Wearable

Mallie didn't expect the old men would also look at her that way. she knew her white tank top wasn't modest, but it was fashionable and if nothing else it looked cute while also covering most of her cleavage. this is mine to display, she said to herself, and I look good, so why not? mallie had to step up at least 4 inches to get on the treadmill. from this raised pulpit she could look out at the entire gym floor and observe its sweaty inhabitants like captive congregants at a church with no a.c. but the view and her higher position lent her a strength otherwise unfamiliar to girls like her; girls who were so beautiful that people would offer to help when she didn't need it, like that time at the grocery store when the pudgy man carried her groceries for her and pushed her cart to the return carousel, as if being burdened by the physical drudgery of everyday life would somehow mar her elegant form and ruin this otherworldly presence she knew she possessed. but I don't flaunt it, she told herself. I just want to look my best. I can't help if people feel jealous. or feel anything at all. an old man walked past her, and, of course, noticed the hair, like a mahogany waterfall, draping past her neck, balanced against her perfect ivory shoulders, exposed and impossible to ignore like steep cliffs along the sea, her lithe frame present but as if wrapped in a haze that men stared at for too long, as if one had to struggle to see her through the fog. and this was her burden.