Alex must be found

Alex liked that. It had been almost an hour, and she had tried it back and forth, hesitated, walked out of the store, folded back again, tried it again, tried the wigs again. She could soak there all afternoon. Three or four years ago, she stumbled upon this fashion house on Strasbourg Strasbourg Avenue. Out of curiosity, she stepped into the store without looking at it much. When she saw herself with reddish brown hair in the mirror, she was completely shocked by her change, and she immediately bought the wig. Alex looks good in almost anything she wears because she's really pretty. But not always, she began to look beautiful from adolescence. Once, she was just a little girl, a little bit bigger, skinny and ugly. But once the metamorphosis occurs, it is like a huge wave rising from the bottom of the sea, and the body suddenly changes and accelerates the deformation. Within a few months, Alex was radiant. In an instant, everyone didn't believe it, not even herself, and this sudden divine favor actually happened to her. To this day, she doesn't believe it.

Take, for example, a reddish-brown wig. She never imagined that she would be so suitable for such a dress. A great find. She did not doubt the breadth of this change, or its richness. A wig, which was too superficial, but somehow she felt that something had happened in her life that she had never experienced before.

This wig, in fact, she had never worn. When she got home, she quickly realized that its quality was really average. It looks fake and ugly, incomparably clumsy. She threw it away, but instead of throwing it in the trash, she threw it in a closet drawer. Every now and then, she took it back and wore it for self-examination. Even though the wig was so ugly——— it seemed to be yelling, "I made it from low-grade synthetics." But it didn't stop Alex from seeing her own potential in the mirror. She returned to Strasbourg Avenue, where she carefully selected high-quality wigs that sometimes cost a little more than her salary as a temporary nurse, but after all, they were real wigs that could be worn out of the house. She emboldened herself.

Everything is difficult at the beginning, first dare to try. For someone as shy as Alex, it does take half a day to pluck up the courage to start trying like this. Makeup, clothing, shoes, bags, all have to be coordinated (in short, find a wig that coordinates with your existing outfit, after all, you can't reconfigure your full body outfit every time you change your hairstyle...), and then you walk out of the store and walk down the street, and in an instant, you're another person. Not exactly, but pretty much. Even if it doesn't change your life, it will at least help you pass the time, especially if you don't have too many expectations.

Alex loves label wigs, the kind of wigs that clearly convey a message, like, "I know what you're thinking," or "I'm a math guy too." The top she wears today says, "Don't try to find me on Facebook." ”

When she saw the man through the window pane, she was clutching a pattern called "city shock." The man was on the sidewalk across the street, pretending to be waiting for someone or something. This is the third time in two hours. He stalked her. Now, she's pretty sure. Why me? It was the first question that popped up in her head, as if all girls could be followed by men, as if she couldn't; It was as if she really didn't feel their omnipresent gaze. On the bus, on the street, in the shops, Alex attracts men of all ages, which is the advantage of thirty years old. Still, she was surprised. "Much better looking than me." Alex was always lacking in self-confidence and always full of doubts. Play small and that's it. Her stuttering problems did not get better until puberty. Even today, she stutters when she is at a loss.

She didn't know the man, and he was supposed to impress her with such a figure, no, she had never seen him before. A fifty-year-old man stalks a thirty-year-old girl... It wasn't that she was making a fuss, she was just shocked, that's it.

