Azalea
Elder Member
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<div style="text-align:center;"><p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><span style="font-size:18px;">Before</span></span></p></div>
<p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> </span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong>Its about as hard as it is to talk about the before, as it is to even think about the after. I don't remember thinking I was lucky, I only remember being miserable. The events that brought on my condition? Who knows. But I remember my father calling it the "rich girl disease". </strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong><em>"Those who have much and yearn for nothing have the hardest descent,"</em></strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong> He'd whisper, squeezing my hand between his own callused palms.</strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong><em>"so don't you ever remember to be grateful."</em></strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong> But I did forget. I forgot everything he ever taught me after he joined the dead. I forgot everything but my own misery and my own selfish thirst to be nothing like my mother. And in the process, I guess I became just like her.</strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> </span></p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';">.................................</span></p></div>
<p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> </span></p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><span style="font-size:18px;"><strong>After</strong></span></span></p></div>
<p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> My mother's slender fingers pluck uselessly at the lint-covered sweater-dress my older sister donned for the occasion of her book-club, her usually placid expression twisted with annoyance. "I've told you time and time again, Elizabeth," she hisses, her voice low in efforts to mask the words from her eavesdropping compeers. "at least put </span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><em>some</em></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> kind of effort in your dress when you're out with me. It's embarrassing." My sisters lips tilt downwards into a frown that instantly sours her delicate features. "I don't and never will dress for your benefit, mother." An irritated huff is her only response, the Evergreen family matriarch falling silent to steal a brief glance at herself in the mirror. Her slightly-bare lips illicit a frown, fingers hastily disappearing in her black hole of a bag to retrieve her usual red lipstick. My mothers lipstick is an interminable garb to her - to go out without it is reminiscent of death. Her eyes dart to me, the meekest of the three Evergreen sisters and the youngest. "Cami, come put some lipstick on your lips. And brush down your hair heaven-sake, are all my daughters too look like hoodlums?" I nod my assent, hurriedly running a hand through my limp locks of ebony as I stand at my mother's side. I ignore the disdain in my sisters eyes, my reward for my quick compliance when it comes to mom. Dabbing on a bit of lipstick, I look down rather then meeting my hazel eyes in the mirror. I've been endowed with none of the elegance of in my attributes as my family holds. My own features are too wide, too out-landish for one who belongs to the family I do. On a good day, my mother will say the tilt of my eyes are exotic. She'll deem my hawkish-nose an endearing, eye-catching thing even the most bashful of men would never dare shy from. But those occasions are rare - I can see in her eyes every morning the disappointment. It's one out of the many reasons I despise her so. "Cami," speaks June, her hawk-like gaze landing on my feet. "are those my shoes you're wearing, again?" I part my lips to speak the timid no, but my mother's cough interrupts me. It's her audible signal that someone's coming, that it's time for us to quiet like the dutiful daughters we are. And fall into a stoney silence we do, June's eyes fastened resolutely on my shoes, Elizabeth's iron gaze fixed on her reflection in the mirror, and I, my feet, per usual. "Elsadora!" The woman at the door practically purrs the words, throwing a bony arm around my mother as her family trails in after. Ralle's there and I allow the briefest of smiles to touch my lips as I meet his eyes. He mimics my expression, dimples adorning each cheek as our eyes meet. His every glance is enough now to send a cold sweat down my back, and sometimes I can even forget the fact that I'm ugly, undesirable, when I'm basking in his warm gaze. Then he looks away and reality once again hits. When my mom and his have finished the usual greetings her gaze falls on us three. "Junabelle, a wonder in white. It's a wonder my boy Ralle won't stop staring," her tease lightens the mood in the room and pulls the briefest of smiles to my mother's lips. She loves it when her daughters receive compliments. Ralle scarlets, freckles melding with his currently plum-like coloring as he quickly glances away from June. "Thank you, Ms. Herring," my sister speaks, bowing her head in that dutiful way that makes me almost forget what a devil she is when mother's back is turned. "And Elizabeth. It's seems even the most ill-picked of assortments can't blot out the beauty beneath." even her knit-picks are met with an acknowledging smile from my sister that only becomes an audible one when my mother discreetly elbows her in the side. "Now if you don't mind," Ms. Herring speaks, lens rimmed