Epilogue: The Only Attire I’ll Ever Need

The days after that first impossible night did, in their harrowing way, become “easier.” Not easier in the sense of less painful, or less violating, but easier in the way my mother had meant – easier to endure through the thickening carapace of numb acceptance. The numbness wasn’t peace; it was an anesthetic, administered daily by the relentless routine of the Amberley system.

School became a landscape of exposed skin and drying marker ink. Every morning, Claire and I presented our scrubbed-clean bodies as blank slates. Every day, they were written upon – in classrooms, hallways, the cafeteria. “Brave,” “Property,” “Canvas,” “Master,” equations, fragments of poetry, crude drawings, insults disguised as insights. The initial sting of each new mark faded into a dull ache, then into mere sensation. Claire stood beside me, a silent pillar of programmed calm, her own body accumulating its tapestry of imposed meaning. We became fixtures: The girl and her doll. The living art project. The owner and the owner.

Documentation became a ritual. Every evening, before the blessed, temporary oblivion of the shower, my mother (and sometimes my father) would appear with the camera and the tablet. Claire would assist me into whatever position ensured optimal visibility of the day’s inscriptions – standing, sitting, sometimes contorted. My siblings learned to vanish during these sessions. Mason’s face remained a mask of barely contained fury and disgust whenever he saw us. Ellie looked perpetually sad. Lila watched with a disturbing, growing curiosity. My mother’s questions – “How did this phrase make you feel, Emma?” – were met with monotone answers or silence. “Neutral.” “Cold.” “Irrelevant.” The truth – a roiling pit of shame, despair, and reluctant, horrifying dependence on Claire’s presence – stayed buried deep beneath the ice. Claire’s responses about her markings were always the same: “Denotes function.” “Neutral valence.” “Origin unknown.”

Weeks bled into months. The writing became less shocking, the documentation less acutely humiliating, simply because it was constant. The numbness spread, a creeping frost. My old self – the girl who hid behind layers, who clutched a sketchbook like a shield – felt like a character from someone else’s distant story. That girl was gone. In her place was this: exposed flesh, living ink, and Claire. Claire, who anticipated my needs before I voiced them. Claire, who absorbed the stares, the whispers, the casual cruelty with perfect, blank equanimity. Claire, whose constant, silent presence became the only boundary I had against the world. She wasn’t wearing clothing; she was attired. The only attire I would ever need, or so the system dictated. Her presence was my covering, my definition, my purpose mirrored back at me in her empty eyes. The concept of fabric against skin felt alien, absurd, a relic of a confusing, inefficient past. Why hide what was constantly on display? Why obscure what defined me?