These faces, these many faces were created when she was young. She curated them with such precision, picking just the right one depending on the circumstance and the environment. It was never about deceit or manipulation but simply a survival mechanism that she had learned to hone and perfect so that she could avoid the toxic effluent that schoolgirls can be so expert at flinging. So that she could be the dutiful daughter or the brilliant student, the obliging friend. So that she could fight this unsettling feeling that followed her wherever she went; she never really fit in anywhere because she was the missing piece from a puzzle that she would never find.
Years later, when she looks back on her life she will realise that she never really had the chance to just live. She had never learnt, and never been taught, to shrug off her imperfections and say ‘well stuff them if they don’t like me’. She never really knew how to take off these faces, these masks, and smash them to the ground, obliterating them into so many, tiny, little pieces, so that only one true face was left and she could just be herself.