Magical Girl Trixie

I've done bad things. Terrible things. Things I can never take back. I wish I could begin to describe the guilt I feel, but I can't. I can only revisit my memories, pray that those girls can forgive me and try to shut them out, but it never works. Their voices keep screaming in my ears! Their faces growing more and more vivid in my mind with every. Passing. SECOND!

But, it's too late for sympathy. It's too late to try and justify anything anymore, to myself or to anyone else. I guess the only thing left to do is tell my story… of how I became a magical girl.

***

As I walked to class, I held my head low, holding my books as close to my chest as I could so that I wouldn't end up running into anyone, making them any more mad at me than they usually already were. Even though it was still morning, I wanted the day to be over already, but deep down, I knew that even when I got out of school, nothing would get any better once I got ho--

“Hey! Watch it, Tripsy!”

As soon as I realized that I had bumped into someone and raised my head to apologize, my body was pushed to the ground, leaving my entire tailbone in throbbing pain from the landing. Of course, I just had to run into Lulu Lemon, the prettiest girl at Manehattan Middle School, and in my case, the meanest girl on the face of the planet.

“I… I'm sorry,” I whimpered, picking up my books from the floor and tilting my glasses back up to my face.

“You gonna cry already?”

“I… n-no, Lulu. I’m not g-gonna c-c-cry.”

“Sure sounds like you are.”

Finally, I had all my books collected and was ready to get to class, leaving this whole situation behind m--

“Hey! Don't walk away from me, you bitch!”

Suddenly, I was being grabbed by the hair and forcefully yanked up to eye level with Lulu. I tried to make eye contact, but once I saw how scary her glare was, I couldn't bring myself to look anywhere but our feet. Pain was soaring through my scalp, and I feared that if she held on much longer, my hair would get pulled out completely. Knowing Lulu, she wouldn't care so much about leaving me with a bald spot, but she would be very upset if I fell down again while she was trying to talk to me.

As I glanced around to see if anyone was going to help me, I was met with the familiar giggles of the students who passed by, all looking straight at me, but none willing to help intervene.

“You aren't trying to make a liar out of me, are you, Tripsy?”

“N-no, Lulu! I would never--”

“SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!”

My whole body was trembling. My eyes wouldn't even open anymore out of fear of what she would do when I finally looked her in the eyes, or worse, if I didn't look at her at all. My heart was beating out of my chest, but all I could do was wait for her tirade to be over so I could just go to class.

“Now, I said you were gonna cry, but I don't see any tears yet.”

I couldn't even comprehend what was going on. As I hung there, my body still shaking, I tried thinking of anything I could say to calm her down, but nothing came to mind.

Whack!

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, and then my knees as I was immediately dropped to the floor. Not only had she punched me in the gut as hard as she could, but she let go of my hair as soon as she did it, giving me two type of pain in one instant once my knees hit the ground. That's when the floodgates opened up and I began crying pathetically on the floor.

“Now that's more like it," Lulu said with a smile finally forming on her face. "This was fun, Tripsy. We'll have to do this again the next time you fuck up. Ciao!”

Again, dozens of students passed by, but none offered to lend me a hand. Instead, they all just walked by, laughing, some pointing at my humility. I wanted to be angry at them, but I knew that I deserved it. This was my punishment, and I had no one to blame but myself.

Finally, after getting the strength to pick up my books again, I made my way to class, getting to my seat right before the bell rang. If I was tardy one more time, I can't imagine what would have happened. My teacher probably would have kicked me out of class, and my mother would have beat the sense into me until I learned my lesson. Fortunately for me, though, I could at least avoid that one punishment. Even if I didn't want to see my teacher, even if I didn't want to go home to my mom, I could at least be spared this one thing.

“Trixie? Trixiiieee?”

“Yes? Oh! H-here!”

“Honestly, Trixie, are we going to have to have this conversation again?”

“N-no, Mr. Fairweather. I'm sorry I wasn't listening.”

“You never listen! You're always off in la-la land doodling in your notebook and dozing off in class! Do you even care that you're taking up valuable class time?”

“N-no, sir. I--”

“You know what I just realized? You're just a narcissist.”

“I'm… a what, sir?”

“You need everybody's eyes on you all the time! Just the thought of not being the center of attention must be the hardest thing in the world for you!”

“I'm sorry, sir! I… I…” My words were getting caught up in my throat. I just wanted his speech to be over. I just didn't want everyone staring at me anymore. I just wanted to d--

“Fine. Moving on. Tuscany Sun?”

“Here.”

“Upper Decker?”

“Here.”

Finally, his attention was somewhere else. I knew it would be a bad idea to doodle today, but at least if I could just stay awake, I would hopefully avoid being the center of another one of his outbursts. Staying awake, though, was a problem in and of itself.

My mom would go to work around dinner time, which means that she wouldn't get home until early in the morning, and when she got home, she made it very clear that the house was hers. Whether this meant a loud TV, late parties with her girl friends or just barging into my room to remind me of what a problem I was in her life, I just had to do the best I could to fall asleep. She also worked Sunday thru Thursday, which meant that literally every school day that I had, I wouldn't be getting much sleep.

