There’s a kind of woman who never arrives; she unfolds.
Over a decade spent in mirrored elevators and manicured boardrooms, she had become a master of silent performance.
Every meeting, every greeting, every closed deal was stitched into the careful fabric of her — a woman with lips just red enough, skin just smooth enough, a laugh rehearsed to perfection.
She didn’t always feel like this new face was hers.
But somewhere along the promotions and the new offices and the sterile birthday cakes signed by interns, she convinced herself: a wrinkle is a weakness, a shadow under the eye is a crack in the armor.
To survive in a world where first impressions lived longer than promises, she became a fortress of porcelain and powder.
Until that Sunday.
No alarm. No urgency.
No layer of foundation to press the tiredness away.
She left the house with nothing but the ghost of who she had been before the performance began.
The air outside felt colder without the mask. Or maybe it was just that she felt it for the first time in years.
The sidewalks didn’t bow to her sharp heels today — she wore sneakers that didn’t announce her arrival.
Heads didn’t turn.
No doors were hurriedly held open.
She became, for the first time, unimportant.
And strangely — hauntingly — it didn’t kill her.
Somewhere between the coffee shop’s chipped tables and the peeling posters on the street corners, she realized she could disappear — and it would not be a tragedy.
Not yet sure if it was the beginning of her unmaking, or the first real step into herself…
but as she crossed the street, hair tangled by the wind, lips bare and unpainted, she almost smiled.
Almost.
English
Leave a Reply