Alex lowered his gaze, looked at something else, pretended to be hesitating, and then walked through the mall and stood in a corner where he could observe the sidewalk across the street. The man was supposed to be an athletic man, the kind of man who was strong and burly, as evidenced by his tightly wrapped body. She stroked a blond hair that was almost pale, trying to recall the scene when she first realized he existed. It was on the subway. She saw him standing at the end of the carriage. Their eyes met, and she saw him smiling at her, and she could see that he was trying to make the smile look charming and sincere. On this face, what she didn't like was that there seemed to be some settled idea hidden in the gaze. But most importantly, lips were barely visible on that face. She instinctively felt distrustful, as if all the people who could not see their lips were hiding some ulterior secret, with some malicious malice. And his bulging forehead. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to look him in the eye. In her opinion, the eyes do not deceive people, she always looks at a person through the eyes. Apparently, at that time, on the subway, she didn't want to waste more time on such a guy. She didn't show too much of an obvious, just turned her direction, turned her back on him, groped in her bag for a while, and pulled out her MP3. She put on a song "Nobody Wants a Child", and suddenly felt as if she had seen him somewhere, on the day before yesterday, or on the big day before yesterday, just downstairs from her house. The picture was a little blurry, and she wasn't quite sure. It had to be revisited to awaken the vague memories, but she didn't want to encourage herself to take the risk. What was certain was that after the metro encounter, she saw him again half an hour later, when she was walking back from Strasbourg Avenue. She had just changed her mind, and she wanted to look again at the brown wig, medium long hair, with her hair strands, and she turned her head suddenly, and saw him, a little distance away, on the sidewalk, and he suddenly stopped and pretended to be looking at a women's window. No matter how much he pretended to be engrossed, it wouldn't help........

Alex put the wig back. For no reason, her hands began to tremble. That's silly. He liked her, stalked her, he just tried his luck, he would never attack her on the street. Alex shook her head, as if to sort out her thoughts, and when she looked back into the sidewalk, the man disappeared. She looked left and right for a while, but there was still no one, and he left. She breathed a slightly exaggerated sigh of relief, kept repeating "too stupid", and her breathing finally slowly returned to normal. Walking to the door of the store, she involuntarily stopped again and reconfirmed. Now, she was a little worried because she couldn't see him.

Alex looked at his watch and then at the sky. The weather was nice, and it would take almost an hour before dark. She didn't want to go home and thought she should go to the food store. She struggled to recall what else was in the fridge. When it comes to buying things, she is really thick and leafy. Her attention was focused on her work, on her comfortable living (Alex was indeed a bit fanatical), and, though she was reluctant to admit it, on her clothes and shoes, on her bags and wigs. She wanted to focus on love, but love was another matter, a disaster in her life that should be drawn. She had expected, longed, and given up. Now, she is reluctant to spend much time on this issue, or even think about it. She just tried not to make up for this regret with a TV blind date, not to eat too much, not to become too ugly. Still, despite being single, she rarely felt lonely. She has her own life and allocates her time well. As for love, it has been delayed anyway, so let it go. Ever since she was ready to die alone, things have become simpler. Despite being alone, Alex tries to live a normal life and try to have fun. Creating some small enjoyment for herself in life, she has the same right as others—such an idea has helped her a lot. For example, she decided to switch back to the Monterelle restaurant on Via Fgilar tonight.

She arrived at the restaurant early. It was the second time she had gone. The first time was a week before, a beautiful reddish-brown haired girl had dinner alone, which was certainly impressive. Tonight the waiter greeted her like a regular customer, pushing and shoving each other, as if flirting with this beautiful guest, she just smiled, and the waiters thought she was charming. She asked for the same table, with her back to the terrace, facing the hall, and she ordered the same half bottle of Alsace ice wine. She sighed. Alex loves to eat, and even though she tells herself to be careful, she can't stop talking. Her weight was like a yo-yo. Speaking of which, she can handle this problem quite well at present. She can grow ten pounds, fifteen pounds at once, so that people can't recognize it at all, and after two months, she suddenly changed back to her original weight. In a few years, this is unlikely.

She took out the book and asked the waiter for a spare fork so that she could press the pages while eating. As last week, across from her, a little to the right, sat the same guy with light maroon hair. He often dines with friends. There were only two people now, and the people around them couldn't hear their conversations without much effort. He saw her immediately, and had been staring at her from the moment she entered the door, but she pretended not to notice him much. It was likely to last all night, and even though his other friends had arrived, even as they began to talk endlessly about work, girls, women, and taking turns talking about their heroic deeds, he would keep looking at her. Alex enjoyed the scene, but she didn't want to blatantly give him any encouragement. He was not bad, forty or forty-five, quite handsome, probably a little drunk, and the alcohol made his face look tragic. It was this kind of face that made Alex feel emotional.

