Magicians Secret // Big Mouth

1.5 Slut

"I just-- I knew he was an asshole but-- wow." Jessie scoffs, shoving her dogeared broken spine biology textbooks into her backpack, regardless of care for screwing her gatorade bottle fully closed in order to protect them from getting bled on by sticky blue fizz.

I sit still, a long chunk of dark wavy hair hanging beside my head, clouding my vision from anywhere else but down, where some tempting scissors lies perfectly stationary. The sharp, shiny metal blades catch the light of the fleeting sun before it hides behind masses of clouds, the orange plastic handles seem so comforting as I imagine how they would feel between my fingers. The lock of frizzy, tangled hair, dark and split-ended waits for its final breath and disconnection from my broken self. My eyes fixate on each strand, each stray hair with a life of its own that travels anywhere but up, because it wants out, it wants to escape.

Suddenly, I seize the scissors and sever the lock of hair with jagged but confident chops, pulling with my free hand onto the hair as it becomes apart from my existence and can be pronounced dead. I hear the gasp from Jessie, and the rest of the class that inevitably turns to watch the savage massacre of my identity.

Once the chunk is alone, a corpse floppily lying over my palm, I drop it along with the scissors back onto the desk. I stand up, letting the chair scrape sharply behind me as I do, and storm out of the class. My journey powers through the halls and into the girls bathroom beside a row of blue shiny lockers, each as dreary as the other.

I aggressively shove the first stall door open and lock it behind me, falling onto the closed toilet seat and finally exhaling the breath that I'd been holding since Jessie gave me the news that Andrew had told her to tell me to back off, because he didn't like me like that.

I didn't have any friends before I started going to Bridgeton middle school. My own brother seemed to despise my existence, that usually happens when your a twin who's always wanted to be the centre of attention: I was a threat. Instead, I would sit alone in my room, watching magic videos and practicing tricks.

It wasn't until I met Jay that I realised I wasn't meant to be alone. I'd thought that some people where destined to be loners, and that I was just an extreme introvert. He showed me what comfort was. What trust was. What love, not forced-family-love, or idealisation love, but real love was.

And even after it all fell apart, I had Jessie, my surrogate sister. And Andy, the only guy I trusted anymore.

My friendship with Andy had grown to be possibly peculiar, because after years of my own development as a person I've realised that I like to be affectionate in my relationships. I like to kiss and hug and speak in a very literal love language, because I'd been so deprived of any kind of intimacy for all of my childhood. I've become increasingly more insecure with age also, so I've had to trust that the people I am affectionate towards understand and know me rather than judge me. For so long I was convinced that Andy was only responding to me in our weird communication that he loved me in the same way in which I loved him: as a friend. I'd thought that he got that I was just fond of intimacy, and wasn't interested in perusing any romantic relationship with him, that I liked to be like that with everyone.

And maybe I did take it too far, maybe I did disregard the friendship title all together for a minute too long. But there most certainly is a definite difference between crossing the friendship line and obliterating it completely. Like Andrew has.

It's one thing to not understand me, but to go out of his way to have me be as humiliated and pained as possible by this indirect address is something I can't fathom to think of forgiving.

I manage to gather my bearings and leave the bathroom stall, walking up to the mirror to sigh at the awful haircut I've given myself. I pull my hair into a ponytail to hide the uneven ends and splash water from the sink into my face, pulling my hands over my cheeks to reveal the pink hue of anger still lingering behind my skin. I think for a second about just going on with my day, avoiding Andy and letting the feelings bubbling in my blood pass away, digest sharply through my body. But I've never been good at letting things go.