She’s not your manic pixie dream girl. She’s the girl who survived. And tonight—she puts on plum lipstick like war paint.
Here’s a raw scene from my soul-soaked, gritty 90s indie romance about a broken girl and the chaos king who sees her. Ivy Wilde—this one’s yours.
Track that hits the vibe: “Possession” — Sarah McLachlan
Scene: The Hostel Bathroom Mirror – Night One in Edinburgh
The flickering light overhead hums like a dying star, casting yellow shadows across the cracked mirror. Ivy leans in close, the plum satin of her slip dress clinging to her curves, catching the dim light like bruised silk. The fabric dips low over her chest, a slow reveal of skin still sun-kissed and marked by time, the faint trace of tan lines and the beauty marks no one’s ever called beautiful.
She steadies her elbow on the chipped porcelain sink. One hand clutches the tube of plum lipstick like a blade; the other trembles slightly as she drags the color across her lips, painting herself into someone braver, someone whole.
The cracked glass fractures her face into pieces—one shard reflects the arch of her brow, another the glint of her eye, the smallest one her mouth, curled into a crooked half-smile she doesn’t feel. She doesn’t recognize the girl staring back.
What the fuck am I doing here…?
Her journal sits open on the windowsill behind her, the last line unfinished, smeared slightly where her hand trembled.
“I keep running, but I always end up chasing ghosts.”
She swallows hard, the lump in her throat as old as her childhood. She wonders if the girls back home ever feel this alone. If they still laugh in diners and drag their nail polish across pages of magazines while she’s standing here, wrapped in silence and regret.
The lipstick clicks shut.
She presses her lips together, blotting the color with her finger. She hates how pretty it looks. Hates how much she wants to be seen.
But tonight, she’ll go out anyway. She’ll let the bass drown her thoughts, let the lights blur the ache behind her eyes. Maybe she’ll dance. Maybe she’ll smile. Maybe some stranger will buy her a drink and not ask her name.
Maybe—for a minute—she won’t feel so fucking alone.
She turns from the mirror, never quite meeting her own gaze.
The crack down the center stays with her, even after she’s gone.
