𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 | Matt Sturniolo

Twenty Two

Divina was editing, whilst Zian and Laylah lay on the white couch watching Tv with a big, fluffy blanket draped over the pair. Venus had left to her room since she felt unwell at the start of the movie and excused herself. Truth was when the movie ended she had a wave of sadness overcome her as she never gave herself time to process the ongoings of the day before. To the teenager, everything felt like it was falling apart; she was losing connection to her family since she left, she lacked motivation to film videos, she began to stress about the fact that she dropped out of college to pursue this career path and finally the resentment she felt towards Matt only grew as she felt like their friendship ended on his terms.

The girl had no idea how to fix these things and so she felt like she was sinking into quicksand; the more she tried the worse things became. She paced up and down her room, her eyes swelling with tears as she gripped onto her hair feeling a sudden panic take over her. 'What am I actually doing?' She thought to herself, 'look how fucking stupid you look, you need to pattern up, it's embarrassing.' Her eyesight grew blurry and her vision impaired as she looked desperately around the room as she searched for something to fix. Venus walked over to her bookshelf and took all the books off that were messily placed. Her eyes cleared up and her breathing calmed as she concentrated on putting the books in order of height, making sure they were all the same distance from each end of the shelf.

Half the books were organised, when her heart beat began to race again. This time, she had enough, she dropped the books and grabbed her keys from the desk and hurried out her door not caring about her appearance. Her friends called after her as she left however the girl couldn't disifer what they were saying as she felt as though time was speeding up. She turned the key in the slot of the old Kia and pulled out of the car park. Venus didn't know where she was going, she didn't know why she was going, all she knew was that she was gone and was driving with no destination.

After ten minutes of driving, she felt calm and pulled to the side of the road. She had no idea where she was but didn't mind. Her head rested against the steering wheel as she ran her hands through her messy hair. She mentally composed herself, trying to silence the loud thoughts in her head replacing them with the self affirmations she learnt in therapy years ago. Venus returned back to her normal state and checked her surroundings to see if she recognized the area. To her surprise, she was only two roads away from her family home. Almost immediately, she turned on the exhaust and headed to the house deciding to visit since she was there already.

The teenager knocked on the large brown door hearing yelling and then light footsteps running towards the door. To her relief her younger sister Lina opened the door; the second she realized it was Venus she jumped into her arms wrapped her arms around her neck.

"Venus!" The little girl cried happily.

"Hey Lina I missed you so much! Have you grown? You seem taller," the girl replied.

"Yeah that's what everyone has said, I just started high school this month so I bet that's what made me grow!" Lina exclaimed. Lina was six years younger than Venus and had a different father to her. Her dad left when she was younger without a word and so was raised by a single mum. However, her mum blamed Venus for her father leaving and made sure she felt as guilty as possible to the point where she'd feel crazy as she didn't know what she did. As she grew older, she realized it was not her fault he left and that her mother had issues and didn't know how to deal with them. So she left. Only, she hated anyone who had a problem with her and wouldn't give her a reason as to why, which explained why she acted the way she did towards Matt.

In a way she felt sympathetic towards her mother as she knew she was just bottling up her emotions and needed an outlet but she hated her for mistreating her and using her to release the built anger she had her entire childhood.