The floor was cold and desolate. She could feel the dirty, wet, linoleum tiles through the thin soles of her cheap red ballet flats. Her sweaty, sockless toes rubbed against each other, her chipped nail polish snagging on the flats’ fabric with each anxious twitch of her tired feet. Frances looked down at her shoes that barely felt like shoes. She had ordered them off a second-hand website for $13 dollars just a few months ago, wearing them upwards of five times a week since they’d been delivered. They were the same shoes that she went to that jazz concert in; the one she deliberately attended alone so she could “branch out”. Laughable, Frances hates nature. She’s allergic to grass and is scared of ladybugs. So she prefers to spend her time inside, reading Irish romance novels and curating her concerningly poster-adorned bedroom–essentially a fire hazard by this point. She always says if she ever cared about you then you’re somewhere in her room. There’s a photo of you somewhere, a page from a book that reminds her of you, a note you wrote her, a gift you bought her, or a perfume on her desk that smells like you. Memories, reminders, and manifestations of her networks. It’s the reason she buys books instead of borrowing, the reason she keeps candle jars after all the wax has melted, and the reason she’ll never get rid of those patent red ballet flats, no matter how torn or frayed they might get. To succumb to the surge of minimalism and delicacy that naturally comes with maturity would be to rob herself of the abundance in love, desire, and misery that gives her own life meaning. 

The air was dry and bright. It cracked the thin layer of skin on the back of her hands, surfacing traces of blood to complement the polish on her nails. Her left index and thumb loosely cradled a creamy red lip liner. The soft, inside of her wrist headlined four swatches of pigment, all with different names yet questionable degrees of contrast. Still, Frances studied the personalities of each tinge and decided on number three; the tube now sitting in between her fingers like a very heavy cigarette. Frances scratched the back of her pale, flaky hands, then smoothing them with her fingertips like an apology. With each light, ticklishly slow drag, she could feel the shallow ridges of her fingertips, sending chills down her naked, freckled arms. Frances always hated physical touch. Each held hand was nothing more than a transmission of germs, sweat, and worst of all, liability. Her fingerprints hold memories of every facade she cared enough to brush, like the laptop she writes poems on, the takeaway coffee cup in her car cup holder, and the lip liner she now twirled in her bare hands. Her nerves were sensitive like her tear ducts, and her fingertips buzzed with hysteria whenever stimulated by the presence of something familiar. It was this very reason that Frances couldn’t deign to bear responsibility for any five cherished fingers not attached to her own pale arms. Would she, Frances wondered, taint their unfreckled skin with the dry and careless cells of her own irresponsibility? Emotions are intangible, she told herself. Not like the stamp of her buzzing fingerprints into the face of another. And unlike her fortuitous car crashes or unfiltered insults, there is no insurance for a touch someone didn’t want. Still, lip liner can’t sue, so she grips it in her palm like a hug from a relative whose name you’ve long forgotten. 

The lights were sharp and grainy. Her tired eyes studied the floor beneath her. The shadow of her soft, red ballet flats cast puddles of shade over the dark brown lines of dirt stuck in the cracks of the speckled tiles. A cell phone now occupied her right hand, dimly displaying the lack of money in her banking app. Frances’s dark brown eyes shifted focus from the number on the screen to the number on her lip liner, calculating the worth of her late-night trip to CVS. For just half of her balance, she too could overline the borders of her lips like she does the borders of her own self-dignity. Lipstick, like a made bed or a washed dish, would fade after a single use. After a quiet conversation, a sip from a coffee cup, or a kiss on the cheek, that fraction of Frances’s minimum wage salary would disappear into the void of her own self-security, forcing her to cede another use. Still, the feeling of looking into a smudge-ridden bathroom mirror, one who has seen too many tired, dark brown eyes like her own, would account for the irresponsibility of her consistently poor financial decisions. When Frances closed her eyes, she could see that web of abundance once again occupying her conscience. Those red shoes and the irresolutely desired attention they earn her, the buzzing of her fingertips, and the oscillation of attraction and disappointment that her vision consumes with each blink. 

Frances stood in this bleak drugstore, the only sounds being the buzz of the surgically-white lights, the breath of the miffed cashier, and the pumping of her own red blood. Frances saw, felt, and contemplated the lip liner in between her fingers; by this point, it was an extension of her own limbs. She stared at the open, glistening tube, the dim red shade echoing in her tired, blurry eyes. She glanced once again at her phone screen. She thought briefly about just slipping the tube into her purse and leaving the store. She looked at the till, the cashier concerningly invested in a game on her cell phone. Frances felt her red blood begin to pound in her head, squeezing her eyes shut to drown out her judgement’s discord of bounty. With a sudden hostility, she severed the red tube from her dry, bare hands and placed it back on the cold, metal shelf, feeling her red-wine tinted lips move ever so gently, mouthing, “love is not transactional”.