eyes darting to the door she knows from timeless visits contains the living room, I'll retire until the rest arrive." She's forgotten me. The knowledge is enough for me to simply feel the mortification my mother must feel. I push my gaze to the floor, wishing the wall was enough to hide me from the contemptuous expression June shoots me. My mother </span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><em>hem hems</em></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';">, looking from me to Ms. Herring in an obvious way that makes the back of my throat burn. "Oh!" bursts from said woman, a nervous laugh fluttering from her lips that the others quickly match. I try to match their vocals but I feel like a fish, gasping for breath in the background. Her eyes slide up and down my torso as if she's searching for something to compliment. And I don't have to look in the mirror my mother keeps over the door to know my ears are scarlet. "Cami, don't you look delightful." She grits out, before the </span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><em>clip, clop</em></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> of her heels retreating into the next room alerts me that she's left. I tear my eyes from the ground with difficulty. It doesn't too make too much of a difference, her forgetting me. It's not like this hasn't ever happened before. I know I'm not an impressionable figure. I'm not pretty, I'm not charismatic, not like my sisters. And yet being ignored still stings at me far worse then my mother's usual nettle. "Cambria, how've you been." Ralle's civility unsuccessfully masks the pity that coats his tone. I meet my best friend's eyes with all of the gusto I can muster given the circumstances. "Just great," I allow sarcasm to touch my words, "but that's to be expected when your housing with two -" my eyes dart to mom then back, "make that three of the devils spawn." It's a shoddy joke, but Ralle still laughs enough for the warmth to thaw my senses. "Aww Cambria, June's not that bad." he says after the chuckles have ceased to caress my ears. His words hurt but I still manage to keep the smile on my lips. "Wouldn't be saying that if you lived with her." I can see in his eyes that he's about to pose one of the questions he's begin asking of me, the ones that make my heart sink. "Does she ever ask about me? Like, just out of curiosity?" A self-conscious hand jumps from his waist to his mane of red hair, freeing some of the locks from where the rest from behind his ears. I shake my head and tear my gaze from the arresting green of his eyes. The doorbell rings and I pull it open, matching the smiles and greetings that are tossed my way as more of my mother's friends and there children clamber in. And the house is once again abuzz.</span>
<div style="text-align:center;"><p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><span style="font-size:18px;">Before</span></span></p></div>
<p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> </span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong>Its about as hard as it is to talk about the before, as it is to even think about the after. I don't remember thinking I was lucky, I only remember being miserable. The events that brought on my condition? Who knows. But I remember my father calling it the "rich girl disease". </strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong><em>"Those who have much and yearn for nothing have the hardest descent,"</em></strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong> He'd whisper, squeezing my hand between his own callused palms.</strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong><em>"so don't you ever remember to be grateful."</em></strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><strong> But I did forget. I forgot everything he ever taught me after he joined the dead. I forgot everything but my own misery and my own selfish thirst to be nothing like my mother. And in the process, I guess I became just like her.</strong></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> </span></p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';">.................................</span></p></div>
<p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> </span></p>
<div style="text-align:center;"><p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><span style="font-size:18px;"><strong>After</strong></span></span></p></div>
<p><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> My mother's slender fingers pluck uselessly at the lint-covered sweater-dress my older sister donned for the occasion of her book-club, her usually placid expression twisted with annoyance. "I've told you time and time again, Elizabeth," she hisses, her voice low in efforts to mask the words from her eavesdropping compeers. "at least put </span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><em>some</em></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> kind of effort in your dress when you're out with me. It's embarrassing." My sisters lips tilt downwards into a frown that instantly sours her delicate features. "I don't and never will dress for your benefit, mother." An irritated huff is her only response, the Evergreen family matriarch falling silent to steal a brief glance at herself in the mirror. Her slightly-bare lips illicit a frown, fingers hastily disappearing in her black hole of a bag to retrieve her usual red lipstick. My mothers lipstick is an interminable garb to her - to go out without it is reminiscent of death. Her eyes dart to me, the meekest of the three Evergreen sisters and