All alone inside (freewrite)

There is no one in the room tonight to hear her, although it's by far not the first time this will happen and most certainly not the last. She stares through her pretty eyes at the woman in the mirror and lets out a long shriek, like she's out of breath and she's run up the stairs only to find a dead body at the top.
She has.
But the body is hers. She dabs at her cheeks, pretty in pink, lightly at first, then she begins slamming them, slapping her face and scrubbing, anything just to get her face off, to find the real. But the real is gone, the only thing she finds, at the bottom, when she's erased all the makeup and all the pretty is bones. A skull, of sorts, although it's dusty and looks a bit tired.
And Claire stares at the skull, through her tears and waves. This could be a surprise, if it were somebody else, but it's not. It's her and she knows her, she knew what she would find, there's just no kidding herself about that. She touches the glass, the cold mirror under her skin vibrates and ripples. How could she do this? She wishes she had the guts to just end it all right here, she'd like to smash her fist through the mirror and destroy every bit of her, murder her own reflection. Yeah, she'd like that. She wishes she could kill the skeleton.
No, not kill it. She wishes she could revive it, bring it back to life, but she can't because she's sold that and it's all used up. All her life, her smiles and her fate. Besides, even if she tried to slit her wrists, he would probably find her. All prettied out and her makeup smudged over her face, but still her. And he would succeed in bringing her back because she's here and she is his. She belongs to him now, she's given herself to him, she's signed her name on the dotted line.
Her name.
And now, it's not her own anymore. So, she cries in silence and does nothing. She is such a sell-out.

She stares at the woman in the mirror, at the tears and all the sadness that has clouded her pretty face for such a long time. She tried her best to perk up the sad little woman, she tried dabbing all sorts of lotions and oils in to make her pretty again. She tried to get the woman to smile, to paint her cheeks red, because maybe then, she could put some glimmer of happiness back into the woman in the mirror. But nothing has worked, it seems, and she is growing desperate.
The woman in the mirror, in a fit of rage has rubbed off all the pretty makeup only to reveal an ugly, bitter woman beneath. And now she cries, staring helplessly at her own reflection.

And the skull in the mirror wonders who that woman is, when she became such a shadow of her former self and what she can do to make the woman happy again. She doesn't seem to be any closer to an answer. She's done what she can.
Maybe one day, looking at her reflection she'll realize how good she's got it.
The woman in the mirror, the one with tears running down her disheveled, broken face, seems to have forgotten all that she lived for, in the unspoken tragedies of her secret life. And it scares the skull in the mirror.
She sometimes fears for the little woman's life, she fears that one day, also in a fit of rage, she won't stop at wiping off the pretty makeup that the skull has so carefully applied. Maybe she will hit the glass and cut her wrists with a broken shard of her own face.
The woman thinks about that, as the skull well knows.
No, no. He would find her, he would save her. The woman is more to him than his own life, surely he would not let her die. The skull knows that this pains the man greatly, to see her so sad, so lost in the shadows. The skull knows that he's always loved her, she remembers how, in the beginning, he would bring her a flower everyday. A rose, or perhaps a popinjay. But no, that's not what the flower's called. It's not a flower at all, is it? It's the name for something else, but the skull cannot remember.
Anyway, the man stopped bringing her flowers because she would throw them all and shred them up to bits.
But in his hears, he still brings her a flower. Maybe a rose. And the skull knows it.
She just wishes the crying woman in the mirror would know it, too.

Today's prompt word was 'sell-out', which indeed, has many meanings. Hope you liked it. Check out @mariannewest's blog to join our happy community of freewriters.

Thank you for reading,

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