember that day.

She always had exceptional memory when it came to certain events, her mind recorded those days for her to watch later. Her first steps, trips when she was young, the first day at school. She remembered those in vivid detail, even if some details were faded at the edges as if she dreamed them, but she knew it was real. She just knew.

But this was one memory she truly didn't know whether she remembered or if she just knew from the sheer number of times her Mama recounted it with a proud smile on her face, but she clutched onto it desperately anyway.

Curled up in that massive room on that king-bed between the warmth of her parents, claiming that she loved herself the most.

She couldn't give up, she would not give up. She wasn't allowed to hate herself, she couldn't allow it. At four years of age she saw something in herself - so confidently she loved herself the most - she couldn't betray that girl.

And so she slipped off her jeans and sweatshirt and tossed them somewhere by the hamper, slowly pulling on her sleep shorts and a tank top. And she would wait for however long her body took to do it. She would wait, she would be kind, she would be loving. She deserved that. Even if she didn't believe it now, that four year old girl did.

By the time she was just about to drift to sleep, a few teardrops did fall as she reminded herself, even if in that very moment she didn't, she would always love herself the most.

If not the worn and exhausted fifteen year old her, then the young and innocent four year old her.

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