the youngest. "Cami, come put some lipstick on your lips. And brush down your hair heaven-sake, are all my daughters too look like hoodlums?" I nod my assent, hurriedly running a hand through my limp locks of ebony as I stand at my mother's side. I ignore the disdain in my sisters eyes, my reward for my quick compliance when it comes to mom. Dabbing on a bit of lipstick, I look down rather then meeting my hazel eyes in the mirror. I've been endowed with none of the elegance of in my attributes as my family holds. My own features are too wide, too out-landish for one who belongs to the family I do. On a good day, my mother will say the tilt of my eyes are exotic. She'll deem my hawkish-nose an endearing, eye-catching thing even the most bashful of men would never dare shy from. But those occasions are rare - I can see in her eyes every morning the disappointment. It's one out of the many reasons I despise her so. "Cami," speaks June, her hawk-like gaze landing on my feet. "are those my shoes you're wearing, again?" I part my lips to speak the timid no, but my mother's cough interrupts me. It's her audible signal that someone's coming, that it's time for us to quiet like the dutiful daughters we are. And fall into a stoney silence we do, June's eyes fastened resolutely on my shoes, Elizabeth's iron gaze fixed on her reflection in the mirror, and I, my feet, per usual. "Elsadora!" The woman at the door practically purrs the words, throwing a bony arm around my mother as her family trails in after. Ralle's there and I allow the briefest of smiles to touch my lips as I meet his eyes. He mimics my expression, dimples adorning each cheek as our eyes meet. His every glance is enough now to send a cold sweat down my back, and sometimes I can even forget the fact that I'm ugly, undesirable, when I'm basking in his warm gaze. Then he looks away and reality once again hits. When my mom and his have finished the usual greetings her gaze falls on us three. "Junabelle, a wonder in white. It's a wonder my boy Ralle won't stop staring," her tease lightens the mood in the room and pulls the briefest of smiles to my mother's lips. She loves it when her daughters receive compliments. Ralle scarlets, freckles melding with his currently plum-like coloring as he quickly glances away from June. "Thank you, Ms. Herring," my sister speaks, bowing her head in that dutiful way that makes me almost forget what a devil she is when mother's back is turned. "And Elizabeth. It's seems even the most ill-picked of assortments can't blot out the beauty beneath." even her knit-picks are met with an acknowledging smile from my sister that only becomes an audible one when my mother discreetly elbows her in the side. "Now if you don't mind," Ms. Herring speaks, lens rimmed eyes darting to the door she knows from timeless visits contains the living room, I'll retire until the rest arrive." She's forgotten me. The knowledge is enough for me to simply feel the mortification my mother must feel. I push my gaze to the floor, wishing the wall was enough to hide me from the contemptuous expression June shoots me. My mother </span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><em>hem hems</em></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';">, looking from me to Ms. Herring in an obvious way that makes the back of my throat burn. "Oh!" bursts from said woman, a nervous laugh fluttering from her lips that the others quickly match. I try to match their vocals but I feel like a fish, gasping for breath in the background. Her eyes slide up and down my torso as if she's searching for something to compliment. And I don't have to look in the mirror my mother keeps over the door to know my ears are scarlet. "Cami, don't you look delightful." She grits out, before the </span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"><em>clip, clop</em></span><span style="font-family:'Nixie One';"> of her heels retreating into the next room alerts me that she's left. I tear my eyes from the ground with difficulty. It doesn't too make too much of a difference, her forgetting me. It's not like this hasn't ever happened before. I know I'm not an impressionable figure. I'm not pretty, I'm not charismatic, not like my sisters. And yet being ignored still stings at me far worse then my mother's usual nettle. "Cambria, how've you been." Ralle's civility unsuccessfully masks the pity that coats his tone. I meet my best friend's eyes with all of the gusto I can muster given the circumstances. "Just great," I allow sarcasm to touch my words, "but that's to be expected when your housing with two -" my eyes dart to mom then back, "make that three of the devils spawn." It's a shoddy joke, but Ralle still laughs enough for the warmth to thaw my senses. "Aww Cambria, June's not that bad." he says after the chuckles have ceased to caress my ears. His words hurt but I still manage to keep the smile on my lips. "Wouldn't be saying that if you lived with her." I can see in his eyes that he's about to pose one of the questions he's begin asking of me, the ones that make my heart sink. "Does she ever ask about me? Like, just out of curiosity?" A self-conscious hand jumps from his waist to his mane of red hair, freeing some of the locks from where the rest from behind his ears. I shake my head and tear my gaze from the arresting green of his eyes. The doorbell rings and I pull it open, matching the smiles and greetings that are tossed my way as more of my mother's friends and there children clamber in. And the house is once again abuzz.</span>
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