The clock only read 8:45. It wasn’t that late really, nothing to worry about. The plans had been laid and she already knew exactly how the evening would go. It had been planned after all. Outside the street was quiet, strangely so. It was a sign that all things would go smoothly. Things always go good for girls who believe in love, girls who will cry their last tear and give their last dollar for the fleeting empty feeling of true love. The bed was perfectly made green blanket folded over black. Perfect everything always perfect. On the outside. 9:11. Another sign. Emergency? Definitely not. Not when you believed that the night would be the beginning of your new life. The life that you didn’t even know you wanted, didn’t even know if you still wanted, but the life that you clung to and swore up and down until you were blue in the face that you just had to have. And so you did. You smiled and you moved and you went about your life. You breathed it and exuded it. No one would accuse you of faking it. And every morning you did. You applied your eyeliner took your vitamins and practiced your smile in the mirror. There, that’s the one. The one that says you have it all. Secretly you cut your arm under the level on the mirror. No one was watching no one saw. Physical pain? Never. And so you waited. Waiting was the new happiness. You waited because you believed with all your heart that you would get what you wanted. Basing your happiness on that one more. Just one more. One more what? 10:00. but you waited still. He said he would be here. He has a life to you know. Perhaps he was running late, stopping to stare at the clock and oh shit oh shit hurry hurry. Perhaps he had to get a present before he arrived. No harm in hoping. Maybe he was even thinking about what you were doing while the time passed. You were staring in the mirror. Practicing your best I have it all smirk, mysterious and haughty as hell. Never once realizing that look in your eye could only ever be seen as desperation. No not you, never. Playing your favorite sad songs over and over again on repeat hoping he would walk in right at that one line, that one perfect line and yes then everything would be as it was suppose to be. Around 11 it became clear. He didn’t care. He never would. And yet you fell for his lines every time. Fell harder than you thought you could fall because you had never been as high up as the last time. The smile in the mirror turned into the you can’t do this to me anymore sad eyes. Staring at the 14.99 dress that you tried to pass off as Chanel. You can love me in twill I promise. But he cant, he wont. So the dress ended up on the floor, rumpled and stepped on.

and at 4 am. a knock. and she opened that damn door.