Written by P.chez

A little glittery white box, that’s what I had tried to smother her into for years.

I dressed her in tight skinny jeans and crop tops despite that not being her style. But others dressed like that, so she had to too. I forced her to have crushes on the popular boys in her grade despite her not being at all interested in that stuff. But others were, so she had to be too. I dragged her to sports games despite her not caring the slightest about them. But all the cool kids went, so she had to go too.

She had to. She had to. She had to.

Because we didn’t want to find out what would happen if she didn’t stay in the box. An imposter, one would definitely say. It described her well, even while in the presence of her so-called best friend.

“Get in the box,” I would always snarl at her. Smothering, smothering, and smothering. “You have to be one of them!” I would hiss consistently. For a long while, she didn’t even come out of the box, and if she did she would go back in so easily. For quite some time, I lost her in there. Smothering and smothering.

Because she was never stronger than me. If this was a game I would be undefeated. I was undefeated for so many years…until I wasn’t. It was odd how suddenly I lost interest in getting her back into the box every morning. Maybe I got way too lazy to put her back in. Maybe the glitter on the little white box started to really annoy me. Maybe the white color started to look too basic for my taste.

Or maybe, just maybe, she got too strong for me to push her around.

Either way, each day she stopped going in the little glittery white box. And each day the little glittery white box got damaged.

Each day that I didn’t make her get into that stupid box that I started to hate, it was almost like the box began to deteriorate itself. The stronger and more confident she got, the more tattered the box got, till she was untouchable, and the box was long gone.

To this day I still don’t know what really happened, what our epiphany was. But dare I say, I’m really glad we had it.

Now, we stood radiant and comfortable in our oversized and baggy clothes. Now, we sat bodacious and unimpressed while looking at the men around us. Now, we spoke unapologetic and confident when we didn’t want to do something.

Now she is me and I am her.