She had made a poor job of hiding the damage. She thought her bright smile covered it all. And it was a dazzling smile, she had always been told so. One that could light up a room, or so the saying went. But the bulbs that used to illuminate it had dimmed and a few had even cracked. But she went on with the smile anyways.
What she didn't try to cover with her smile eked out of every pore of her. She kept up with her signature rose perfume and lotion, but let other things slip aside so that she didn't smell of a rose bush, but of the dirt beneath it with the fallen, crumbling petals of the roses.
The lotion wasn't spread as carefully and meticulously as it was in the past. Instead it was put on a few places, which she figured were the only real places that needed attention. While this meant soft hands and elbows, it created a stark contrast if anyone ever felt beyond her palm. It was as though she was put together in pieces.
In a way, she was.
Her voice had never been a thing of lyrical beauty, this she knew, but it still carried her character and her emotions over it's near misses of notes. Now though, she forced the air through her voice box and it was strained, barely holding together the series of words. At times she put on airs through her voice, but they all rang false.
She thought only she noticed that things were slightly off, but she was wrong. Surely no one paid that close attention, she reassured herself. She was showing everything was fine. No one would give her a pitying stare or dare to ask how she was doing because she was fine. She was fine. Fine.
But she was wrong.
Those who knew and loved her had observed her habits for a very long time. The noticed the changes. They watched her fade. Yet every time they tried to approach the subject of the damage, she quickly retreated and instead asked how they were. She would quietly resent them for answering the question and dropping it. Part of her knew that wasn't fair, wasn't even rational, but that didn't defeat the damage twisting her mind.
Her patience also showed the damage. Things that may have been small annoyances before, such as a the metronome of a dripping sink or the muffled arguments of her neighbors set her on edge. That edge had a steeper drop off too. Before she thought she could see the bottom, could see how angry she'd get and pull herself back from it, but now it was blurred or cloudy or...she couldn't quiet tell. She just knew that she couldn't see the bottom of it, but that while the bottom felt closer to her, it was actually much farther. She would dive off the edge and keep diving and diving and diving, not hitting the bottom, but hitting any bit of lush greenery that reached out a limb to her on the way down. She was never sure how she stopped diving, but eventually she would. It was as though waking from a falling dream.
If her loved ones noticed this, they were kind enough to ignore it or at least keep their complaints amongst themselves. She feared it was the latter and that one day she would wake and find herself alone. All for the damage.
She sought out repairs, she truly did, but the damage did not allow for quick jobs. She had to painstakingly rebuild and each brick she put in was small, but weighed a ton. The damage had almost completely destroyed her, but almost was a key word. She would not let the damage fully destroy her.
And so she picked up the next brick.
(Prompt from The Most Dangerous Random Prompt Generator, suggested by Emily Kleeman)
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