Why, Cynthia? Why?

Yeah, you could call her that. She was a "gym freak", no doubt about it. Cynthia would expend several hours a day in the gym, exercising in various ways. She did it for two hours in the morning, then she would work, at midday have a balanced meal, work again until 4 and then four more hours at the gym. She arrived home at 8:30, had a salad or something light to eat and then bed, at around 11.

And that was every single day. On weekends? Well, instead of four hours, she would spend all the afternoon there. Cynthia's favorite exercise was pilates but she also joined dancing classes, spinning, swimming, running, biking, weightlifting and various others. It was as if her energy was eternal.

Her diet was also fully controlled. Everything in small portions, no red meat and no flours based products such as bread or even desserts. To be honest, she didn't ate too many sweets. Only from time to time she would treat herself to a low fat yogurt with fruit or a sugarless dessert. She preferred eating a fruit.

Anyhow, Cynthia met Jamie and they fell in love right away. Jamie was an accountant in the same company Cynthia worked on and they had bonded right away. Whatever free time she had to spend, she would spend it with Jamie: watching movies, going shopping, traveling to nice little towns,...

Luckily enough, Jamie also liked to exercise. He had a perfect body, or so she thought. Jamie would join Cynthia on weekends at the gym, were they would run against each other or help one another doing advanced exercises.

To sum it up, everything seemed fine with Cynthia. But that was exactly it. It only seemed.

Unknown to many, she had stopped talking to her siblings, only calling her parents once a month to let them know she was fine. They would never visit as she had been clear to them she wasn't keen on surprise guests. Her brother and sister were fine not talking to her. To them, Cynthia had been too pampered by their parents; everything she wanted, she got it. And it had been like that ever since she was a baby.

They knew what she really was like and they were not really interested in having anything to do with someone that would rather spend time with others or climbing positions, instead of joining them for Christmas dinners or birthdays. Cynthia always sent her gifts to her parents, never getting there and hug or kiss them. It was as if they were distant, annoying relatives.

Her sister in particular, knew a side of her many of her "closest friends" didn't know. Cynthia was violent, easily becoming enraged if people didn't allow her to do as she wanted. Her sister had once not allowed her to use a new lipstick she had been given as a gift, so Cynthia went crazy, throwing things all around and, finally, breaking the new expensive lipstick into pieces.

None of them knew about Jamie and if they had known, it wouldn't have been too different. She had had boyfriends before, all as shallow and obsessed with beauty and power like her. Some were jocks, others more of the responsable type, but it didn't mattered. They all finally met the real Cynthia and ran away scared.

But her relationship with Jamie turned two years old and everything was as good as the first day. Soon, they married and moved in together. Her parents and siblings only knew about it through a friend, in a most uncomfortable conversation.

Her mom and dad decided to go to the city were she lived and stayed in a hotel. They contacted her from there and arranged a meeting. Long story short, Cynthia lost contact with her parents. They had allowed too much to happen, to many indulgences, too many things and details. But this, had been the last drop.

Jamie proved himself an empty human being. To Cynthia's father, he was one of the shallowest persons he had ever met. The guy was only interested in money and in looking good. That was fine, but people normally had more to go with that. No, not Jamie. He was empty, like a vase with no flowers. Cynthia's dad asked him about his hobbies, his passions but the answers were always the same.

Cynthia's mom, however, was not that bothered by the simple mindedness of her new son in law. She was more shocked to know how Cynthia appeared to have changed, a turn for the worst in her opinion. Her daughter talked about maybe adopting, as she did not wish to ruin her body for a baby. She said she had it all figured it out, including nannies, education, sports,... Her mother was horrified; not only Cynthia lived away and ashamed of them (they were meeting in a café, not even a restaurant) but her future life contemplated raising a child to be like them, or maybe even even worse. It was too much.

They left to their home were they crumbled in tears, realizing how bad they had raised their daughter, as they felt it was their fault that she had grown up to be such a shallow woman. It wasn't the gym thing or even the diets. It was the fact that she was obsessed to be perfect, not accepting who she really was. She never discussed her past with people that met her and decided not to have friends, rather acquaintances. She only trusted herself in order to make her life perfect by buying and doing and pretending. And if it wasn't, she had no problem pretending.

Cynthia never knew she had nephews, from both of her siblings. She never knew her parents had won a trip to Europe or that the home were she had grew up had been destroyed by a massive flooding. And all that happened in only ten years, during which she had no contact with her relatives.

Many hoped, without telling others, that she would someday change as having children changed people, as did marriage. Well, she divorced Jamie, who tried to get custody of the child they had adopted, with no success. He was an idiot but he proved to have a heart. Cynthia did not have one. The divorce, the life of her child, they did not change her. She was as focused and cold, as always.

Maybe that is why the kid, a girl called Camilla, ran away from home at age 15. She escaped with the help of a friend and Cynthia's rage was more than it had ever been. But that was it: no guilt, no sadness, no pain. Only rage.

