Work Text:
When Ib stumbles out of the Guertena Exhibit and into her mother’s arms, she knows that she’s missing something. Knows that she’s lost something important; can feel the empty space where another hand should be laced with hers.
She clutches at the hollow space in her heart the whole drive home.
She’s different now, she thinks. She feels too old, she feels too young. She feels like there’s much more inside her than any person could handle.
The girls at her school are uninteresting - she can’t relate to them, they never smile quite right. She longs for someone to tug her this way and that, to swaddle her in pretty lies and tell her that their every fantasy can come true. So long as they’re together.
She walks home alone.
Across the street, a man lights his cigarette. Ib keels over and vomits.
Her father buys her a dress - lush green velvet with a white Peter Pan collar. Her mother clicks her tongue, complains about how it won’t suit her, but her father shushes her.
“She’s been staring at it nearly every day,” he whispers. “Leave her be just this once, surely you’ve noticed how lifeless she’s seemed.”
Ib never wears it, can’t bring herself to when it just feels so wrong. Instead, she lays it out beside her on her bed.
She pulls her quilt over them, kisses it goodnight, and wraps her arms around it.
Hours later, Ib wakes up with her wet face still pressed into the fabric.
Alone.