Ace (HS)

Smiles

It felt as though the walls were watching her as she padded down the all too familiar hallway. She could hear them screaming at her, laughing through their chipped paint and torn plaster. She could feel them eyeing her dress, the same one she had worn the night before, the fabric hanging lazily off her bare shoulder and bunched up at her thighs. She had been in a rush to put it on that morning, her nimble hands working to pull the dress over her matted head of hair. It was humiliating in the least, having to walk down the streets of London at six in the morning with the same clothes from the day before, and her suede heels in her hand.

She hated feeling humiliated- mocked.

But most of all, she hated this place. It was achingly familiar to her, but no matter how many nights she had slept in the tattered mattress laying on the floor of her small bedroom, and no matter how often she would stare up at the ceiling and count the borderless images she could make out in the chipped stucco- she would never, ever call this place home.

It was ironic how only an hour ago she had woken up in a lavish room, with a man made of money laying by her side against the satin bed sheets. She dreamt of waking up like that every morning; smelling the rich paint on the walls surrounding her, looking out the window at the extravegent view.

It was unfair that the people who were born with such privileges took them for granted.

Her hand dug into her small clutch, ignoring the stack of pounds and reaching for the set of keys underneath it. She looked like a mess and she knew it, she knew it all too well. Her dark eyes were abnormally unsure of themselves, a sense of vulnerability mixing in with the hues of brown. Her shoulders, which were normally pulled back by her confidence, were slumped with fatigue. When Mr. Styles had said all night, he truly meant all night.

He had finally pulled his body off of hers, reluctantly, at about three in the morning, giving Carmen only two hours of sleep before she woke up and silently fled his apartment. She hadn't felt an ounce of guilt for leaving him again so suddenly. She had left a note on the pillow in hopes of compensating for her mysterious absence.

The familiar sound of labored breathing was audible as she took a step into the small space of the apartment. A tired sigh escaped her lips.

"Morning," she mumbled to the rounded figure laying on the couch in the cramped front room. She didn't recieve any sort of greeting in return, only the rhythm of congested breathing, a sound she had grown to dislike.

He was still asleep, she concluded as she took a closer look, his papery eyelids closed and his thick arm hanging from the edge of the couch like it was a withered branch. Lifeless. If it wasn't for the deep breaths sounding from his chest, one would've thought he was as dead as the potted fern in the corner of the room.

Carmer rolled her eyes, silently praising herself for getting there before he woke up.

She headed down the slim hall before coming upon the small room at the end of it. It was her room.

The many nights spent in it seemed like an endless blur. The young tears that stained the mattress on the floor, along with the irremovable splotch of crimson that would forever remind her of the night she gave up her last bit of innocence. The small desk in the corner that she hardly used anymore, where she could imagine a younger version of herself sitting and humming a soft, happy tune.

Her least favorite spot in the room, the one that always made a distasteful scowl spread onto her beautiful face, was the framed picture hanging from the wall by the small window. It was a woman, no older than herself, who would actually be easily mistaken for Carmen. Her eyes were just as dark, though a bit softer in their gaze. Her hair was black and long. Carmen often found herself staring in the mirror, with a pair of scissors in her hand, wanting so desperately to chop off her long locks, just so to lessen the resemblance between her and the woman in the picture.