I didn’t know what I was doing, alright, I was fucking thirteen. I had just discovered I had a face. As a small child, I remember avoiding mirrors. Not because I thought I had a big nose or something, but because my sweet older sister thought it’d be funny to make me watch some obscure Japanese horror movie about mirrors. I peed myself and we never spoke of it again. Anyway, there I was, holding my sister’s lipstick and dabbing it onto my lips right before school started. She had this cute mirror with this wooden frame that had a bunch of stickers stuck to it of Jesus smoking blunts and being all weed friendly. I thought he just liked leaves. Don’t judge me, okay. I should mention, I went to Catholic school. The birthplace of bigots. Back to me decorating my face, I then decided to blot the red lipstick onto my eyelids as eyeshadow because I was just that quirky. I was experimenting and expressing my love for art. I didn’t think I would look like a baby prostitute. I thought I looked colorful. I patted some glitter onto my cheeks and grinned at myself proudly in the mirror. I was disgustingly hopeful. I thought I had started a new trend.              I snuck out of the house because if my mom saw me like this, I thought she’d get jealous. Because that’s how my baby brain worked. So, I skipped to school, my tiny tits bouncing because I refused to wear a bra at the time. It was constricting and I thought that’s how people got asthma. My sister had to explain to me that bras didn’t cause asthma and that men also got asthma and they didn’t have to wear bras. That just opened a whole other door to me. Why didn’t men wear bras if we had to wear bras? She dropped the subject. I’m now a proud feminist and the only reason I wear bras is so I don’t have people staring at my nipples. That’s just not my idea of comfort. So, I’m skipping to school and my stupid little fake friend, whose name I don’t remember because she’s just that irrelevant, stopped me and asked why I have blood on my face.              “That’s not blood, that’s lipstick,” I responded calmly.              “It looks ugly,” she said, her face scrunching up in disgust.              “You’re ugly,” I snapped back because I was a bad bitch. I was also holding back tears. She hissed at me because she was pretending to be a cat at the time-- kids and their huge imaginations-- and ran past the tall front school doors, into the safety of those catholic cockroaches. In other words, the nuns.              I walked in with my head held high, expecting hordes of my classmates to praise my beautiful makeup skills and accept me as their queen. I was trying to stay positive. All I heard were whispers and gasps as I walked down the hallway. That long winding hallway with crosses lining the walls. A nun popped her head out of one of the classrooms and caught sight of me.              “ENID-- GOOD HEAVENS,” she snatched my long braid and pulled me into the classroom as I let out shrieks and howls. She sat me down and scrubbed at my face with a wet towel until all the makeup was gone, along with the top layer of my skin. I should mention she was the nicest, most gentle nun of them all. She then called my mother on the phone, waving her hands around frantically, and shouting words like:              “SINFUL!” And,              “UNGODLY!” And, my favorite one:              “DIABOLICAL!”              The devil had to be involved, of course, he had to hog some of the spotlight. I was frozen in fear, hiding my face between my knees in the fetal position. I thought they’d chop my head off, stuff my body like a chicken and roast me over an open fire. I don’t know what she told my mom, but she left me off the hook with a warning and told me to get a bra as I was exposing myself and tempting the devil. Cute. Hunched over, I trudged over to my locker to get ready for my first class. My friends showed up, my lovely friends not giving two shits about the traumatic event I just went through. I ignored their sneers and whispers. One of them stepped up, Stacy. That was the only name I remember from my group of besties. She always smelled like cake. And she was the worst of them all.              “You called what’s-her-name ugly.”              “So?” I grunted, opening my locker and grabbing my notebook and pens. She slammed my locker, causing a gust of air to blow in my face and sending a bunch of my papers flying to the ground. They laughed as if they were being tickled, twisting their bodies about like worms and cackling in such a horrid way my eyes stung. I quickly fell to my knees to pick up my papers. I wasn’t going to bother saying anything. I was unarmed.              “Let me help you with that,” Stacy smiled, her eyes fiery and her nostrils flaring.              “No, don’t--” I started, my voice choking up-- I sounded so weak, I hated it. I hated it. I HATED IT. She picked up a piece of paper and turned it over to hand it to me, but she paused. Her eyes lingered too long on the page and her smile faded.              “Is that a peni--” I knew immediately what was on that paper. I screamed, ripping the paper out of her hand. She fell back, slamming her head on the floor. I scrambled to gather up all the paper before anyone else saw. There was no point. The girls sprang into action like the minions they were and snatched up the rest of the papers. Screaming and laughing, they raced down the hallway shouting.              “SISTER FRANCES!”              I knew I was fucked. I didn’t bother trying to save myself. Stacy hadn’t gotten up from the ground yet. I didn’t care to check if she was alive or not. Sister Frances stormed down the hallway with the girls hanging around her flowing white skirt. I didn’t look at her face. I knew she was pissed. I heard the blood pumping furiously through her thin, pale skin. I heard the gritting of her yellow, rotting teeth. The walls shook when she walked. No, she flew. She was here to take me to purgatory. They had found my homoerotic art of men. Yes, I was that kind of artist. I got bored during class. Sue me. They thought I was possessed.              Stacy got a concussion on top of that and blamed it on me. I ended up getting suspended. Afterwards, Stacy spread rumors around town that I was a slut, a whore, a prostitute, and that I had gotten knocked up and aborted my unborn child after 23 weeks– which was weirdly specific, kudos to her for being so creative. If there was anything Stacy was good at, it was running her mouth.              My mom was weirdly supportive and thought it would be best to try a different school at that point since my reputation was tarnished. She was opened-minded to public school as long as I did the whole praying and Bible-reading thing. I had just started high school and I was trying to move past this whole Catholic thing-- that’s when I saw him. Bo. His name was Bo. Super boring. It’s not even a name, it’s like a ghost trying to spook someone and giving up halfway through. A ghost working on minimum wage. A working class ghost. A ghost with a divorced husband and two kids, and one of them is an addict. But he was never boring. He started as a tiny thought. A breeze that brushed past me. I paid him no mind. I barely looked up when his name was called. Then P.E. happened.              We were playing volleyball, I was amazing at it, you know people expected me to be a wimp because I liked wearing skirts, but I could be pretty fierce when I needed to. Maybe too aggressive. I was sweating and yelling at my teammates to toss me the ball. I smashed it into his face. Bo’s face. His face cracked. The ball bounced off him, onto the ground, leaving a bloody mark. Fuck. I felt bad of course. I slid under the net and walked over to him, my hands cupped over my mouth. He seemed to be in a bit of a daze. He licked his lips and his face froze. He tasted blood. His friends started snickering.              “Yeah, you’re gonna need to stop by the nurse’s office, bud,” the teacher said, stepping forward from the sidelines.              “I’ll help him,” I said, letting him lean on my shoulder as I helped him to the bathroom first to get him cleaned up. Bo was mumbling something to me, but I shushed him and gently dabbed the blood off his face with a wet towel. I got some blood on my own fingers, but I didn’t mind. I almost wanted to kiss him on his wet little broken nose. But that would be gross. Afterwards, I took him to the nurse’s office and he gave me a quick, quiet thanks. He was shy. I felt my heart shudder. I gave him a quick, quiet smile and left the office.              Months later I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He wouldn’t even look at me when we passed in the hallways, he was so overtaken by my beauty and grace, by my power. It’s okay, I could handle shy guys. I slipped a note in his locker one day, asking him to go out for coffee. He never responded. I caught him scrunching up the paper in his fists and tossing it into the trash. I shook my head and smiled. He was probably just having a bad day. He was playing hard to get that’s all. I gave him another note. Again, no answer. That’s alright. I was patient.              