Gardner Presley lay in her hammock one more time. She rocked back and forth, grinning up at the ceiling, flicking her spiderbite piercings with her tongue. She could hardly keep herself from cackling madly, whooping, jumping on the bed (well, she had already done that, and subsequently hit her head). Today was the day she was leaving Crystal for good. Finally. 20 was far too old to stay in a highschool, and it wasn’t that she had needed to stay, really; it was just that she had a late graduation thanks to failing to accumulate all the extra curricular credits she had needed.
She rolled herself out of the hammock and onto her feet, the heavy soles of her black boots cushioned by the plush carpet. They were pretty new; before now, shoes had been one of the biggest giveaways that she wasn’t quite Crystal material. So she had kept only cute, pretty shoes. Grownup shoes.
Despite her recent outbursts, Presley’s personality was not all rough. No, she could be smooth, mirror-sleek. But it never seemed like she was all there. It was hard to tell, even for her, which half of her was the true half. She really didn’t know how much of her personality counted as her and how much of it was taught to her, how much stifled whatever the “true” Presley might be.
She popped her earbuds in and turned her MP3 on, listening to… not metal, not any kind of rock, but Wagner. And this was carried her through her clean-up of the rest of her room. She owned almost nothing, or rather she owned almost nothing which she kept in her room. She popped her laptop into its bag, set it next to her makeup bag. Set all her shoes into a bin, placed that bin next to those things. Her closet decorations were second-last to go.
Inside her closet, it was hardly Narnia: there were a couple dresses and fancy coats remaining, a faux-furred hat, an oversized white purse with a koi-scale pattern and some kind of pink clutch hanging with one of the hats. Plastered all over the inside, however: polaroid snapshots of people Presley tried not to think about, friends she’d had once; swimsuit editions and centerfolds; what took over most of the closet, however, were cutout images from tattoo magazines, women showing off their body art. Presley stepped into the closet after taking the clothing out, draping it across her bare mattress, and turned the light on. She sat down on the floor, shut the door, and leaned her head against the wall, staring at all the images.
She missed her friends. She missed her home, sometime. Sometimes she was nervous, and kind of afraid. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was getting out of Crystal, but her parents weren’t talking to her right now. She had refused to go to any post-secondary educational institution. Maybe that would change, but Crystal had made her miserable enough that she didn’t understand why she’d continue her agony. Students, studying, profs, expectations. She wasn’t at home in schools, she didn’t feel welcome, supported, safe. She felt like an alien in a human skin.
So instead, she would be living in an apartment above the tattoo parlour, until she could get her own place. Their couch wasn’t too comfortable, so she had acquired some kind of padding thing that went over a mattress… hopefully she could minimize the damage to her back and neck. Presley sighed, shut off the light, and sat in the dark in her closet for a while. She buried her face in her hands, and tried to remember that she was strong, and she didn’t need anyone—but it became kind of true that no matter how much she struggled against it, she did want friends. Someone she could go hang out with, someone to share things with. It was just that her tastes were usually so radically different…
She pushed the closet door open, and started to take down each image and photograph as carefully as she could, putting them all into a folder. There would be worse, and there would be better. At least she was finally moving forward. Besides, her parents were her parents; they’d talk to her again eventually, right?
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