Her escape was in her head. There were mystical lands there, mermaid kingdoms, fairy princesses and dragons, cities in the clouds. She could go there and hide. In her head it was calm and safe the noises couldn’t get to her there. That was where she went when the yelling started, or the guilt trips, or the passive aggressive stabs. She was always the favorite, because she was the only. Outside of her mind was dangerous, being the rope in a game of tug-of-war is a taxing lifestyle and the longer she did it, it never got easier. She learned things outside of her head though. She learned to manipulate, she learned to lie, she learned how to smile, she learned to put on a show. But she still wanted to be a kid and not see the things she had, so she had what was hidden in her head. The fairies tried to teach her magic and how to live in the soft fluff of the clouds. The mermaids showed her how to swim and fight so she helped them win the great battle against the crawfish king. That saved her for a long time, but time changes and her mind started to not be able to hide herself from the outside anymore. The mermaids drowned, the crawfish took over and the fairies plummeted from their kingdoms in the clouds and the dragons scorched what was left. Her mind turned into something evil. It was all her thoughts but none of them were safe anymore. That was the most terrifying part, all the malicious thoughts, every bit of it was her own. Her mind was filled with contempt and anger, all of that rage was aimed inward.  She wanted to die and alone in her mind all there was were more reasons to just do it. She was scared but too strong to show it. He had always told her she was resilient and she held on to that as tight as she could. But then she was stretched too far, in too many directions and she couldn't bounce back.

She found a new way to escape. It was just fun and adventure at first, with friends, maybe once a week. The high was fun. It gave fairies back their wings and showed the mermaids how to swim again. Little weekly escapes surrounded by groups of friends slowly turned to twice a week with smaller groups of people. It turned into getting twenty dollars cash-back and calling that guy. It turned into finding little excused to hang out with people. It turned into not needing an excuse any more, she could go off on her own and be happy on her own terms for the first time in years. It turned into having no friends anymore just that one guy to call and that one gas station to stop at before she could be happy again, or at least before she could hide. So she’ll keep layering the bad with happy and the hide the feelings away because that’s what resilience is to her now and she is happy, at least according to that top layer.