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Her aunt once said that Paulina would tear the wings of angels off just for the fun of it. At the time, Paulina had brushed it off as the words of an angry mother, had buried it alongside the other little words that would come when she did something she probably shouldn’t have. At the time, it had buried itself in deep, an invisible burr that tugged and scratched whenever she let herself think about what she was doing.
And she did think about it, is the thing. At night, sometimes, it would come back to her, itching and tearing and tugging and she’s never been good at the guilt thing, really. It would come back and she would find a way to drag it back where it belonged because in the light of day, cruel and cold and bright, she would link arms with her friends and the world was hers to hold. It was hers and so little was .
Paulina knew she was lucky. Her parents had good jobs, great jobs, had clawed their way up and made themselves a nook, and had drawn her and her siblings up with it too. She knew she was lucky, knew it in the words of her cousins, knew it in the lights that flickered in their eyes when she teased them about it, knew it in the way her father had stepped in front of her and said no more to a man’s wandering eyes who later went on to get caught with a hand and a laptop and a cousin who didn’t like to talk very much anymore at all.
Paulina knew she was lucky and she was happy most of the time. It was easy to get caught up in all of it, in following the social scripts she knew well, in keeping equilibrium, and if someone got hurt, well. It was the name of the game and some people just needed to learn it better. And, maybe, Paulina knew very well that her own position was as precarious as Valerie’s in the end. Proof of concept.
And the thing is, she isn’t sure there is much to her outside of it, outside this game, because she is so fucking angry all the time. She is so angry, burning up inside and she doesn’t even know why, just knows it spills out and her lips move and someone is crying and for an awful moment it feels good. It feels like power incarnate in her fists. When it gets quiet, when the night buzzes outside in street lamps and passing cars, she feels like she is suffocating, like she is drowning under it and it is all she can do to breathe, all she can do not to do- something. Something. She doesn’t know what it is but knows it buzzes in her veins, hot and angry and boiling over.
She wants to be kind. She doesn’t know how, or she does, but she doesn’t know how to be when her friends are at her side and a long slippery slide to victimhood would be her reward. She is lucky and she doesn’t want to let go of it even as her situation burns and boils in equal turn, even as she fights to keep the favor of the older girls, the juniors and seniors who hold the keys to the kingdom and maybe Paulina is angry. Maybe she doesn’t want to fight for basic fucking safety and respect, but isn’t that what she forces everyone else to do for her? For them?
She doesn’t know what to do. Paulina doesn’t know how to change this, how to change herself. She doesn’t know if she wants to. It is so much easier to use the things she loves even if she has to pay the price, pay the piper, music and lipstick and makeup and photography and cheerleading and dancing and Danny Phantom and her friends and being looked at, being loved, being known .
It’s easier except it is not. It’s just easier than the alternative.