Turn 12 of 17

You keep denying that any of it meant anything, even as your intellect drops. Perfect but overdone glam makeup covers your face as your nails grow longer and sparklier. Little tattoos write them down you body as mia pushes your lower back giding you through the changing house

"It didn't mean anything," you say, and your voice is getting simpler, the sentences arriving pre-trimmed, like someone is editing you from the inside. "Like, none of it. They were nothing, okay? It was, um — it was just, like, nothing."

You hear yourself say it and it sounds so dumb. That's the thing you can't quite grab hold of — the words are getting smaller, your thoughts coming slower, each one a little rounder and fluffier than the last, and it doesn't feel like losing anything. It feels like relaxing.

In the mirror, makeup paints itself on. A soft brush of warmth sweeps your eyelids, shadow blooming in shimmery champagne and smoke; liner draws itself along your lash lines in two perfect wings; lashes thicken into false-looking fans; blush lands high on your bronze cheeks; and your plush lips go glossy in a nude-pink shine. Contour, highlight, brows brushed up and laminated — a full glam face, overdone and flawless, applied by no one, in about four seconds.

Your nails go next. The pastel almonds lengthen into long glossy stilettos, and fine glitter wakes inside the pink like suspended stars, sparkling every time your fingers tremble.

Then the tattoos. Tiny, delicate lines write themselves across your skin — a little bow on your hip, a whisper of script along your ribs, a dainty heart high on your thigh, stars trailing your shoulder blade. Each one stings briefly, each one is pretty, and each one marks you like a signature on work that's finished.

"Okay, sweetheart," Mia says, and her palm presses warm against your lower back, guiding you away from the mirror, out of the bright bathroom and into the dark hallway. Your heels — bare feet, high arches — learn to walk as she steers you, one small step at a time, through the changing house.

"Enough excuses. Time to get you dressed."