She smashed the porcelain doll her boyfriend bought her for Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice. She crushed its beautiful, frail, smooth face into an expressionless benign dust. Sobbing, she cut into its carefully crafted dress and wondered if killing herself would be worth his satisfaction. The shards of intricate fabric sitting on her bed irritated her further and she paced up and down the abandoned house. She could hear the television on downstairs. Her family had left it that way when they went college surfing for her brother. The noise had been comforting. Now she wanted to turn it off.

Killing herself wasn’t worth it.

She entered into the kitchen, pulled out a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream, and began to shovel it straight out of the carton, accidentally spilling some of it onto her pants as she did so. Her pink fucking poseur rave pants, she reflected, feeling almost regretful (for the calorie content, pants, and, most importantly, the doll). Her life wasn’t going the way she had been hoping it would, even the previous day. Slamming the ice cream container onto the table, she stood up, picked up the phone, and cradled it to her ear. The dial tone’s buzzing felt like it was drilling into her hung-over skull. Maybe she should leave it off the hook, but she didn’t, because someone might try to get through.

The telephone didn’t ring. She didn’t expect it to, but this had not kept her from waiting. The sunset on the other side of the blinds left lines on her kitchen walls. She was feeling dizzy. She followed the lines to the refrigerator and took out orange juice. OJ will kill you, ha ha ha hyuk. She sipped it from the carton, staring blindly out at her masses of purple hair, then, suddenly sick of the taste, put it back. Nothing could make her feel better. She felt for the family’s address book in the junk drawer, and, finally extracting it, crossed out his name. Feeling a little more satisfied, she spat on it and blended the ink together to form a formless blob. The paper wrinkled under the moisture and she snapped it shut. She put the melted ice cream back into the freezer and took out a soda from the fridge.

No she wasn’t the suicide type. Soda consuming the roof of her mouth. Coca-Cola ate away at slab of steak, imagine what it could do to her. Think intestines. She didn’t want to die. She really just wanted to sleep. Her room still had that fucking doll in it. She chugged her soda, emitted an unsatisfying belch, and went into the living room where the crouch beckoned.

No, she wasn’t going to think about it. Not here, in the room so carefully crafted by her mother to be ideal. She’d even put teddy bears onto the shelf above the television. What a benign, unaware woman. So sickening. That’s what the memory kept bugging her – her mother could never have imagined it for her innocent darling. Her babydoll dropping X, drinking, sleeping with her boyfriend. Waking up naked with her boyfriend beside her. Hung over, seeing him banging away at someone else. Seeing the other girl orgasm. Leaving wearing a zebra print bra that wasn’t hers. Not being able to remember anything but pain. Just walking home across town, the sun singing the edges of her consciousness. The apathy to the cold. Getting inside her house, hugging the doll, drifting off, waking up, destroying it.

It was over now. She could call but he had nothing of hers. Nothing worth getting back. A Silverchair T-shirt, books by Tolkien and Piers Anthony, a few CD’s she burned for him, her virginity: little things that only a materialistic bitch would ever cling to, anyway.

She never wanted to leave her house again. That girl hadn’t been there the night before. She’d come. He’d allowed her to. He’d been cheating. She’d been cheated. This other girl must’ve enjoyed all of it, that secret power of being the "other woman," being able to enjoy being the chosen one, instead of the one to whom the man is morally obligated. Maybe it was time for her to become the other woman. She seems impervious to hurt. She has cuter underwear. She sleeps comfortably knowing who is sleeping with whom.

Look, I’m arm candy. Look, on the surface, we had the perfect relationship. Look, we matched. My hair purple, yours bright blue. Look, candy ravers giggling. Look, they’re the same height. Look, they laugh at the same things. Look, their bracelets were bought at the same conformist alternative store at the mall. Watch them, different yet the same.

Look, they’ve clichéd each other. Look, they’re bored. Look, she’s stopped eating. Look, he’s cheating on her with exactly the type of girl who would wear zebra print bras. Look, they’re drunk,

Hung over,

Fucked,

Fucked up,

Fucked over,

Over… Look.

She popped the tab off the soda and began to wedge it into the can itself. She rattled it back and forth until she couldn’t stand the sound. She chucked the empty can at the floor and raced back up the stairs. Back in her room, the doll’s face was still gone. Time to reinvent herself accordingly. Blank slate, she reflected, as she shoved everything out the widow into her wooded backyard.