Dots

Acceptance

Genevieve stared at her reflection and watched her prosperous future whither and die.

She tried to recall when everything had started going south but the more she thought about it, the more the realisation struck her. Her whole life was a road map to failure from day zero.

Genevieve was born on an elevator, heading downwards, ironically. She was born underweight, underground, whilst her mother had been under the influence of nicotine and cheap booze. She was raised alone by her mother as an undervalued mistake and never taught to be understood. She thought life was pretty unbearable then, as a neglected child but then somehow it got worse.

Genevieve got pretty.

Not just pretty for a kid but that unnatural pretty that irks normal people. Genevieve's mother however was not a normal person and where others saw the unnatural, she saw dollar bills.
She started working at age 8 as the poster girl for a local clothing chain. By 10 she'd moved on to bigger things and by 13 she was a sought after model. Her mother took special interest in her during this time, not to make up for a lost childhood, but for the insurance of a successful investment. She groomed, conditioned and moulded her daughter into a symbol of beauty, instead of a good person so it shouldn't have shocked her that much when Genevieve emancipated herself at age 16 and cut all ties from her mother, especially the financial ones. Genevieve didn't care that she could no longer live where she was raised, she had enough money for a new house and a whole new life. She had her looks to live off so she focused on that.
By age 18 when she should've been studying for a further education she was touring for modeling agencies and being trained by the best in the industry to be the greatest model ever.
It never occurred to Genevieve how unstable her future was or what drugs the people that managed her pumped her with or why. She was raised to do as she was told and be pretty.
By 26 the effects of the drugs began to show. She began losing unhealthy amounts of weight, some of her vital organs began acting up and she found out she could never be pregnant (not that she'd wanted to be, considering her memories of childhood).
Genevieve was cast away like leftovers and replaced by another pretty face because there's always another pretty face.

Now she's 27, with no one and nothing but her own tainted reflection in the hospital mirror. Her discolored skin is tight on her bones, her once beautiful hair is flat and falling, her eyes are dull and echoing ghosts of what could've been a life of superficial satisfaction.
Cancer, the doctors had said.
From the drugs she'd been using.
She had prosperous future as a model.
Now she was the poster girl for bad decisions.
Underweight.
Underachieving.
Under the influence of medical marijuana.
She was just a shadow of her unstable mother and a product of her unfortunate life.

"Should I take it away?"
Genevieve stopped wallowing in self pity and turned to look at the doctor in the doorway with confusion.
"What?"
"The mirror, it seems to be upsetting you," the doctor replied with a smile and Genevieve vaguely processed how wonderful his smile made him look. Not because he was handsome but because in the 27 years she'd been alive, she'd never once received such a genuine smile.
"Leave the mirror, it helps me reminisce," Genevieve replied after a long silence before looking back at mirror and smiling.

Genevieve had a dreadful, successful, tragic and tremendous life.
Maybe her future had withered and died but her past teemed with stories of the beautiful moments in between all of the bad ones.
She had visited every country she'd ever wanted to.
She'd been famous growing up.
She'd been able to grasp independence at a young age and stay just above rock bottom.
Maybe it was the weed kicking in but life suddenly didn't seem so bad.
Genevieve smiled at her reflection and vaguely registered the voice of the doctor telling her what was wrong with her.
She nodded like she understood, watched the doctor leave through the mirror and then finally walked away from the mirror.

She never really had much of a future anyway.