Title: Tears
Author: Harper Kingsley
Genre: drama, angst
Summary: There are times when she retreats to the solitude of her bedroom and cries.

There are times when she retreats to the solitude of her bedroom and cries. There’s something cleansing about tears, about cracking the hard shell of her emotions and letting all the hate, rage, and sadness out in one uninterrupted flood of tears. To cry until her eyes ached and her nose was red and sore.

And then she washed her face–flipping her eyelids back to release the trapped salt deposits to prevent swollen eyelids–and crawled into her bed. It let her paste the plastic smile on her face with the morning light and pretend that everything was good, she was happy and nothing was dying inside.

Being able to cry was the only thing that let her face the days of boredom and abuse. She was a loser, but she could pretend otherwise if she tried hard enough.