-2011- - Warpaint - The Fool -deluxe Edition-

The Fool smiled—not a happy smile, but a true one. “Because love is a battle. And the bravest thing you can do is go into it looking exactly like yourself, even when yourself is a mess.”

“This is the deluxe version,” the Fool said, tracing the word Fool with her thumb. “The extra tracks are the ones that break you open when no one’s watching.”

June dipped her finger in the paste. She drew a shaky line down the Fool’s nose, then another across her chin. It was clumsy. It was perfect. Warpaint - The Fool -Deluxe Edition- -2011-

“Keep the warpaint,” she said. “You’ll need it for the next part.”

June thought of her father’s last phone call. The way he said “I’ll be there Saturday” three times in a row, as if repeating it would make it true. The Fool smiled—not a happy smile, but a true one

June thought of her mother crying in the kitchen, pretending to chop onions. She thought of herself in the school parking lot last week, watching her ex-best friend get into another girl’s car without looking back.

The Fool pulled a crumpled set list from her jacket pocket. It was handwritten on the back of a receipt: “The extra tracks are the ones that break

The Fool was already walking backward into the fennel, dissolving like a song you try to hum but forget the melody of.

The first time June saw the Fool, she was washing her mother’s car in the dark.