Maddie's Girls

Chapter 31

♀ Rebecca ♀

I've never liked the feeling that I got when I hurt people.

It made feel ashamed of myself.

When I was little, Cordelia used to punish me for the pettiest of things. At first, the punishments were well deserved. I was a bit of a rebel as a child. I now take pride in knowing that I irritated her even before I was grown. It has never been a secret that Cordelia never wanted children and if she had to choose, she would've chosen Roma in a heartbeat.

Anyway, the point was that the more she punished me, the more I could tell she liked it. It was a look in her eyes, almost as if they glinted. She wanted me to fear her, she wanted me to know that she was above me and that I needed to do as she said.

It started with pinches, she'd move on to pulling my hair, slapping me... one time, I was didn't come home for two days or so, and when I finally got home, she grabbed a broom and hit me with it. The more she hit me, the angrier I grew and the louder I'd shout 'Harder, do it harder! it doesn't fucking hurt!' Of course, that only made her angrier.

It's funny because when I told Asha that story, I kept the broom hitting to myself. No matter how open I was with her, I don't think I'll ever be able to tell her the extent of Cordelia's abuse.

There's something about abuse that not many people understand unless they've been abused themselves. When somebody hits you, normally your first response isn't to get mad about it, it isn't to scream or get back at the person, at least not with me... my first response is to feel humiliated, to feel my eyes swelling up with tears even though I didn't mean to cry. I stay frozen in place, too humiliated, shocked to move.

The last time she tried to hit me I was about 16/17 and before her hand could touch me, I grabbed it. I was almost the same height as her by then, so I looked at her in the eye and I saw the exact moment in which she realised she was never going to be in control of me.

I respect her, I love her, I sympathise with her. But I never wanted to be anything like her.

The whole time Maddison watched me as I told her every single thing we did, all that we planned, I could see how much it hurt her. And then, when I showed the text messages... when I saw the look on her face, I knew I had broken her.

I knew she felt exactly what I wanted her to feel, I knew I had hurt her because just like I did, she loved Asha, or she felt something very close to love. It was then when I knew I had the power to do more if I wanted to. I could do hurt her the same way she hurt me. The same way she hurt us.

And if I hurt her enough, she'd stay away from Asha.

It made the world around me spin when I realised that I liked it, that I wanted to do it.

It made me feel like Cordelia. And that... that was something I didn't like.

I never wanted to hurt anyone other than Maddison but when the girls showed up when Asha showed up— I couldn't control it. It felt like I had thrown little pieces of broken glass into the air and I had walked away, leaving the girls in the middle of the rain of glass, unprotected and alone.

It was my doing and although I was mad beyond seeing reason... I didn't want to hurt them. I hadn't meant to.

Their anger, though, was well placed. When Maddison walked out and Asha left with her, not only leaving me behind but also showing us all that she really did care for Maddison..., the girls were mad. At me and I deserved it.

And on any other occasion, I would've apologised but the moment that Asha trailed after Maddison, she walked out on me. She left me. For Maddison. For the same girl that knew my deepest darkest secrets and used them against me, the same girl that used all of us, the same girl that wouldn't even give it a second thought before hurting her.