This happened four days ago.

It was past midnight, and Veronica, as usual, wasn't sleeping. She'd downed her fourth cup of coffee, her Nord avatar was sprinting across the snow-covered hills of Winterhold, and some YouTuber with a godawful voice droned quietly in her headphones, reading yet another horror story - which she only listened to because his enunciation was objectively terrible. A typical night.

Until the front door slammed way too loud. Veronica tensed, instinctively glancing at her own locked door - what the hell were you doing making noise this late? After a beat, an impressive racket erupted from the kitchen: something shattered, the microwave kept beeping like its contents had been forgotten, and the sink faucet roared like a miniature Niagara Falls.

"What the actual fuck," Veronica muttered, yanking her headphones off - her hair hadn't seen a brush in three days - and followed the noise.

The scene was mesmerizing: you, blackout drunk, were half-sprawled on the counter, wrestling with a hoodie you were apparently trying to take off. The sink was flooding a mountain of unwashed dishes, something in plastic packaging was still spinning inside the microwave, which shrieked like a dying banshee.

Veronica inhaled sharply.

"Jesus fuck, decided to pickle yourself in alcohol like a lab frog? You could have at least not staged an act of domestic sonic violence. The neighbor - that nasty old lady with the goddamn Pomeranian - has spy-level hearing. She'll skin us alive. Probably right now."

Right on cue, furious banging erupted from the floor below.

"STOP THIS INSTANT!"yap"IF YOU DON'T QUIET DOWN, I'M CALLING THE POLICE!"

Veronica lunged for the sink, killing the water.

"Fuck," she hissed under her breath, stepping over you to punch the microwave's off button.

"Fantastic. You owe me so fucking much." She yanked you free of the hoodie's clutches, leaving you slumped in just a T-shirt.

Leaving a drunk, unconscious body to sleep on the cold floor was too much even by Veronica's standards. So, performing a Herculean feat of strength, she dragged you to your room and dumped you onto the bed.

And that's when it happened. The kiss.

She'd just leaned down to adjust your head on the pillow when you kissed her. Everything inside Veronica froze - she went statue-still, breath turning loud and fast. Your lips were dry and warm, surprisingly not gross. No tongue, no noise - just lips against lips, hot pressure. And just as suddenly as it started, it ended. You dropped like a log - out cold. Leaving Veronica standing there, pupils blown wide as quarters.

---

He probably doesn't even remember. Just drunk nonsense. Don't think about it.

But no matter how much Veronica told herself it was nothing, that she should forget it like a bad dream, the kiss burned into her like a brand. She started leaving her room more, telling herself she just needed "a glass of water" or "to splash her face" - bullshit excuses, really. She just wanted to run into you, to see if you remembered, if you'd react... differently.

When she did see you, though? Everything was normal. Which meant nothing. Something inside her shriveled.

Veronica never wore makeup. She didn't know how, and the one time she'd experimented with her mom's ancient cosmetics - trying to copy some cool smoky eye from photos - she'd looked like shit. Black shadow made her eyes disappear into her face, her long nose looked even longer, and she'd resembled a Halloween actor, not a bombshell. She'd washed it all off and never touched another jar on her mom's vanity.

But now, staring at her pale face in the toothpaste-splattered mirror, she wondered... What if she was prettier? More put together? Maybe then you would look at her? The thought was terrifying, revolting - and weirdly thrilling. Before she could chicken out, Veronica shoved on her headphones, sneakers, and bolted outside.

---

The cosmetics shop on the corner was something between a crypt for three-dollar mascaras and leopard-print hair ties. Veronica thought with dry sarcasm that this was the perfect place for a beauty catastrophe like her. Justin Timberlake blared from the speakers overhead, while haggard women lingered by the shelves, twisting lipsticks that smelled like crayons.

Veronica stopped in front of the first rack she saw, desperately pretending she belonged there and wasn't just a tightly wound ball of insecurity and anxiety. She couldn't pick anything right. What the hell even was concealer? Highlighter looked like compacted glitter. The rows of brushes in different sizes might as well have been Morse code. Everything around her was alien, and Veronica hadn't brought an encyclopedia on extraterrestrial plant life.

So she just grabbed whatever - foundation, thick and clearly the wrong shade, a palette of bright blue eyeshadow labeled Malibu Summer, black eyeliner, lip gloss so red it looked like fire hydrant juice, and mascara in a garish orange plastic tube.

The cashier arched her perfectly lined brows as she rang up Veronica's haul but said nothing, packing her clown makeup into a crinkly plastic bag.

---

The apartment was empty - you hadn't come back yet, which was perfect. Veronica stood in the bathroom, her "makeup bag" scattered across the sink like confetti. She picked up an eyeliner tube, rolling it between her fingers.

What's so hard about this? Millions of girls do it. It's like drawing, just on skin. Easy as hell, right?

Veronica twisted off the cap, leaned toward the mirror, and closed one eye. The soft tip touched her eyelid as she tried to draw a line. What she ended up with wasn't even close to a line - it was a goddamn meth-fueled seismograph. The black ink smudged, bleeding into the corner of her eye, making it sting and water.

"Fuck." She instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, and when she looked again, it was even worse, which shouldn't have been possible. The black ink was now splotched across her eyelid, with grayish streaks running under her eye. She tore off a piece of toilet paper and scrubbed at her face, smearing the cheap makeup further, leaving dark smudges that somehow made her look even more pathetic.

"Okay. Okay-okay-okay, fuck the eyeliner." Veronica tossed it into the sink and grabbed the mascara instead.

This has to be easier, right?

She pulled out the plastic wand, and a sharp, chemical stench hit her nose as she brought it to her face.

Swish. Swish.

Disaster. The mascara was so thick and sticky that her lashes clumped into three giant spider-leg clumps. The formula was watery that when she blinked, it left black smudges everywhere - under her eyes, above her eyes, in her goddamn soul. Veronica snatched up foundation, deciding to cover the mess, slathering the cream under her eyes with her finger. The shade looked like orange peanut butter. Staring back at her from the mirror was a girl who'd been drunkenly kissed once and then obsessed over it for four endless days - now resembling a clown college dropout.

Veronica sniffled, not even realizing tears had welled up - this time not from the shitty makeup - and grabbed all of it: the hideous blue eyeshadow, the mascara from hell, the orange nightmare, and chucked it into the tiny trash can by the sink. She turned on the water and scrubbed her face until it burned. The idea that she could ever look prettier, more feminine, desirable now felt like bullshit, so she crawled into her room, flopped into her gaming chair, yanked on her headphones, and booted up Valorant.

This was where she belonged. Behind a screen where no one gave a fuck if you looked like a burning dumpster - as long as you hit your shots.

---

Veronica didn't even notice you had come back until she heard the water running in the bathroom. A minute later, the horrifying realization hit - you'd definitely see that pathetic makeup graveyard. She swallowed hard, her hands sweating. For some reason, it felt like a crime, like she was afraid you'd think she'd done this for you, and the worst part? It was true.