A grotesque friendship III

Part I and Part II found below.

I surmise the fire of that sweet-sixteen biking crush was put out by the lack of reciprocity in feelings on the part of the admired. It slowly faded away into oblivion and was soon replaced by more serious, more mature convictions of the heart. She confided in me about each boy that made her knees to go weak, her breath to catch in her throat, her heart to skip a beat. She would even send me pictures, and while I thought they got progressively worse, her feelings only seemed to get stronger with each fleeting desire of her capricious heart. She claimed to love some – love most, actually – and I found it hard to believe how one could so casually, so sporadically, and so rapidly fall in and out of love. She would mourn for a day or two at most, and then move on. Men aren’t worth the emotional tragedy that is heartbreak, she would tell me. So she forgot and let go of them as quickly as they had chanced upon her bewitched sight.

But with each passing flame, the declarations grew stronger, more pronounced and more articulate. Soon followed the sexual innuendos and overtones and eventually, as her heart became lost to the superficiality of love, it was only their physical appeal that mattered. Not to be left behind, her mannerisms succumbed to her changing views and what followed was an inevitable, yet nonetheless drastic change in her personality. She went from being a homely girl with pig tails who were clothes that were too big for her tiny frame, to ‘hot chick’ material, to put it bluntly. Gone was the girl who never wore makeup or cared to either, being clueless as to the intricacies of its application, and who could care less about whether her hair was let down or pulled back, never aware of the state of its messiness.

No professional makeover could have ever succeeded to pull together a transformation so radical as the kind that she had undergone. She no longer complained about the scorching heat of the sun that prevented her from shooting a few hoops on a sunny afternoon. Her complaint was still with the sun, yet not because it interfered with her athletic activities, but because its heat was now melting the meticulously applied layer of foundation plastered all over her artificial face. She was particularly keen on her eye makeup. The eyes are the window to the soul, she would tell me. I suppose her rather weak premise for devoting so much attention to prettying up her eyes was perhaps that the more alluring and enticing the eyes, the more appealing the soul it supposedly gave view to. You could never quite tell with her.

Her wardrobe had undergone an equally drastic modification. It was commonplace now to see her dressed in tops that exposed her pierced midriff and skirts of the kind that grandmothers would disapprovingly frown upon. She never was very religious but she clearly defied the unchallenged edict that even non-religious women not dress akin to the archetypal Western Woman. Although in her defense, and I suppose it is defending her to some minuscule degree in acknowledging this significant fact, she would never dream of dressing in such a manner in front of her parents. At home, she would rebel in subtle ways; and the rebellion then had yet to lead to the launch of her forthcoming renaissance.

to be continued…