#houndfox

wren kwon never considered herself the type of girl to, god, homeschool. perhaps the only thing she ever considered lower was public school. no, wren was raised a girl of culture and class. she was a respectable young lady from an upper-middle class family thank you very much. a humble student of an elite state private school, with a price tag of $40,000 a year and students to match. it was here this young ten year old made her way to eleven.

then… twelve. twelve really was when it all collapsed isn’t it? when everything hit at once — the exhaustion, the anxiety, the acute awareness she was falling behind. she was raised into private school, the glamorous world where girls handed over $40 lipsticks like trinkets, where everyone knew you never went into the gender neutral bathrooms that smelled just a bit too wrong, where girls talked about starvation and boys passed around liquor and weed. never dreamed of anything else.

but… in eighth grade, she did the unthinkable. she dropped out. really, she should have handled it the way every other respectable girl in her grade did — attempted suicide, went off the rails, and got hospitalized before returning skinnier, prettier, and drugged out of her mind. the drugs probably would have fixed whatever was wrong with her.

instead she broke down. was just a bit too splintered, a bit too young to handle it. she was subjected to homeschool, lonely, classless, homeschool. and god did she miss it. casual offers of drugs, alcohol, sex. she wasn’t relevant, sure, but she knew enough people to be liked in her circles. now? she drifts in between two worlds. monachopsis, it’s called, the subtle feeling of not belonging. her friends are public school girls, new money that wasn’t raised into the same circles she was. girls that will never understand the feeling of sobbing, begging your friend to push you in front of the train, and her offering you vodka instead.

no, this little bird lives in a nest that is molding from the inside out. she buried her shredded heart and lungs deep in the nest, walked away from the one place she felt at home in, walked away from the place that would have torn her open and eaten her guts. she chose comfort over perseverance, and maybe that will be her undoing.

but wren is covering up the rot, covering up the sharp girl that used to be. she has softened herself, tied ribbons over gaping wounds, painted a beautiful porcelain mask of pinks and blues and yellows that cover the black and red interior. her friends fall for the mask, having never met her at a point where the blood and rot was on display. maybe that’s for the better.

until he comes along. that infuriating boy. they hate each other. she misses him. wren… wren had never had the highest opinion of herself. forgot that through her rot bloomed flowers she gave to others. kindness, pure kindness, is rare, and it is remembered. wren was remembered, looked back upon with an air of affection and gratitude.

he needs a favor. her sway, her connections. a rumor and its source expunged. and for a moment, on that homecoming patio in the chilling october air, wren, who had long forgotten that name, had looked in the mirror and fallen for the mask herself, was herself. a sharp girl with sharper eyeliner. she revels in it, remembers herself for the first time. she is irresistibly drawn back into her old life, a life she promised herself to never return to. but wren is nothing if not a sinner, the patron saint of lies. and in a months time, she will be draped in velvet, sipping champagne, and she will never feel more at home.