Side Story: Orla

May 1990

She almost cried as she tried to slip her strapped heel over her foot. As it came off it snagged on her big toe and she bit her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming.

She throws the heels, they scatter along the hardwood floor, stopping with two thumps against the wall.

She lays her ankle on top of the knee of her other leg and uses her fingers to gently lift her big toe. The edge of her nail is detached from her skin, she has a feeling that if she moves the nail, there’s a good chance it’ll come clean off.

Scarlet blood trails down her foot. Her other toe nails aren’t in better shape. She presses the toenails of her other foot against the floor to test how sore they are and groans as the hot pain courses through her nerves.

Limping, she goes to her vanity and slumps on the chair. She flips the tiny switch on the underside of the table and the yellow bulbs aligning her oval mirror flicker on.

She leans her face closer, her arms folded in front of her. Her eyes were pink, her eyeliner had been irritating her eyesight all night. Her eyeshadow was smudged, making her look like she had two black eyes.

The dead skin of her chapped lips stuck out in bright red, the lipstick having traveled in a line below her bottom lip. She thought she had developed lines of her forehead.

Strands of her hair stuck to the sides of her cheeks and she tries to fix the hair-sprayed rat’s nest that’s become the elaborate hairdo her mother had insisted she wore.

She thinks she looks disgusting.

She twists off the cap of her to her facial cream. The soft white surface shows the telltale signs of daily use, a testament to how methodical and practiced her beauty routine is.

She applies a dollop of cream to her cheek and slowly rubs. Her eyes remained fixed on themselves in the mirror, a gaze that betrayed her exhaustion, loathing and disappointment.

She scooped a handful of cream into her other hand and mushed it against her other cheek. She rigorously spread the cream all over her face, rubbing both palms up and down to coat her entire face.

The cream burns her already irritated eyes and slips into her dry mouth. She uncovers her face and stares at the face looking back at her. She looks like a clown, her eyebrows and eyelashes completely bathed in cream.

She wants to scream.

Taking a small towel from her drawer she roughly wipes at her face, feeling the skin beneath the fabric ignite. Her face will probably be red and patchy in the morning.

She stands up, almost crying when she touches her toes to the ground. Gasping, she reaches behind her and unzips her dress. It lands unceremoniously around her feet. She quickly pulls off the stupid sash they gave her.

She looks at her for a moment and thinks of taking the scissors to this too. No, Prudence will surely make a fuss about that. She lets the sash fall to the floor.

She steps out from the pool of dress around her feet and picks up the scratchy, tight and sweaty pink gown she had been imprisoned in all night. She remembers going with Prudence to pick this out.

She didn’t like the giant puffy slaves but Prudence had said that if she wanted to win she would need to be more beautiful than she was. Your face isn’t enough my darling.

She holds up the dress to eye level, the fabric tightly grasped in her hands. She waits a second, just a second to think. But that’s never mattered. Whatever she decides to ever do she always does it no matter what.

She jerks her arms out, hearing a loud and terrible tear. The rip stops before the dress can be severed in half. She moves her hands down the exposed seams and rips the last bit of resistance.

She lets the two halves of what used to be one whole of her dress sink to the floor.

She strips off her underclothes and crawls underneath her pastel pink blanket, she breathes in the familiarity of the smell. Clicking off the lamp on her bedside table she stares into the dark.

She’ll have to make up a good lie to tell Prudence tomorrow. However, she might not care. She had done what Prudence had wanted, she had won. There’s nothing more important than that.

She didn’t feel anything about her win. Nothing when they announced her name, nothing when they crowned her, nothing when they had taken her picture and she smiled big for the camera.

As she gave her speech — thanking all those who voted, telling her family how much she loved them, mentioning her boyfriend by name — she felt a numbness within her.

It was just another thing. One more public display that told everyone else how beautiful she was. Lies on lies on lies on lies on lies

Now that this competition has been overcome, it has become as important as being called pretty by a creepy older man. Soon enough Prudence would find something else, another thing for her daughter to best the other more ugly girls at.

She couldn’t deny that she got a sick satisfaction from beating down those who were physically inferior to her, her victory only counted if she got to look into the faces of those poor idiots she had triumphed over.

The sash, the crown, the floors, the cameras that was all just noise.

She could never convince herself she was the prettiest, the smartest and the kindest but she knew that she was at least prettier than most. The bar so low in a place like this.

Watching the defeat in their eyes gave her for a moment the small peace of knowing she was enough. It never lasted but she had spent her whole life just chasing those precious moments where she was. Where her struggle against herself quieted for a brief second.

The hours after, when she would come home and walk alone into her room were the worst. All those doubts, all those pressures would come forth with a swift cruelty that left her feeling like she wanted to die.

The title of Spring Queen had meant nothing, she had not gained new knowledge of herself and unbeknownst to her, was sinking deeper into that dark pit from where she would never escape.