Les 14 Ans D--aurelie -1983- -

The next morning, she took her mother’s sewing scissors from the drawer. She stood before the bathroom mirror. She looked at the girl in the reflection—the wide-set eyes, the mouth that seldom smiled, the body she did not yet know how to inhabit. She cut her own hair. Not the feathered, lacquered style of Véronique. She cut it short at the nape, uneven, severe. Like a punk. Like a question mark.

“It doesn’t work,” Françoise continued. “The world finds you anyway. So you might as well take up the space.” Les 14 Ans D--Aurelie -1983-

“Please.”

Aurélie nodded back.