Slate Gray

Chapter 1: Perrin Slate

My little sister once spent an entire month exploring the origin of masks. Her fits of passion are always leading her down one rabbit hole or another and like Alice, all I can do is try to keep up.

But deep in her process she demanded I take her to the library for some text she just had to have. I sulked through the first hour, vandalizing books out of boredom, but the more she talked, the more I got into it. So much so that, when the library closed, we headed home to make our own Papier Mache disguises.

To this day, they still hang in our room like the theatre mascots of comedy and tragedy: hers smiling, mine scowling. And while she soon moved on to explore other rabbit holes, I got stuck on masks. Particularly my own.

I've amassed a lot of them in the past eighteen years. Some for protection, others for sanity. Some to hide behind and some to be seen. Most I use situationally, but others I've worn so long they're practically welded to my face. They chafe and tug at my skin but I'm too afraid to remove them. Afraid of what festers underneath.

It's only within the privacy of bathrooms that I don't feel the need for them. When I'm well and truly alone with no one to watch out for, no pressure to perform. When I can lock the door and shuffle through albums and albums of Nu Metal and 90s Grunge.

Luckily, the single stall, grocery store bathroom I currently find myself in, is perfect for just that.

Ironically, advertisements for human connection cover the walls of my fortress of solitude. Requests to call for a good time. Declarations of love and hate. Ugly self-portraits and medically inaccurate drawings of genitalia.

Cramming headphones in my ears, music blasts and I fling my arms wide, pretending I'm far away from here, playing drums on stage at CBGB's. My short, blonde hair whips across my face on the downbeats, and I twirl my imaginary drumsticks as I gulp down the cheering crowd's fictional praise.

That is until, a few songs later, a particularly erratic headbang shifts the cheap toilet seat beneath me. With a hissed, "Shit!", I throw a steadying hand against the tile wall as I'm dumped back to reality, to the grimy bathroom and the deuce that I'm finally able to drop.

Guess I should wrap this up. This is the fifth song I've listened to and my grace period is three.

Flickering, overhead lights split my tall shadow when I stand and the mirror over the sink is so streaked with soap scum that I barely see the girl staring back. She looks tired without all her masks. Stressed and pushed to her limits.

Time to clip the Big Three back into place. A Mask of Snark to deal with things outside of her control. A Mask of Bravado to bolster her near incapacitating self-doubt. A Mask of Apathy to hide the roiling oceans of guilt and grief constantly butting up against her skin.

"Oooh, it's your fucking nightmare," I hoarsely sing to my reflection, jabbing a finger at her freckled face.

Masks reaffixed, I wash my hands and tug a beanie back over my greasy scalp. I need a shower. And a nap.

Bangbangbangbangbang!!

The pounding is aggressive even through my headphones so, with a sigh, I tug them off and stow my iPod in my olive-green bomber jacket. Then, yanking open the door, I glare down at the disrupter of my solitude, her fist raised to knock again. "Jesus, Ace. Can't a girl poop in peace?"

Cute as a button with mounds of coffee colored hair framing a ski slope nose, pouty lips and heart-shaped face, my sister squints up at me with her overlarge doe eyes. "Dad's getting antsy. I told him you were probably just listening to Korn on the toilet again."

"Avenged Sevenfold, actually," I mutter.

"Well, you were in there forever," she scolds, hiking the straps of her leather backpack higher on her thin shoulders. "Are you eating enough fiber?"