A perfect, little girl

My grades are perfect and I have two part-time jobs, even though I don’t need to have a job: I just feel guilty asking my parents for everything. This year I moved to the other part of the Planet, but I lived my entire life alone and I don’t mind being here, alone again: my parents weren’t there because my dad wanted to live his career and my mom wanted to be an emancipated woman. I kinda get it, I would have done the same thing.

Before moving, I cried a lot. I left everything I had there, just to move on with my life. 

I moved just because I needed to remove my memories. 

I spent some months here and it looks nice, but it’s complicated tho. 

I know I can do it, I know I was meant to be here. I know I need to do this to be who I want to be, I also know that I don’t deserve this. I know that people love me, that my friends cried when I was taking that airplane, but do I deserve to be loved? My body is shaking, I need to wash my face and make my head stop pounding. 

I start talking to myself, as my therapist said it would be the best thing to do when I feel that coming.

I’ll do it, I’m strong, I can do it… but you’re a weak, a stupid, little girl.

My breath starts getting faster, but I can walk to the toilet even though I need to put my hands on the wall so I won’t fall; my head is spinning and all I can see is a confused reality full of black points. 

I’m in the toilet now. I can still distinguish the dust on this terrible blue floor. A bug is walking on those horrible orange flowers painted on the wall; it’s problably making fun of me, since I’m gasping for air in a space where, usually, air is not that…good.

I look into the mirror; my hands are on the sink. I’m suffering so much I can hear my veins pumping blood in my body. My lungs are rapidly expelling and grabbing air while my mouth tries to swallow the excessive of saliva.

I’ve alwayss been perfect, and I tried to be perfect. They wanted me to be perfect, I just gave them what they wanted. I’m sure they were doing this for me. 

“You’re not perfect, you know that.” My reflection talks to me; she doesn’t have a deep voice or a darker tone of skin color or darker eyes. We are identical and she is just staring at me with a confidence I will never be able to. I’m not even scared, since it’s the third time we talk. It’s the third time I look at the razor blades in the shower, hoping I’ll be brave enough to cut my flesh, wishing I’ll be strong enough to enjoy the blood flow coming out of my veins, pulsing against my thin, white, useless body.“It’s just a little cut, you won’t even feel that: do it.”

“I can’t do it.”  My voice isn’t strong enough; I am not strong enough to resist her voice, but I need to keep trying. “I won’t do it.”

“What are you going to do, then?” I can’t stand her eyes; they’re sucking my soul, they’re taking away my life, my hopes, my beliefs. “Stand there, crying like a weak, little baby... look at you, look at us. I thought you were better than this. I thought you were perfect.”

“We can be saved.” As soon as I say these words, I hear myself talking as if there were actually two people in this toilet. “I can be saved. You don’t exist.” It’s the first time I say that in her face, since I wasn’t brave enough to tell her before.

“Oh, I exist.” She’s so close I can see her face almost inside mine. “Do you know where I am?” She looks at my forehead, she esaminates my hair, then looks back into my eyes and points at my head. “I’m inside this.” 

“Why should I do this?”

“Cause it’s the only way you can handle the pain.” 

“I don’t even know where this comes from.” I’m crying now, I feel tears cutting my face, wetting my lips. 

“Oh, you don’t know where this comes from…” She repeats. “Are you sure? Who told you you weren’t perfect in the first place?”

“You did!”

“Oh, no… It wasn’t me.” Her hand touches her side of the mirror and she smiles at me. “Touch me.” I raise my hand, sobbing, crying my pain out of my eyes. My hand touches the cold mirror; I can’t really touch her, but I’m feeling her touch. “Now, remember.”

She brings me back in my past. I’m in my old bedroom, in the dark, looking at my young self sleeping. She’s sobbing in her sleep; I used to sleep with the light on, but that night, the storm was so terrible we couldn’t even use our phones. She is ten years old. She is a pure, young, virgin girl. I was a pure, virgin girl.

Someone is knocking the door and I instantly run to my young self. 

“Don’t open the door. Please, don’t ruin your life.”

“It’s a memory. - I feel her voice inside my head. - You can’t do anything. You need to watch and learn. I am not the evil version of yourself, I am here to show you what you need to remember to stop your pain.”

The teenager opens the door. “Dad?” I called him like that cause I felt him like a dad, but, actually, he was my mother’s second husband. 

“Are you okay? I heard you crying.”

“Yes, daddy, I’m just scared. Can you sleep with me?”

“Of course, baby. What were you dreaming?”

“I saw a monster, he almost ate me! I was scared so I run away and then I found mommy, but she wasn’t a real mom-”

“Baby, don’t worry. Your daddy is here with you, now. Do you want to see a magic trick?”

And here it comes. The trauma that still lives in my bones. I nodded and he sat on my bed; few seconds later, he was hugging from behind. “You need to be my magic assistant, okay? Don’t look at me and don’t move, okay baby? Just stay still.” 

I could feel his hand touching my little body, so I just waited: I was safe, right? But he was so silent and I was hearing some weird noises. “Daddy?” 

“Babygirl.. Just stay still. Be the perfect, good girl.” I couldn’t stand that, I was too curious, so I turned and looked into his eyes. I could see his face while he was moaning. He was touching himself and I was petrified. He stopped, took my neck in one of his big hands and kissed my lips, so hard I could even breath. “I told you to stay still. You’re not a perfect good girl, aren’t you? You’re an ugly, stupid, bitch. Now I’m gonna show you what happens to bad girls like you.”

An eternity later, I was feeling his excitation on my belly.

I am screaming, inside the bath of my toilet. When I look into the water, I discover that this ugly, stupid, bad and imperfect girl just hurt herself. 

A vertical line is perfectly designed on my arms and now, I can feel it. I close my eyes, my body feels like a free, beautiful soul. Now, I can feel it: I can feel the peace I deserve. 

…

I open my eyes. I look in the mirror again. It is broken, since I punched it. I want to cut myself, I want to fall in an eternal sleep in that bath, but I can’t allow him to kill me. not now.

So I take my phone and, after sending a message to my therapist, I call her. “Hello, my beautiful baby. How are you?”

“Hi, mum. Can I tell you a secret?”

“Oh, of course you can.”

“Your husband raped me, mum. And I wanna die because of him. I want to rip my body apart, I want to hurt me so bad. It’s not fair. I can’t do this anymore.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I need your help.”

“No, baby, I know.”

I can see my hands shaking, I sit down on the floor to help me stay calm.

So, she knew. For all my traumtic life, she knew. “Don’t call me anymore.”

“Baby, please, I didn’t know what to do.”

“Listen. I don’t give a single fuck about you. I need to find myself again, mum. And you’re a useless, submissive woman who prefers having a man instead of defending an innocent daughter. Mothers protect and love, and you weren’t able to do anything but love a repulsive man who was raping your daughter, your little girl. Don’t call me, don’t show up ever again. Go fuck yourself.”

The silence in my head is loud. My therapist answers. 

I just looked into your file and found your address. I’m coming over, I just called 911. jus wait for me.

Then, I read the message I’ve sent again.

Thank you for everything you did. I need some peace now.