Until now, she’d never thought of herself as pretty. Beautiful, yes. Stunning, definitely. An angel fallen to earth, she’d occasionally even heard that one. But ‘pretty’? Pretty was little girl sweet and candy floss innocence. It was not her because it was not enough. Pretty just didn’t cut it.

She stared at herself in the mirror. She’d been doing the same thing for an hour now, barely moving, hardly breathing, not wanting a hair to fall out of place. Pretty was an insult. She couldn’t bear to hear it again, so she was going to make sure she didn’t. That boy – just a little boy, okay, but still, he’d grow to be a man and his opinion wouldn’t change – had cut deep into the heart of her, into her vanity, and called her pretty.

Her companions had cooed over him when he’d said it. Just some random kid being dragged home from school by his mother, he’d spotted her from across the road and shouted out, “You’re very pretty, lady!” His mother had shushed him, apologised with a wave of her hand and then they were gone, struggling together down the street. She imagined that most girls would have been happy with that. But not her. She didn’t want to be pretty. She was exquisite and deserved to be called that.

So she sat in front of that same mirror, plucking here and tweaking there. When she bled, she said to herself it was for a good cause. And when her insides called out for food she told them not to be so greedy, that beauty was supposed to come from within for God’s sake.

One hour became two and three and fifty and still she wasn’t quite right. Fifty hours became a week and two and three. Her confused mind briefly, at times, wondered why no one was with her, but the thought soon passed as she stared again at the mirror, modifying, perfecting.

When three weeks became six, someone did come looking. The landlord. But as he told the police, he couldn’t be sure whose body that was; it was not a pretty sight.