She finished her coffee. As she left, she made the only concession, giving him a look with just the right amount of force. Simple single look. Alex was furious with this trick. But for a moment, she really felt a kind of pain. She saw the man project a longing gaze that made her heart flutter, as if seeing a sad promise. Alex never made any promises, the kind of real promises that involved her life. Like tonight, she felt her brain fixed on the frozen picture, as if the movie projector of her life was stuck, there was no way to play it back, there was no way to re-tell the story, there was no way to find the words. Next time, if she stayed a little later, he might be waiting for her outside. Who knows. Sooner or later anyway. Alex knows these steps all too well and is always the same. A reunion with a man would never bring too much of a good story to her, at least such a scene, she could not have been more familiar. Anyway, that's it.

Night has completely fallen, and the temperature is moist and comfortable. A bus just arrived at the station. She quickened her pace, and the driver saw her in the rearview mirror and stopped to wait for her, and she stepped up her pace again. But, just at the moment when she wanted to get in the car, she changed her mind, she decided to take a little walk, and then halfway to another car, she signaled to the driver, and the driver returned with a regretful gesture of hers, as if to say: Fate, what a hidden mystery. He still opened the door: "I don't have a car behind me, this is the last train tonight..."

Alex smiled and made a gesture of thanks. Well, she could only walk home. She would walk Down Falkier Road before turning to La Brucester Street.

She had lived in this neighborhood for three months, near the Porte de Wanves. She moves a lot. Previously, she lived near the Gürmen in Clignan. Before that, near The Trade Street. Some people hate moving, but for her, it's a must-do. She loves moving. Probably because, like those wigs, it feels like it can make a difference in life. This is the main theme of life. On this day, her life is about to change. A few meters away, right in front of her, a white van drove up the sidewalk ready to stop. In order to pass, Alex could only walk against the outer wall of the house, and she felt a presence, a man. Before she could turn around, her back had been punched hard. She lost her balance and lunged forward, her forehead slamming into the car with a muffled roar, and she dropped what she had in her hand, trying to grab something as a support but she didn't catch anything. The man grabbed her by the hair, but he just ripped off the wig. He cursed a word she didn't understand, and then angrily grabbed a large piece of her real hair with one hand, and hit her in the stomach with the other hand, so strong that he could kill a cow. Alex didn't even have time to cry out in pain, and she leaned over and immediately began to vomit. The man was so strong that he turned her to himself like a piece of paper, one hand tightly wrapped around her waist, the other hand shoving a lump of cloth into her mouth, blocking her throat. It was him, this man, on the subway, on the street, outside the shops, it was him. For a second, they glanced at each other. She tried to kick him, but his arm was wrapped around her like a vise, and she couldn't resist that much force. He pressed her down, her knees soft, and fell on the bottom of the van. The man kicked her hard in the waist. Alex was kicked into the van with his face rubbing against the bottom of the car. He followed her to the car and flipped her over, his knees against her abdomen, and a punch in her face. He hit so hard... He really wanted her to hurt, he wanted her to die, and this thought crossed Alex's brain in an instant, and her head hit the ground and bounced up, and the back of her head was hit hard, and the place of the occipital bone, where Alex told himself, was called the occipital bone. All she could think of except the word was that she couldn't die, couldn't die like this, couldn't die now. She curled up like a fetus, her mouth full of vomit, her head about to explode, and she felt her hands being violently twisted behind her back, tied to her ankles. I don't want to die now, Alex said in his heart. The door of the van slammed shut, the car started, and with a sudden momentum, it left the sidewalk. "I don't want to die like this." Alex was a little delirious, but she could still realize what was happening. She couldn't cry. Why me? Why me?

I don't want to die. At least not now.