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Madeline hated herself. Simple as that.
She knew she shouldn’t. She knew there was no logical reasoning behind her feelings, she knew that it was just her anxiety and her dysphoria talking, piercing her heart until she couldn’t breathe, but knowing things didn’t help making them any better.
She tried to take a deep breath, to picture the feather just like Theo – oh sweet Theo, had taught her to, but it was of no aid. Nothing seemed to be able to stop the panic attack she was going through right now. And was his even a panic attack? Truth be told, Madeline had no idea, and was in no state of mind where this information held even a little bit of importance to her.
It was important though, way more than she could realise in her condition. Because maybe if she understood what was really happening, she could try to fix it. But there was no fixing it. There was no fixing anything. She can’t do anything good, she should know that by now.
Madeline tried again to breathe, but instead she let out a muffled sob, before breaking down and starting to cry uncontrollably. She clasped both her hands on her month, trying to block out any noise that might come out of her. The others couldn’t know.
They couldn’t, because if they saw her like this, they would think she is weak, would think she is pathetic, worthless, and fucking weak. And they would ask questions. But she could never answer. She could never tell them the truth.
The girl continued crying, all while trying to stay quiet and to wipe her eyes. And as she was doing that, her eyes fell on something on the wall opposite to her. A mirror. Oh.
Almost against her will, Madeline stood up, tears still rolling down her cheeks, and positioned herself right in front of the reflecting glass. And she looked at herself, like she had done previously a million times before. And just as usual, her eyes were quick to find everything wrong with her body. Her shoulders, her arms, her face, everything, everything felt wrong.
She hated it. She hated herself, she hated her body. She wished she could get rid of it, bury herself alive until she couldn’t feel anything anymore, or maybe hurt herself so bad that nobody would be able to recognise the mistake of nature she was.
She dreamt of climbing to the top of the mountain, all by herself this time. She would look at the magnificent view that she violated by daring to think herself worthy of appreciating it like she wasn’t some huge screw up the world would be better off without, and then maybe, just maybe, she imagined herself slipping of the edge, or maybe, and that even scarier, she imagined that she intentionally jumped and that this time, there was nothing to save her. Perhaps this way she would be free of the burden of carrying her body everywhere she went.
She looked at herself again. She knew her thoughts were irrational. She knew she had transitioned, and she definitely looked like a girl. A false girl who is deceiving her friends. No. A real girl. An error of nature. A real girl. A liar. A boy pretending to be a girl. A real… Girl.
Madeline fell down on her knees, hands crossed on her chest. She was deep into a panic attack, and nothing she tried to do to calm herself seemed to work. She started punching herself, hoping it would make the thoughts, the feelings, the nausea she felt by looking at herself, all of it, make all of it go away. She punched herself in the face once, then twice. The pain distracted her. Made her think about something else.
Oh. Maybe there is a reason as to why this works. Maybe this is what she deserves. Maybe, maybe it would make her feel better. As if in a trance, Madeline got on her feet again, and walked this time to the kitchen. She didn’t care about how she looked now, she just wanted it all to stop. She grabbed the first knife she could find, and went back to her room.
She rolled up her sleeve, and stared at her arm for a second. Her stupid, wrong-looking arm. She was angry, so angry. She was angry at the world, at everyone, at everything. At herself. Especially at herself. In a fit of rage, she slashed her arm. One time, two times, three times. Again and again and again. She did it until all she could see was red, until her whole arm was covered with blood.
Then, looking at her arm, it hit her all at one. Oh god. What had she done? She had to clean up, she had to hide, nobody could know, she was supposed to be strong, why did she do that, why did she do that, why did she do that?
Panicking, Madeline retraced her staps to the kitchen, cleaned the knife as well as she could, uncaring for the blood dripping down her arm. She then put it back just as it was before, and went to the bathroom, where she found some disinfectant to put on her wounds. As she applied the tissue where she had put the liquid, she felt a familiar sting. It hurt. Good.
She finished cleaning herself, threw everything she had used in the bin, and went back to her room, only to lay down on her bed and to stare at the celling. She wanted to cry, but it seemed that she had run out of tears to shed. Instead, against her better judgement, she stared to imagine what it would be like if her friends found out about her secret.
It would be awful. Granny would chase her out of her house, telling her to never come back to the mountain ever again. Theo would delete every single selfie he had posted of the two of them on social media. He would delete any proof of having ever been friends with a liar like Madeline, and she would lose the only person who made her feel like she didn’t have to pretend all the time.
But again, it was what she deserved. She was born for pain. Or maybe she had grown so used to it that she didn’t know how to live without it anymore.