picture: you put me on and said I was your favourite

thirteen

~ epilogue: twenty years later ~

Her high heels click against the floorboards of her old bedroom with a rhythmic cadence as she wanders across the small space. It's the same as she remembered, only filled with ghosts of the past. Every surface and every corner reminded her of the memories she thought she didn't care about anymore. But being back here, standing amidst the suffocating smell of smoke from the ashes burned a long time ago, she admitted she was wrong.

It still haunted her.

As if on cue, she stepped on a hardwood floorboard that echoed a hollow sound underneath her. Another wave of discarded fear resurfaced within her, as she bent down to open the floorboards under her bed. Dust rose in a small fluff of cloud and she blew through it. She stuck her hand in the compact space and her fingers grazed the woolen material. She let them slide over the patches of stars that once reminded her of healed scars. Now it felt like they were wounded open again. She lifted it close to her face and inhaled slowly.

It smelled like dates on the High Line and kissing between streetlights. Like the cobblestone pathway to his home and the bloodstain on her heart that wouldn't wash away. It smelled like it was woven with all her whims, fears and dreams. Like Peter Pan decided to stay in Neverland after all.

With a shaky breath that shattered her soul, Betty cradled her old cardigan.

~•~

She left her home after high school graduation and pursued her musical career. Between countless sleepless nights spent by writing songs and loud cheers of crowd of thousands in a stadium, Betty found something she truly loved. The response to her deep-rooted songs from the world was unexpected, so she didn't take a second of her lavish life for granted and worked at her best. For her mother. For her fans. And for herself.

Even then, from time to time, she craved for a love that was exhilarating and maddening and peaceful all at once. She's had her fair share of boyfriends and affairs over the years, but she had experienced the intoxicating kind of love just once. When she wasn't as naïve as people assumed she was.

Sitting on her old piano with one broken key in her old living room, her cardigan beside her, Betty let her fingers hum a tune on their own. She closed her eyes and let the flashes run. Soon enough, she started singing words to a song that would finally help her let go.

"Vintage tee..."

~•~

the end