"Is that you?" Krystal asked without turning her head around.

"It's me, darling," Luna purred. She took a seat next to her, staring at her face in the mirror. Long lashes, a perfect jawline, gorgeous red hair that framed a face that could rival any supermodel, with the makeup, of course. Her grin from just half an hour ago still hung onto her face. The audience had called her queen, showered her with compliments, and screamed with excitement when she entered the stage. It was exhilarating.

The dressing room was strewn with wigs and misshapen pieces of clothing. The noise was buzzing down outside after the show, the glitz and glamour dissipating into thin air. It left a suffocating calm that lingered everywhere. Luna's lips began to droop.

"Have you heard about Maxine? Can you believe she threw that heel at Juju? Ugh, I can't with these girls." Krystal wiped off her makeup as she spoke. Each stroke of the remover wipe revealed the man beneath. "Like, jeez. What is going on these days..."

Luna tuned Krystal's incessant babbling out. She set her phone down at the table with a clack. She also had to take her makeup off, yet she just sat there, listening to Krystal talk. It made her feel as though the show had not started yet, and they were just getting ready, and she was masking her imperfection instead of revealing it.

Her phone buzzed. But she did not want to look.

"I can't believe Jeremy would say that about you though. You are not cheap in any kind of way, girl. You're better off without him. You are a queen!" Krystal chattered with her signature chippy voice as if they were halfway through a conversation already.

"...yeah." Luna studied her own nails. Her corset was strangling her insides at this point.

 "Like, he's just trash, you'll be just fine! You always find a way,” Krystal said.

Somebody called out to Krystal to get her to hurry up. A different man than last week, Luna noticed. She responded with an insult about his height, then stood up to strip her sequined dress off. A breath of relief could be heard as she released herself from the outfit.

Luna sighed. She went to take off her wig too, slowly. She did not have a place to stay, unlike Krystal, who hopped from one man's bed to another. Luna's parents threw her out, and she did not want to go back to Jeremy, either. The phone buzzed again. She once again ignored it. Then she took off the outfit she wanted to keep on despite the pain it gave her.

"You need to get all that makeup off already! It's so uncomfortable, I don't know how you stand it. Get some sleep! I'll see you tomorrow!" Krystal strutted away.

Luna knew Krystal would not be here tomorrow, usually too hungover to function the days after weekend performances, having drunk her problems away the nights before. But Luna would be here to perform. Like always.

She went about slowly wiping the layers upon layers of makeup. Two hours of it, in fact. Underneath the contour, the highlight, the foundation, the lipstick, the lashes, was John. Not Luna.

John stared at himself in the flickering yellow light. Pale skin, sunken eyes, stringy hair, a face Jeremy called disgusting. He bunched up his thinning strands of hair in his hands. Jeremy was horrible. He was better without him. For sure.

His phone buzzed one last time, and John picked it up. It was an unknown number, some stranger texting another stranger, a life he had no part in. He did not know why he got so worked up over it.

So John picked up his things and left. The door creaked as he exited out onto the dark street, into the quiet city again, looking for a place to stay.