The girl had a knack for understanding people, their quirks, their desires, and their fears. She liked to fit people into the world like puzzle pieces.
In her world, there was no such thing as strangers, no one she couldn’t figure out, and she did everything she could to keep it that way. She was a great listener, good at giving advice, almost the perfect go-to friend. But beneath it all, she studied them, their subtle shifts in tone and expression when her friends talked for the tenth time about their day and all the annoying little things that were dumped into one huge debrief over lunch. She observed, in the most sensible way of course–nothing malicious, just organized–ever since she was little she had to know everything about everyone.
Everything had to fit; everything had to be connected. Nothing could be out of place or unknown; those things scared her.
When she was younger she got her favorite puzzle set, 3500 pieces picturing Monet’s The Studio Boat. She always worked on these puzzles with her father; he was a painter, and would particularly pick out puzzles with famous paintings on them. But once the history lesson was done and the puzzle was finished, he left. Her father was always coming and going trying to “find another piece to make.” But he stayed away longer and longer, and after a while he just stopped coming home. The girl guessed she was still trying to find a puzzle, one with his own painting on it, but at this age she knew better. She knew her father, the mysterious wayward painter, was nothing to look up to, nothing to admire; in fact she knew she never knew anything about him, nor did he bother to learn anything about her. She couldn’t stand it, and although she would never admit or tell anyone, she would never be caught off guard like that again.
And since then the girl has left nothing to chance, everything in her life made a clear picture. Her friends, her career, her relationships, all of it; they were all categorized and laid out in front of her. And next time she would know if someone were to leave her, and if they ever tried to she would leave them first; she would never again have a missing piece.
