Fabricated Assurance

If you didn't know her very well, you'd think that she was very put together.

      She had one of those houses that was almost so clean and perfect that you didn’t feel comfortable. Her floors were always so clean and shiny, you almost felt like you shouldn’t walk on them. The kitchen counters were always crumb-less, and every object had its own jar or bowl to live in. The table had a wrinkle-less table cloth with a bowl of shiny fruit placed exactly in the middle. There was a basket of rolled up blankets next to the couch, which had all if it’s cushions plump and in place. A plant sat neatly next to the fireplace, each one of its leaves the same shiny green. Everything had a place and was put in its place. On the outside.

      If you dug a little deeper, if you grabbed the shiny handle to open the clean cabinet doors, you would find something completely different on the inside. The hidden shelves were dusty and had random objects piled dangerously high. A jump rope tangled around a grocery bag full of dirty wadded up clothes was underneath a book covered in coffee stains, which had a tangled ball of yarn sitting on top of it, next to a half-melted candle. All this and more was shoved in the cabinet with markers and pens sprinkled over the pile. Inside the kitchen cabinets, bowls that could have easily been stacked were thrown in at random. In the pantry, only few cans stood upright while the rest lay on their sides, rocking a little if you shut the freshly wiped door too hard.

      Very few people had seen inside her room, she always kept the door shut. If by some chance, she had left it open, which scarcely ever happened, they might assume she was in the process of packing or unpacking, or maybe rearranging her room. A laundry basket of unfolded clothes and random items sat on the floor against the wall next to two broken lamps. There were multiple cups on multiple surfaces. Only half the dresser drawers were properly shut. The ends of random object poked out from under her unmade bed which had a blanket crumbled up in the middle of a dirty fitted sheet that only clung to three corners. Shoes were sprinkled around the whole room, sometimes accompanied by a wadded piece of clothing. The blinds hung at an angle across the window, one side drooping all the way to the window sill, while it's opposite end stayed proudly holding its position in the middle.

      Her social life was strikingly similar. People knew her as someone who was organized and motivated. She worked long shifts as a nurse while still attending medical classes to further her degree. Her boyfriend of three years was a surgeon. They had a standing date night every Thursday night and she stayed at his house every other weekend. No one had ever seen them argue and there was a rumor that someone had seen him looking at rings in a jewelry store.

      What people didn’t know was that when she wasn’t at class or work or with her boyfriend, she spent most her time snorting coke and fucking guys whose names she didn’t know.

      She worked so hard at hiding her loneliness and insecurities, at hiding her brokenness. She tried so hard to feel like she wished she felt. She wasn’t quite sure which one was the real her. In fact, she assumed neither were. She faked her smile no matter which of her lives she was living, wondering why she even bothered living at all.