Stripes...

One stripe of black, one stripe of purple, one stripe of black. She held out her hand to admire her nails. Maybe she should paint an iridescent layer on top? Something to really catch the light. She did love a good sparkle. 

One stripe of black, one stripe of purple, one stripe of black. She brushed out her hair. Maybe she should braid it. Mix the purple into the black. Get a zig zag of color going down her back. 

She looked over her closet. Should she wear the black or the black today? She chose the black.

Black jeans, black cap sleeve t-shirt with the deep V neck, black boots with silver buckles. 

Black eyeliner, black mascara, purple lipstick. One stripe of black, one stripe of purple, one stripe of black. When you had a signature look, you had a signature look, after all.

She had been homeschooled and so had missed that time during middle school and high school where all anyone wanted was to look like everyone else. She had always just wanted to look like herself. Her mother had encouraged it. Her father had...

Well her father had left shortly after she was born so she didn't know what he wanted exactly. Her mother only talked about him sparingly. Her mother had loved him at one time. She wanted her to understand that. That he wasn't a bad man, he was just not the man she had hoped he would be. But sometimes people aren't. Sometimes people can't be who we need them to be but that doesn't make them bad. Just human. 

She had overheard her aunt saying he had wanted her to look like him, and she didn't, so he took off. Which when she was younger had confused her. After all she looked just like her mother, and he obviously thought that was just fine. When she got older she understood. Fuck the patriarchy.

Though maybe that wasn't fair. 

Maybe he knew he was too weak to stay. To deal with all that being her father would entail. Maybe he actually really did them all a favor by understanding that what she would need was strong role models and he wasn't. But she didn't really believe that. She didn't think she was being unfair. The way her aunt rolled her eyes whenever his name was mentioned let her know. She really believed if she had looked more like him, or like him at all, he would have stayed. 

If she had been born with blonde hair and blue eyes and little pink nails with perfect white half moons. 

But she hadn't. 

One stripe of black, one stripe of purple, one stripe of black. 

She was her mother's child. No hiding it at all.