The Perfect Dallas.

Prologue

|staring at my reflection|

|every slight imperfection|

-

The girl stood straight, staring disgustedly at her reflection in the mirror before her. To others, she was beautiful; but they had never once seen her like this.

Her brown hair, once brushed and neat, now fell in sleek unkempt waves up. Her cheeks were puffy and tinted a rosy color. The girl's makeup was smeared around her brown eyes and running down her face. As she looked in the mirror, the girl felt as if her thighs were too close together; her stomach too big. The scars on her hips seemed to stick out more than usual tonight. 

Will I ever be good enough?

The question seemed to echo and bounce off the walls of the empty house she stood in making the girl's stomach churn. Yes, this was the very question she had always been afraid of. There was no doubt that her older brother Cameron or her older sister Sierra would..but her? No. She was a nobody in this world, the opposite of almost every girl. She wasn't mainstream, she didn't have many friends. Art filled the vacant void that was inside of her; the retched feeling of lonliness. 

The girl watched her refelection as her pained expression crumbled. Her bottom lip trembled, and the world around her blurred as tears filled her eyes once more. Dark words swarmed inside her head. 

The very air around her felt as if it were choking her. Her chest was tightening and her hands shook anxiously. The urges were becoming too much. 

Throwing a last glance at herself once more, she stumbled her way to the bathroom.

She shut the door softly behind her and locked it, sliding down until her bottom hit the cool surface of the floor. She flicked the lights off and let a couple soft sobs out.

Why.

She knew what she had to do without a second thought. 

Second drawer to the right, deep inside the expanse it was still there.

The girl picked her way through the dark to get it, reaching inside the cabinet until her fingertips touched the chilled exterior of the lighter and the crusty edge of the clip.

Just pulling it out already calmed her, but still the words were etched across her brain; they swirled in circles, voices of the past spitting out hurtful things to her.

'Outcast.'

'Nobody.'

'Ugly.'

This was the only way to quiet them down.

It went quickly.

She flipped on the lighter and a burst of flame came up; bittersweet orange with lavender blue, a mixed whirlpool of one. 

Then the scorching heat met the tip of the hair piece and it was scalding.

There was no time to waste.

The edge of the clip met her wrist.

One.

Two.

Three..

She lost count, lost sense of time or feeling. The voices faded as she told her self repeadtly:

'You deserve it.'

And Jasmine truly felt as if she did.