Shane swallowed hard. There was a lump in her throat, and she felt like being chocked by a mouthful of stones. Nevertheless, she sneered.

“Right… right…”, she pondered to herself, bobbing her head, and stepped away from the window.

She walked to the bathroom, undressing herself along the way, tossing her clothes around carelessly. She turned on the water in the shower and, when she felt the hot spout run over her, she squeezed her eyes shut.

”In like the rose that grows in your soul
Out of time now you’re out for more
In like the stone that forms in your heart
Out of reach but you can’t give up this time
I’m on a wire to see your star shine
I’m on a wire to see your star shine…”

Then, she turned the mixer tap and the water went freezing cold. Shane jolted, then stayed still, trying to breathe, hoping to find some peace in the numb feeling of losing herself into that small, useless expedient.

It was a metaphor of her whole life. Hot and cold, white and black, good and bad, heaven and hell, love and hate.

Shane couldn’t take it anymore. She turned off the water and leaned the back of her head against the cold tiles, breathing heavily, shaking from head to toe. Her skin was pale, the alcohol running through her veins was surely going to take its toll, and Shane was so fucking okay with it.

She laughed, a sort of choked, sad sneering, her eyes still closed, her head tossed back.

“Alright. Here we go”, she muttered through the grimace that her smile was, and opened the glass panel of the shower.

She dressed in black. Black jeans, black shirt, black tie, black leather jacket, black boots. Black, because she wanted to be invisible, and she needed to mix with the obscurity that she was feeling inside.

What she was feeling?

Shane didn’t dare to name it, but she supposed that it was, somehow, that ludicrous thing that people called love. Oh, she was having such a negative perception of it. Was love this? This… pain, this suffering, this choking feeling of fear and anxiety? Well, maybe she didn’t want anything to do with it, then.