She repeated it over and over.
"I'm independent. I make my own way"

But this time, this time she could barely withstand the misery she put herself through. This facade she had worn so often was wearing away and cracks into her reality, exposed by circumstance, had become disturbingly clear. She wasn't very independent, although she was more than most. She made her own way thanks only to the shared driving force of pride, lack of trust and/or fear of exposure. But this latest abandonment (of the most casual kind), combined with fatigue and disappointment from a night of expected euphoria, had her exhausting plastic smiles and conversation until finally joy was only something imagined and for the moment, forgotten. She further obliged herself to be in the company of two boys of relative age whose thought processes both amused and annoyed her. She recalled also the boys of the previous night she had met, who in her opinion had the politics of 16 year old girls.

It always seemed she was a head above the rest.

But to the point. Apparently this independent, self-paving way maker of a girl could not deny loneliness. She feared rejection because she dealt it so effortlessly and assumed it to be dealt in equal amounts by others. Her prejudices were, at its worse, a vessel for paranoia. But most of all, her insistence for isolation resulted in her present state of loneliness. She was harbouring every necessary ingredient for a subtly selfish life.

Honestly, I cannot believe she just revealed all of this.
I just hope she changes.
For all our sakes.