Then word spread there was going to be a pool party. This was my chance to talk to him face to face. Now, because so many people wanted to be a part of this pool party situation, a bus was arranged to take us to this fancy resort in the mountains. So, we got on, and I made sure to sit next to the girl with headphones on because talking to people made me nauseous. I was just here to remind people of my godly existence, not chit chat. We exchanged sweet, crusty smiles of politeness and I swiped her sandwich crumbs off the seat before sitting down. I heard Bo laughing in the back. I held my bag closer to me and glued my eyes to the window. I was fidgety for some reason and my hands were clammy. I felt someone’s milky eyeballs crawling up my neck. I tossed my silky brown hair to the side to catch a glimpse of some chubby boy with a cap on, twisted backwards. He quickly looked away, as he should. And I went back to my business of looking out the window.              “Are you Enid?”              His dry, scratchy voice bounced against my brain. I looked over to my left to see the round dude suddenly sitting on the seat next to me across the aisle. His ginormous feet took up the whole aisle as turned to face me. My stomach crinkled up into a tiny ball as I tried my best not to scream.              “Yes, that’s my name.”              “Hi, I’m David. You can call me Dave,” he grinned at me and wiped some drool that had started collecting at the edge of his mouth. I blew some air out of my mouth, super pumped to be starting this conversation with this ballsack. He started rummaging through his pocket and pulled out a pocketknife. Oh god.              “You see this?”              “Yes, I can see it.”              “My great, great, great, great, grandaddy made this.”              “Wow. Impressive,” I said with fake enthusiasm.              His smile cracked a bit and he lowered the knife. Shit, maybe I didn’t try hard enough.              “Okay, no need to be bitchy about it.”              Here we fucking go. Another fragile male ego being shot down. I should’ve brought my tissues.              “My bad, I just don’t care that much about your knife.”              “Well, at least I have something interesting about me,” he muttered, crossing his arms.              “Sorry my life isn’t a performance,” I snapped back. Maybe this is what I needed. Therapy was overrated, give me a guy I could shit on without the fear of getting socked in the face, and I won’t have any anger issues. Actually, I take that back. He could for sure stab me, but at least I’d have witnesses.              “You sure about that?” He suddenly leaned toward me, his face getting close, too close, dangerously close. I pushed myself up against the girl next to me and she let out a squeak. “Bo doesn’t even like you, he thinks you’re a freak,” he let out through gritted teeth. A what? My body felt like it was slowly being stepped on by a big shoe, a really big shoe and the shoe was Bo’s shoe. My eyes stung in that horrid familiar way. Not now, please not now. I didn’t want this now. I felt like that little girl again. I felt peoples’ eyes on me, digging into my skin. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to crush Dave’s skull and burn him alive. What did I do wrong? I turned around to look at Bo and he stuck his tongue out at me. Fuck that.              Before I could murder him, however, a loud honk and a pair of shaky headlights glared through the window, flying at an incredible speed toward us. An explosion, a crash, screams enveloped my ears, my ears rang, it looked as if the very sun itself had burst through the windows. My breathing seemed to slow down, and I felt my heart struggle against my ribcage. It felt like a giant invisible wave hit my body and sent me rolling and tumbling through the air. Everyone else became a blur of colors, of hair flying, of clothes ripping, of bodies slamming into one another. The air tasted metallic. Everything went dark.              I woke up sometime later to whispers and voices crying out. Sirens were wailing in the distance. I heard sobbing and I heard cooing. It smelt like barbecue. I heard someone shuffle up beside me. I felt like a pretzel, but I couldn’t move my neck. There was this beautiful light, this shining aura, this warmth, this coziness-- oh my god. I was dead. This angel stood before me and-- never mind. I blinked a few times. It was just Dave.              “Hey, Enid, you okay?”              I was too tired to respond. My mouth was wet. Too wet. It felt thick and coppery. I went unconscious once more.
