sailor. capitol.

Yeah so District Four couture was like, the height of fashion when I was born or something. Mom was all about staying on-trend, even with her newborn child. Didn't quite think about what would happen once ocean-themed names stopped being current as I aged, but Mom's best qualities aren't exactly inside her head.

But for the first six months of my life I was all the ladies at the new mum's club could talk about, how my name was Just Fucking Fantastic and A Stroke Of Genius on Mom's part, she loved it. Drank it all up. Liked the idea of being a Mom more than actually being a Mom, liked dressing me up as if I were a doll. Put me in front of the camera 38 minutes after I was born, squealing about my eyes and how blue they were. Unlucky for her, blue eyes turn grey. Lucky for me, all the kids at school thought they were neat.

Unlucky for me, so did casting directors.

I made a fat load of cash by the time I started school. Mom spent most of it, claimed it was manager tax or whatever. I'd get a lawyer if I was petty. Maybe I'd call up Dad, see if he could do me a favour for once in his goddamn life. I don't blame him for eventually leaving Mom. I'd have left that early too if I could. But I was 9 years old and a child model on a set for 12 hours a day and I never saw him anyway - just Mom. Always Mom. Spending my money before I'd earned it, nothing else better to do than shop until she drops between castings and photoshoots and carting me around on the train between the residential district and the city centre.

At thirteen I decided to set up my own account and have the cheques deposited there. Mom still took half but at least I had something that was mine, just for me. The girls at school always looked at me with pining, jealous eyes when she pulled me out of class half way through to work. I used to look at them still stuck in their seats with the same expression.

I could've quit when I turned eighteen. But I had barely half an education, grade school math at best, and to be honest I was good at it by then. Modelling. I had the track record behind me and the familiar name in photographer's ears and all that spinach and meat Mom made me eat managed to pay off. I got disciplined on my own terms. Being fit was part of my routine. I almost enjoyed dancing around set, moving to my own beat, finally free to take matters into my own hands. I had earned the respect from all to shoot my way. And I understood what looked good on me and what didn't - from every angle. People said I had one of those faces that just worked, no matter what angle they shot me from. I get it. I see it. So I kept going - Sailor, model. Sailor, superstar. Sailor, trend-setter.

I mean not really. They asked me to pick my favourite outfits from a rack and I chose what looked good on me, then they slapped my name on the label and called it a day and the money hit my account three months later. They invite me to parties, lenses eat me up. I eat - but just enough. Not too little. Not too much.

A few collections behind me and an it-girl status later, I suppose they'd been watching me for a few years. Looking for designers and seamstresses and kids straight out of school, stabbing each-other in the back with sewing needles and fabric scissors just to get in front of the committee. But all those pricked fingers couldn't make what I had. Status. Money. A childhood in fashion. Even, some would argue, taste. I don't know, I just dress in what I like - what they give me. It looks good, I feel good, it's just easy. There's no magic, no talent - at least, that's what I thought. 

But they invited me to the board rooms, sat me down, and asked me if I wanted to be a stylist - starting with Beck Hailsham, fresh out of the arena.

"But I don't know how to sew?" I'd choked over a glass of water. Half a question, half a confession.

"You don't need to know how to sew," one of them had laughed. "You just need to know how to dress."

And they hate me for it, all the kids with their graduate diplomas and their boxes of threads and rolls of fabric and envious eyes clutched around scissors. They follow me, the whispers. "What the fuck?" and "Why the fuck?" and "How the fuck?" and "Who the fuck?" - I want to tell them I'm just as clueless as them. But I'm not allowed to do that.

"Besides, it's perfect, is it not?" another, swiveling on her chair and chewing on a  pencil.

"What is?"

"Sailor. District Four. You were quite literally born for this job."

The first thing I think of is how Mom will most definitely be taking the credit for the rest of her life.

It takes two weeks and five days but she eventually leaves. Dad sends flowers and I'm more surprised that he knows my address than the gesture itself. Uncanny timing, my first day alone and there they are on my doorstep. He's put his own address on the card next to a "Congratulations, love Dad" - I scoff. He's bold, I'll give him that.

Truth be told I can't leave my house without being swarmed. I can handle the cameras or the little girls who want to say hello, I've gotten used to that. It's come with my career. I'm good at it. But all the questions about fabrics and concepts and Beck and fuck, it's all just a reminder that I'm being tested. That I have to be this shiny new innovator even though I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing. Jizav might've been outdated but at least he knew how to make clothes. I'm just supposed to look at the kid and all his prosthetics and a rack of clothes and pick something that works - easy. Yet it's the hardest job in the world.

Even harder still is dealing with the anxiety. Sleep is a concept so I take those tablets from over the counter and my irises explode right before they call action on an interview. It's the first time in my life I've ever felt nervous but I get through it, bouncing my foot on the carpet of my apartment and flinging my arms around to distract from the fact I'm dying inside. I can talk jeans and accessories, name this designer and that, make myself look good and know what colours clash. It's barely enough to get by and I haven't even had a proper conversation with the poor kid yet. Each time I speak I'm sure I've damned myself, exposed myself as a fraud, wait for the lights to go out and the tap on the shoulder - but the television loves it. The magazine printer loves it. Even my friends and the people stopping me on the street to congratulate me love it.

There's a knife at my throat. Thorns from a white rose. Fabric scissors. All the same, all waiting for me to fuck up enough to flick their wrist and let me bleed out on the carpet.

And I wonder why. Question what I did. If I was just so damn good they wanted to see how far I could go before I break, or if I was a file picked at random, or if I turned up to set as a child and threw a tantrum once, damning me for life. If Mom did something. If Dad did something.

Or maybe, just maybe, they want me to succeed.

When the camera crew clears out and I undress, shower, pull myself into pyjamas and sigh, I am left with nothing but the flowers from my father sitting in the middle of my coffee table, the quiet of my empty apartment, and my thoughts. 

Maybe I shouldn't've kicked Mom out. Even her screaming and ranting and raving about how I've betrayed her is better than the sound of how lonely I am.

Fuck, that sounds depressing. I need to get a grip.