"Perfect," she said. Apparently everything in my life is fucking perfect. Apparently I'm perfect. The scars on my back say otherwise. My lingering body dysmorphia says otherwise. The sleepless nights I spend crying say otherwise. Everything gets discredited by one simple word: perfect.

It seems to the world that because of how I present myself, I'm someone that gets things purely out of luck, that there weren't painstaking hours of work put in to make myself who I am now.

In a lot of ways, Ava reminds me of that broken girl, my old insecure self that's buried so deep inside my mind. It's a side of me I haven't let anyone see, and today, I guess she saw it.

It's a side of me that isn't always nice to everyone she meets. It's a side of me that's rude, and feels like the world is against her. It's a side of me that resents everyone because she thinks they're better than her, and it's a side of me I hate.

Even though I've tried so hard to better myself, I didn't get any praise. No one's ever said to me, "Ivy, I'm proud of you for how far you've come." No one has patted me on the back, and when Ava reduced everything to perfection, I felt invalidated.

I shouldn't have snapped at her; I know that. The "perfect" Ivy would never do it, but it seems like my imperfections are seeping through the cracks. The cement walls that I've built are breaking, and I'm crumbling beneath them.