Puffs of smoke permeated the air, filling the emptiness of the room and of her heart. It was the only escape she had in the day, otherwise having to play a part in that distorted thing that was her existence.

He wanted her to be a perfect little thing for the cameras and her classmates, but she didn't give enough if a to actually try to appeal to no one. Regardless, people still admired her. 'She has a mysterious aura around her,' they would say, and annoyingly would try to get close to her.

It was just this little group of people. Trainees to become singers. Blegh.

They would look at her, not like other people, who probably questioned why would a big businessman's protegè was in an art school, but rather looked at her as someone they wanted to get to know. It was endearing.

She didn't mind their presence much. Rejected their food at lunch with an 'I'm not used to eating at this hour, thanks', excused herself at extracurricular trips they had at different parts of the city, and smiled slightly at their jokes and banter, which at first, she had to admit, felt a inane and somehow idiotic.

It was not her fault. Always surrounded by not-so-nice people, she knew better than to expect anything from anyone, even less when she was what she was. A . Oh, and the deep embarrassment she felt when one of them tried to fit a banana up her nostril.

Still, they rewarded her with kindness and neverending cheerfulness, despite the difficulties they had to endure. Though, honestly, they were different.

It was nothing she could help. She had to smile and pretend she liked being with them, or with anyone for the matter. She had to go to galas in pompous dresses that would seamlessly cover the ugly parts of her. It was her duty to cover the inward ugly parts.

At night she could barely get a wink of sleep. She didn't care. After all, this had been happening for a long time, even when she sold herself, and in the middle of the night, she would take the arms of the man who slept tiredly at her side away, and would tiptoe to her only solace, the knowledge she had never received as a child.

The understanding came easy to her. Genius, that's how she was branded after she left with her now mentor. A prodigy child, who could nonetheless, when trained, bring a business to its highest glory. She knew she was intelligent before that. I mean, what kind of 14 year old would know how to play a different character with every client she met? A young seductress, a timid , a grateful damsel in distress, a teary woman who hurt. All of them, and more, seemed to come easy for her.

She liked to ignore how the last seemed to call to her past self, who had cried until she could no more, and screamed until she felt she was dead on the inside, empty from any kind of emotion that her young self should've had the right to experience. But no, she never had the right to it. She was just like her mother.

And in between puffs of smoke, she continued thinking that maybe her life would never change, and it would only amount to what she herself had expected for a long time. In her hands was her phone, on the screen a text that left her with a warmth she had never felt.

'Want to go to the amusement park?'