I woke up in a hospital bed. I felt so weak. I could barely move my hand. I had to focus on breathing just so I wouldn’t start panicking. This is what old people must’ve felt like.              “Hey, Enid, you okay?”              Dave stood by my bed, his head bandaged and a cast on his arm.              “I’m perfect actually.”              Dave smiled and sat down on the edge of my bed only to pin his ass down on my tiny, fragile foot and send a flash of pain up my leg. He quickly shot up, noticing my face scrunching in agony.              “My bad.”              The pain was very much present, despite all the drugs flowing through my system. I wished I could watch TV or something, anything to distract me from this suffering. I was so glad Bo wasn’t around.                  “Hey, look what I have.”              Dave pulled out his dumb knife.                  “Dave, I--”                  “You can use it for self-defense, but I use it to open beer bottles.”                  “Of course you do, Dave.”              Loud sobbing next door interrupted our conversation.                  “NO, I DON’T WANT TO SEE HER,” the voice snapped, shaking and muffled through the glass wall, covered in blinds. That voice sounded very familiar.                  “Dave, can you move those blinds for me?”                  “Uh… sure,” he stood up clumsily, catching himself on the bed railing before he lifted the blinds. I knew it. I started laughing but quickly stopped when my stomach screamed in pain. I moved the white dressing gown aside to find my stomach was bandaged. Huh. I don’t remember that.                  “What’s so funny?” Dave asked cautiously.                  “That’s Stacy, an old friend of mine.”                  “Should we go say hi?”                  “God, no. She’d probably spit on me or something.”              Dave looked at me confused, but I shook my head and reached my arm out.                  “Help me out of bed. We’re leaving.”                  “What? Why--”                  “I want to do something,” I said sharply. He grabbed my arm and hoisted me out of bed. My whole body was numb. Great. I pointed to the door.                  “Open it.” He jiggled the handle and gave up.              “It’s locked.”              “Use your knife, dumbass.”              Dave looked at me with wide eyes and I waved my hand for him to continue. He did as he was told, of course. He probably felt bad about what he said to me on the bus. We snuck out. The hallways were quiet except for a woman screaming at a nurse. We grabbed our clothes, changed, and walked out. I was a bit dizzy, so Dave had to help me, but as we passed the woman, I knew she was Stacy’s mom.              “How much longer is my daughter going to be hospitalized?” She asked, her voice dripping with menace.              “Ma’am, she’s just had an abortion, give it some time.”              I stopped in my tracks. Abortion? How funny. Things really did come back around. Maybe God was real. We walked out of the hospital, waving to the nurses with innocent smiles.              “Hey Dave?”              “Yeah?”              “I like you.”              “Really?”              “No, but I like your body shape,” I said, yawning as we stopped by the road.              “Oh, thanks, I don’t really workout though--”              “I wanna draw you.”              “Wow really?”              “You’re not homophobic are you?”              He shook his head. And from that point on, he became my muse. Mostly because I knew he was a beta male and would do everything I asked of him. Being pretty has its quirks. And in return, I’d have to listen to him babble on and on about knives, weapons, and skinning deers. Easy. Luckily, I have selective hearing and I can ignore the gruesome details of him fisting some poor creature in the woods.              “Can you be gentler?” He asks me, flinching as I poke his eyelid with red lipstick.              “Stop moving,” I hiss, clenching my toes.              I take out a huge brush and dab it in liquid glitter. I sweep it over his face like a face mask, but instead of cleansing your skin, it clogs your pores and gives you a big fat rash. Which is why I’m using his skin, not mine, for my artistic experiments. See, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing when I was thirteen, but that little girl still lives inside me, like a parasite. She’s always nagging me. I feel her roll her eyes anytime I try to apply makeup normally. I hear her scream when I trick myself into thinking I’m actually in love with a dumb fuck named Bo. And I hear her laugh when I doodle naked bodies grinding in the bible. And if any nun tried to spank me now, I’d have Dave skin them. This is why you gotta befriend sociopaths, you never know when they’ll come in handy.              “Are we done?”              “Hold on,” I take a deep breath and stand back to admire my beautiful work. I know that little Enid would be so proud. All his face was missing was more red. Much, much more red.