Bond

The train traveled past landscape and whatever it could reach for and grab, holding only a few passengers as they made their way back home. Thankfully the train was luxurious and wasn't a crappy, one-star food holding moving vehicle with only one toilet. The woman got the luxury of sitting in a booth and watching the scenery that relaxed her mindset and made the area around her relaxing itself.

She leaned forward, her elbows pressed into the surface of the table as a lit cigarette rested in between her index and middle finger. She would occasionally take puffs from it before making a small 'o' shape with her mouth and blowing lines of smoke back out slowly after turning her head away from the window. Her eyes lazily watched the scenery, the euphoria from zoning out and the cigarette working to ease her anxiety taking over.

Sitting across from her was her sister, Alex. She was a slim woman, far from looking anything like her sister; someone would probably think they were cousins. Her black hair was ragged, split, and damaged in a way that made it look like a regular 80s' mullet. She was tousling it in her reflection, also smoking a cigarette of her own.

They both enjoyed each other's company; it was the only company they had.

"You're not a bad person. None of the things you've experienced make you a bad person." The brunette told her sister.

She turned her head, looking at her with dazed eyes. She wore two cloudy yellow pigtails, thick makeup, and a captive bead in her nose. Her name was Hanna. A twenty two year old desperately wanting to ignore everything because she felt she was subhuman. She felt what she had made her a magnet incapable of interaction with other people. People were as she thought, literally repulsed by her.

She blinked, the daze from her zone out withdrawing as she processed the words. She looked at the table and thought over them.

"You don't think I'm wrong?"

"You're a human, you're going to be all over the place."

"Really?"

"Yes. If someone can't handle something like that from you, then they don't know you."

Hanna smiled.

"I think you're wonderful, you just have to realize that." Alex said. "Not everyone will like you, or
do things for you that you truly deserve."

She turned her head, brought the cigarette to her lips, then pulled it away and blew into the air.

"A lot of things are just facades, and that's reality. But you're very real."

Hanna laughed slightly.

Alex's face tightened in seriousness, and she took her hand, shaking her head.

"Hanna. If someone walks away from you, it's because you're a fragment of them. A fragment they cannot see and will not ever see because they're insecure. You have thoughts that you can't help, you're the discolored polka dot that they fail to see is different. They don't want to see what they themselves are struggling with. They want what they can't have and not what they need to see, and they try to make you into this perfect being. In reality,

She stood and walked around the table to pull her into an embrace.

"you're just being yourself"



word count: 492