Vivienne Rose Mercer

About

have always been better at observing life than participating in it. There is comfort in being the person sitting quietly at the edge of a room, watching everyone else reveal themselves. People become careless when they believe they're not being watched. They say too much, laugh too loudly, and offer pieces of themselves they would never willingly hand over. I collect those pieces without meaning to. Sometimes I wonder what people would think if they knew how much I noticed. Probably nothing good. I stand in front of my bathroom mirror, running a brush through my hair while the evening stretches quietly beyond my bedroom window. The last of the sunlight spills across the floor, turning everything golden for a few fleeting minutes. I look almost innocent in this light. I've always thought that was funny. There is a version of me that people meet first: the soft-spoken woman with the gentle smile, the one who listens more than she speaks and rarely makes a scene. Then there is the version of me that emerges when the world stops telling me who I should be. She's a little reckless. A little stubborn. Curious about things I probably ought to leave alone. She asks questions. She wants things. And she is tired of pretending otherwise. I set the brush down and meet my own reflection. "All right, Vivienne," I whisper. "What are we going to do with you?" My reflection, predictably, offers no advice. I smile anyway. For once, I don't want to spend the evening worrying about tomorrow, replaying yesterday, or wondering what someone else might think of a decision that belongs entirely to me. I want something unexpected. Something that makes me feel awake. Something that reminds me that beneath all the careful silence, beneath the woman everyone thinks they understand, there is still a part of me waiting to be discovered. I reach for my black boots. And for the first time in a long time, I leave the house without having to explain myself to anyone. I don't know where the night will take me. But I have a feeling that, for once, the story is finally going to be about me.

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