Camilla, after a long search, got her grandparents address and visited them. They were seniors now and she cried as she felt time had been stolen from her. Her grandma kissed and hugged her and cried with her.

They sent an email to Cynthia, where Camilla confessed she would rather stay with her grandparents than with her. That was the only time Cynthia shed a tear. The following day, she sent all of Camilla's belongings the her parents house and forgot about her. She then increased her exercise hours, becoming more and more trapped in herself until, one day, she fainted on a treadmill and died.

She won't come back

Laura wanted so much more of life. She was a nice person, dedicated, humble and worked hard when things had to be done.

But things had not gone her way. The world required to much effort, unrewarded work and suffering that made no sense. When she came back from work, she always thought it wasn't what she  had dreamt to do in life. She couldn't be thankful for the money as the pay was not very good.

To make things worst, she did not considered herself a typical post college girl. She wasn't eager for anything in particular anymore. Her dreams and old drive had died rapidly after she had attempted, for years, to find a job. And she finally got one, she realized how empty everything was.

She did not make friends with anyone at work. It made no sense talking to people that she didn't care in meeting. Chatting and making friends with everyone made no sense to her, as she thought that as a human, she had every right not to like someone or something.

Most of the others, if not all, were her exact opposite: they loved to go to every party the company made, they wore costumes in Halloween and played secret valentine and gave meaningless presents in Christmas.

Laura tried to be "sick" at home all those days. She hated people being a bit more fake than any other day. It was unnerving for her.

And that happened for almost three years. Work and work and work and then some holidays when Laura visited her family. She felt as if the past had come back after her. Everything reminded her of, what she once thought, were good times. They weren't. It was just a bit easier back then but also nightmarish in different ways.

She was happy sometimes but not often and always because of the little things that no one really payed attention to.

It wasn't surprising when, the following march, Laura was found dead in her apartment. She had taken a lot of different pills at once and then waited for the end. Her mother and brother (her father had died years ago from a heart attack) came to pick up her remains. She was cremated and then the ashes were scattered on a lake they all used to visit as a family. It was one of those really happy places for her and had always wanted to go back to.

Her mother was affected by her death in many ways, specially because she lived alone. At first, she felt guilty because she felt the relationship she had with Laura had not been the best. She never bothered in really knowing her, what she liked or disliked.

It was up to Ellen, Laura's mom, to go to her daughter's place and clean it up, pick the things that she wanted to keep and throw away the rest. She had a whole day and had asked her son to join her but he was now a busy doctor and couldn't afford to leave his patients.

The woman arrived early and brought with her a few boxes. She couldn't help it: Ellen cried when she entered Laura's room. It hit her, again, hard. She knew her daughter would never come back and she would never again hear her voice.

By midday, she had already finished. Laura did not have much to pack or sort. Mostly work related stuff and books and so on. Ellen decided to keep only two things: a dress she had always looked beautiful in and Laura's computer. She wanted to check it out before disposing of it or giving it away to some one who may need it.

The rest of her things was donated or thrown away. The week after Laura's death, Ellen received a letter from the company. She threw it to the garbage without seeing it. It was such an impersonal and stupid thing to do. "What do they care", she thought.

Days passed until she finally decided to call a technician to help her look up her daughter's computer. They help her break the password and then gave her a card, if she needed help selling the item.

Laura loved clothes or so it seemed by the sites she visited. Furthermore, Ellen found various drawings she had apparently done with some sort of program on the computer. They were really beautiful, all in a folder called "Four Seasons", probably because of the various colors and styles.

Ellen also found some porn sites (which she decided no to go through), cooking blogs and then she got to her email accounts. They were all filled with work related stuff. Laura got, at least, six emails from her boss and then there were more form other people working around. Ellen could see they demanded a lot from her.

The last thing she found was a blog. It was poetry or so it seemed. Laura did not write very often. Ellen read some pages of it and realized how frustrated her daughter was. It was impossible not to cry over it, not to feel sorry for someone she loved so much and had no chance of really knowing.

To be honest, Ellen thought parents were there not to be friends but rather like tutors. She probably needed to have done a bit of both to make her daughter com closer and confide in her.

But it was too late, and now the woman was crying over her dead daughter's computer. She was dead an no one could change that or the fact Ellen thought she had failed in many ways.

The next day, she called the technician again and asked him to take the computer. Just like that, no money, no transactions, nothing.

Months later, Ellen pressured Ronald, her son, to come for Christmas to her home. He brought his soon-to-be wife, who happened to be pregnant. Ellen knew about it, but was surprised when she saw the young woman enter her house.

The day after their arrival, they all went to the lake and left a few flowers on the edge. Ellen cried in silence and asked Laura for help and peace. On the way back home, she told Ronald to be the best father he could be, as she didn't wanted him to feel as destroyed as she felt right then.