Of course, I was grateful to have her as a mom. Despite the times she hurt me or kept me awake, she was still providing a roof over my head and food in the fridge for me to eat. I just couldn't complain when I had luxuries like that, but at the same time, every day when the bell rang to send us back to our homes, part of my heart dropped into my stomach, because I knew that when I got home, there was nothing for me to look forward to.

Later that day…

“I'm sorry, mom! I'm sorry! I--gauhhhff!!!”

As my mom sent her broom into my stomach, I did everything I could just to keep my gag reflexes from spilling my lunch onto the living room carpet. If I ever did that, she would never buy food for me ever again. Instead, though, I just fell to the floor, holding my stomach and trying to breathe after having the wind knocked out of me.

“Can you go even one single day without interrupting class?”

“I'm sorry, mom! I'll try harder next time! I'm sor--”

The next thing I knew, her high-heel was striking me across the face, sending me to the floor again with my glasses falling off of my face.

“Pick those up! PICK THOSE UP RIGHT NOW!”

With only half my vision, I felt around the floor until finally I found my glasses, and even better, they were in one piece, but just as soon as I put them back onto my face, my mother gripped her hand around my neck and brought my face to hers.

“I paid good money for those glasses. Just so you could FUCKING see! Now, if you know what's good for you, you will protect those with your life, and if anything ever happens to them, you'll wish you'd never been born.”

“Y-yes, mom. I love you, mom.”

My mom, however, just held me there, and though I tried not to panic, I was losing air. I couldn't kick or flail, otherwise she would kill me on the spot, but at the same time, I knew I only had a few more seconds of air left in my lungs. Then, just as I was about to black out, she threw me to the ground, my head hitting the coffee table on my way down.

”Please tell me I didn't break it!” I thought to myself. Quickly, I turned to look at the coffee table, and to my relief, it was OK. This meant, though, that I had turned away from my mother, and suddenly all the anxiety from before had returned to the pit of my stomach. Without a moment's hesitation, I faced my mother again, and again to my relief, she was already walking towards the door.

“I'm going to work,” she said, grabbing her purse and throwing her broom aside. “If you need to eat tonight, you know where the fridge is. Just promise you won't get any fatter."

“Thank you, mom. I love you. Have a good day at work!”

As I waved good-bye, my mom opened the door and began walking out, quietly closing it behind her. Finally, I could sigh in relief, but that relief was short-lived. The moment I stood up, I felt something wet dripping down my back underneath my clothes. Then, as I put my hand to the back of my head, my worst fear came true.

“Blood? Oh, no!”

Quickly, I pulled my shirt over my head, and just as I had suspected, blood had dripped down all the way to my back, staining my shirt in the process.

“No, no, no, no, NOOOO!!!!”

Without a second's hesitation, I ran as fast as I could to the bathtub, filling it with water and any kind of stain-removing detergent I could find. I then used my hands to try to rub out the blood stains, but nothing was working. If anything, I was making the stain even worse by allowing it to permanently sink into the fabric itself. Once mom found out about this, she would cut open the rest of my body and have me use my shirt to stop the bleeding, which admittedly, was just me being optimistic. At this point, I really couldn't imagine what kind of punishment she would do to me when she saw that I ruined a shirt that she spent her own money to buy for me.

With tears in my eyes, I emptied the water in the tub, cleaned up any evidence that I had been there and made my way to my room. As soon as the door was closed, I threw my soaking wet shirt onto the floor, fell onto my bed and began crying harder than I had during the entire day. I just wanted the pain to be gone. I didn't want to be scared all the time. I didn't want to come home. I didn't want to go to school. I just wanted to feel safe!

“Maybe…” I said to myself. “Maybe I really would make everybody happy if I died.”

Or you'd make everybody's life worse! Imagine the cleanup that mom would have to do! Imagine her telling all of her friends why her daughter just disappeared! Imagine how pissed off the kids at school would be if they had to do a stupid suicide prevention class because of you!

“But… maybe I would be happier if I died…”

There you go again, putting all the focus on you! It's just like Mr. Fairweather said! You always need all the attention drawn to you! Have you ever once thought about what somebody else wanted?

“Isn't there some way to die where nobody will ever find out?”

I thought and prayed and thought some more and prayed some more, but nothing came. The world was going to be stuck with a miserable fuckup like me, and I was going to be stuck with this cruel, uncaring world.

Doing the only thing I could possibly think of to cheer me up, I pulled out my backpack, grabbed my notebook and began flipping through the pages. Sure, most of it was notes about math or science, but there were also some of my doodles drawn inside the margins, the only thing I was proud of.

The pictures were of me, but not the me I saw when I looked in a mirror. Instead, the Trixie on these pages was a great magician, a wizard, a magical girl. With a twist of her wand, she could make the stars themselves realign. The ursa major would be under her control; she would put on a dazzling show and travel from town to town, dazzling the masses. She wouldn't wear these stupid glasses. She would wear a cape and a witch's hat! She would even have a picture of a wand and moon tattooed on her hip! She called herself, “The Great and Powerful Trixie,” and although they were just immature doodles, they were my greatest inspiration.

Holding the notebook up as I laid down on my bed, I said, “One day, I'll be like you and make everybody happy. I can see it now. The Great… and Powerful… Tri…”

By this point, I had lost a lot of blood, and with the notebook dropping onto my chest, my vision faded to black as I lost all consciousness...