Amanda's Demons - Prologue

Ever since we are little, we're told we can do anything out of our lives. Anything.

Needless to say... that is a lie. But we think that somehow, crushing the dreams of our childhood self is actually benefic. So we keep on encouraging kids to become whatever the fuck they want regardless of abilities, personality or social aspects.

So was the case of little Amanda Russell, who by the age of 11 had everything sorted out.

'I'm gonna be a ballerina!' she said for the first time on a windy summer afternoon after watching a ballet show on TV with her grandmother. That happened when she was 8. For the next 3 years all of her family and their afferent friends told her that by working hard enough, taking lessons and practicing as hard and often as she could, she would eventually become that.

So with her dreams well fueled and her heart aching for the taste of victory, she made her parents - who, by that time, were wealthy enough to keep their not-so-intelligent nephew in Yale, bail him out of jail a few times and still keep a good image of themselves, not always out of kindness, but mostly to brag about it on family dinners - find her a competent teacher and pay her classes twice a week. And of course everyone smiled proudly at little Amanda, who was oblivious to anything but their acceptance. She practiced hard, just like they told her. And she liked it more than she liked playing with her dolls or watching cartoons. She was bragging about it at school, at home and even to the other 'future ballerinas' urged by their mothers to be there.

'She has improved a lot since she came here!' the teacher said every time Mr. and Mrs. Russell signed his monthly check, a big smile on his face, but talking more to money than to the humans standing before him. His eyes had a certain spark that you only see in movies right before the great big kiss.

And the fact that she improved was so obviously not a lie. Her parents were proud to repeat his words every time they were shown the occasion. But what they did not say was that 'improvement' does not always mean 'performance'. Reaching from a 0 to a 3/10 in 3 years was not exactly something that many would call 'talent' or 'calling'. But Amanda liked dancing and her teacher liked money, so this worked for a while between them.

She was almost 13 when she first figured out that all the praise and glory was just out of politeness, that her parents stopped watching her practice a few years ago and that even her teacher quit trying after a while. She first blamed it on her mother, from whom she had inherited her slightly chubby figure, then on her father, who gave her a high amount of clumsiness, but she soon came to realize that some things just aren't meant to be.

'I quit.'

And she never walked in a ballet class again.

At the age of 15 Amanda was not someone you should fool around with. She had little sense of humour and could stand few people. She mostly stayed alone in school or with her best friend, listening to music or doodling. She was never an excellent student, nor did she try to be one.

Her dreams changed - or, as she often used to say, adapted. Reality was now very different for her. She sewed her mouth so no word could get past her teeth. She closed her eyes so no tear could get out. But she was, though no one would've guessed, hurt. It was not the idea of failure that made her get so cold, but the lack of truth that she received.

'I can't trust you.'

That was more than certain her catchphrase. It had become a habit of her to throw this phrase at anyone who disagreed with her in any way. She said that sheltering people from the truth is a superficial way of caring for someone. She needed people to be straightforward. She didn't need anyone's protection. All she needed was to know the truth.

So teenage Amanda was a very difficult person and she stayed so for many years to come. She wasn't very preoccupied by studying, nor did she find another hobby. She used to draw on her notebook to pass the time, but she mostly refused to believe she was actually good at anything.

Her chubby figure remained the same over the years, only that she learned to make the curves and rounds come to her advantage. Some said she was sexy, some said she was trying too hard. The ones that fit into the first category were mostly boys, but then again, when it came to their girlfriend, they preferred thinner, more common-looking girls, for the safety of not being picked on. The latter category consisted mostly of girls who could not accept the fact that sometimes you don't have to be thin to be sexy.

But she never listened to either of them. She only wanted to seem strong and independent. If there was one thing she hated more than anything it was her own weakness. And she also felt as if letting people hear her feelings or needs was a sign of that weakness. She used to call it 'Fucking Monster' every time she got the occasion - but, of course, that only happened inside her head, since she wasn't actually talking about it to other people.

And for a very long time I actually wanted her to die. OK, maybe that IS an exaggeration - only a bit - but she was annoying as fuck and I couldn't stand her. I just didn't understand how she used to have everything she could possibly want, but yet grow up to be an unhappy little brat.

We were next door neighbors ever since I can remember. And even though we grew up together, we never got really close. But that was because none of us was actually interested in talking to each other. Our parents used to date. Well, my father and her mother, at least. They were together for a while, and dad said they loved each other a lot, but she ultimately left him for some 'spectacular good for nothing idiot' that had a shitload of money. I soon learnt that the idiot was Amanda's father. Also, that my father was a very stubborn being, who could never let go of the past.

So they stayed friends. And forced me to breathe in Amanda's presence at least once a week, then hear his lamentations about losing his girl to an incompetent like that. Then he'd get drunk - not very, but enough to start complaining and fantasizing - and tell me how one day things will come around and he'd win her back.

I couldn't understand any of it until I was 13 and I had my first crush. She was a girl in Amanda's class, one of the best students at the time. She was not very beautiful, and as I came to see later, not very smart either, but she had that certain something that my 13 year old self found very intriguing in a girl: confidence.

So I asked Amanda to introduce us one day, but my lack of charm and sex appeal ruined my dreams of swiping her off her feet. Instead, I managed to make a fool of myself. And Amanda kept telling me everything I did wrong: how I talked too much about TV shows, how I looked like a nerd, how I made bad jokes. And she made me realize that everything I did wrong was everything that made me, me.

And that was the last time I asked for Amanda's help. Also the first. And we never really talked much since. But being neighbours is not something that goes away so easily, especially if your father is friends - or, as I like to call it, obsessed - with her family. So I watched her grow up step by step. She first stopped talking about what she liked, then she changed her clothes to darker colours, her hair got cut and dyed as she pleased, then she became ungrateful and spoiled. She started swearing a lot. She smoked. She drank. She became a jerk to everyone around her.

She was, by all means, a fucking disaster.