Sorell took off her heels, thanks to the compress, she no longer limped in her pumps and stilettos, but she noticed the slight change in her foot's appearance.

The woman shrugged off the sign of an eventual deformation with the thought beauty had its price.

People called her vain, but it was Sorell's consistent assessment of her presentation that helped her raise the bar.

Fat girl Sorell would not be hosting the morning news.

The woman was a black belt when it came to making killer efforts. From her one hundred kilos, Sorell dropped down like an elevator with broken strings to a crazy forty-nine kilograms for one-meter sixty-nine centimeters.

Slender was not a slim enough word to qualify the woman who was plain twiggy. If the weight of her clothes and gravity didn't hold her down to the surface of the earth, Sorell would float somewhere in deep space.

Sorell went on to open her fridge, which resembled a display item in Darty's electronics stores with its bareness and took out a water bottle. The smell of food made Sorell nauseous. Thus the woman ate nothing organic that could diffuse an odor in her fridge. She opened and picked her food supplements gulped down some water, and nervously munched a protein bar.

Done with her evening meal, she headed to the bathroom, where she took of her wig. There she was, the Sorell Nkechi no one knew, "hi bitch," she muttered.

Sorell began to remove her makeup, ten cotton discs laid in deep cocoa butter of foundation at her sink before the woman could consider her face bare.

The wide eyes sunk and became slits without the alluring mirage created by the mascara and eyeliner. Sorell's lips disappeared as the color blended in with the rest of her face. Finally, the nose she was so proud of in the morning returned to its original Nubian and pudgy state.

Sorell did not dwell on the hair. There was nothing to say.

Her aunt Mirelle told her to shave everything, but Sorell could not resort to doing so. The gesture was like being stripped naked.

For Sorell, there was a difference between shaving one's head for a change or after a break up like Sana Lathan in Nappily Ever After.

Also, there was a huge contrast between a bald light skin woman and a dark skin one. Even an educated woman like Sorell got trapped in century-old brainwashing opinions that society handed down to the next generations.

Light-skinned women fitted standards; people considered them more attractive, pleasant, and fragile, communities exposed darker skin women as harsh, mean, and savage. Sometimes, people bagged all the black women in the last definition, but when they wished to nuance the statement, that's how the logic worked.

Sorell remembered how boys would ask Petra to carry her little Lancel bags that could not even fit a notebook as if the girl would die from the task.

While everyone carried Eastpak backpacks, Petra preferred playing it American high school by bringing her books in her hands. That adventure, too, was aborted by a boy, see a girlfriend's helping hand. The boys would pass Sorell Petras's belongings so they could have a one-to-one conversation with the high school sweetheart.

Petra's cheeks flushed in a pretty peachy pink at any effort making all hurry to help. No one wanted her to chip a nail.

Sorell's aunt Mirelle attempted to combat her niece's thoughts. Unlike her sister, Sorell's mom, who took glutathione shots for fairer skin tone. Aunt Mireille kept her deep-roasted coffee tone. The hairstyler and beautician lived in the city of Lausanne in Switzerland. It was challenging for her to find her place in a country and city where black people were sparse until 2000.

"Your brown is beautiful," Mireille would say.

Sorell, the child, followed by the teen years after, would answer, "they say I'm blacker than charcoal."

"No, babe, no one is black. We have shades and tones."

Sorell remembered the first time she went to Sephora as a teen. There was never a shade for her, and the sales assistant would finish by saying, "you really don't need it. You have low-maintenance skin."

What Sorell understood was she was too dark. Therefore no one saw her imperfections.

Sounds good?

Once more, the debate is one of perception, and all Sorell retained from experience was that dark skin was not worth the bother. The woman had to wait for her late twenties to see the crusaders, Fenty, Iman, Black up, Huda Beauty, appear, and the historical brands like Estee Lauder, Lancome, and Clinique to acknowledge women of her complexion's existence.

Mireille was Sorell's hero and first support. She taught Sorell how to find the proper foundation, makeup, and cleansers.

Her aunt also made Sorell's wigs, but she prompted Sorell to seek her natural beauty," be bold babe, go bald, I swear it's the trend. Look at Lupita N'yongo people love her."

"I'm not her, aunty. I'm not that brave black woman people would want to see, and she isn't bald anymore."

Conversations.

Whether it was on the phone or face to face, Mireille could not attain Sorell's misconceptions.

The truth for Sorell was online, in magazines, social media. Everywhere she looked, a white or light skin woman had the spot.

When her aunt pointed out the fact she was on tv, Sorell would retort, "It's not my skin that played there. I was the best choice."

Everyone has scars, but Sorell's stigmas prevented the woman from becoming the best of who she was.

Color, hair, weight, none of Sorell's life issues found permanent or satisfying solutions.

Hair supplements didn't do anything; like many people taking vitamins, the woman forgot her diet's importance. Sorell barely ate; thus, the effects of all she took were null.

She could not even get a hair implant, whether it was a FUT [follicular unit transplant] or an FUE [follicular unit extraction]. The donor site on her head had to have active hair follicles.

RAS, rien à signaler [AC= All Clear Level], unfortunately for Sorell, there was no activity anywhere on her scalp.

Sorell showered, slipped on her nightdress, and combed her wig. Once done, she opened the door to her hair boudoir. Heads everywhere, her wigs posed like trophies on the polystyrene heads.

The shelves were full, straight, wavy, Jerri, curly, the list went on. Only one style was missing, kinky.

Tight and coarse, the texture that had recruiters say the candidates had a neglected appearance found itself banished from Sorell's exposition room. Some could imagine Sorell repelled the historical underappreciated nappy hair, but her motivations were elsewhere.

Sorell refused to wear hair resembling her own if it wasn't her grown hair. She preferred wearing other coiffures than one imitating and reminding her loss.

Contradictory?

Well, that's how Sorell was.

Sorell closed her chamber and went to test the products she bought.