OPEN MINDED

My perfect little girl

You can choose your ending in this chapter.

TW: self harming, sexual violence (on minors), dark thoughts; this is not autobiographic.

My grades are perfect and I have two part-time jobs, even though I don't even 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 grow in his career and my mom wanted to be an emancipated woman.

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 and tough.

I know I can do it, I know I was meant to be here. I know I need to do this in order to be who I want to be, I also know that I don't deserve this. I know people love me, that my friends cried when I was taking that airplane.

Do I deserve to be loved? My body is shaking, I need to wash my face and make my head stop pounding.

I talk to myself, as my therapist said me to do when I feel that coming.

I can do it, I'm strong, I can do it, even if I'm a weak, stupid, little girl.

I can't breath, 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 are black points and a spinning reality.

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 always 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 or freckles. We are identical and she is just staring at me with a confidence I will never be able to have. I'm not even scared, since it's the third time we talk. It's the third time I look at the blades I bought, 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 eating 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 cause you don't exist." It's the first time I say that in her face.

"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, then at my hair, then looks back into my eyes and points at my head. "I'm inside that."

"Why should I do this to myself?"

"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.