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There is something about burying a part of yourself that has Hailey paranoid. Michelle was murdered - stabbed by scalpels, blown up by injections until she burst - and her remains are stuck six-feet-deep in cemetery soil in front of an unmarked grave. In the simplest of terms and of truths, Michelle is dead. And in her place Hailey has sprouted like a flower, sucking nutrients from her mangled body in order to bloom.
Still, Michelle drags herself out of her prison to clutch at Hailey’s ankles, the hem of her skirts, like a wraith. She fists the fabric of her magical girl costume in her fat, sweaty hands and she begs for recognition. For repentance. For a proper burial.
God, it’s pathetic. Hailey has built herself an empire of beauty - TV show appearances, magazines, make-up lines, a long list of ex-boyfriends, a zealous following of adoring, jealous teenage girls - and yet when she looks in the mirror, it’s like she can see Michelle looking back at her, teeth bared, condemning her for a crime that she never committed.
Sue understood this best. They confided in each other, one night, after attending a house party and getting horrifically plastered. Prim-and-proper Sue, teacher’s-pet Sue drinking while underage was something that Hailey found hilarious. And if her eyes lingered a little too long on the gloss of Sue’s lips, or bob of her throat as she drank, or the flush of her face that broke the cool facade she always wore - well, that must’ve been the alcohol.
Sue says that she killed her best friend to become a magical girl. Hailey replied that she had gotten plastic surgery and changed her name.
To become a magical girl? Sue slurred.
No, to feel like one, Hailey said.
It was a strange night. They never spoke of it again. But they held a quiet acknowledge of what the other had done to get where they were now, something that bordered on camaraderie.
Julie was obsessed with righteousness. Conquering evil with nothing but the goodness in your heart, the purity of your soul. Overcoming hardship and becoming stronger because of it. Pulling yourself up from the abyss that you found yourself stuck in through sheer willpower. She dreamt that the magical girls she created became avenging angels, smiting the wicked.
Was there anyone as delusional as she was? Hailey didn’t think so. All she learned from being ugly was that beauty was power, beauty was eternal, and beauty was loved.
It was like Julie wanted her to go through some bullshit self-acceptance phase. Some act of defiance against beauty, a tirade against society and the world and her friends from middle-school that couldn’t hide their disgust and the boys that asked her out as a dare. Like through this contradictory title as the magical girl of beauty, she would emerge from her cocoon in a state of body-positivity bliss. An angel.
How naive. The more Hailey thought about it, the more satisfied she was that she had been the one to push her off that cliff.
But sometimes Michelle reared her ugly head and asks to be loved, and Hailey looked at her the way she’d look at an injured animal. Pitiful and pathetic, sure. But maybe out of the two of them, she was the one who deserved salvation the most.
Beauty and perfection and envy all go hand-in-hand, and Sue knew that. She lived and breathed that truth, embodied it to its fullest. The two of them were attached at the hip, beauty and brains, but their relationship was a series of calculations of social approval, reputation, self-worth - will she decrease my value? Will she ruin me? Is she worth it in the long run?
There was certainly some substance to what they had. They were so alike, they could confide in each other. Beauty must be envied; beauty must be loved. Prestige must be envied; prestige must be won at all costs.
However, what they had pulsing between them was a culmination of small moments buried in a mess of social transactions. A hand on Hailey’s shoulder when she slapped a girl around a little too much. A quiet moment in Sue’s backyard. Genuine laughter that bubbled out of them both like soda fizz, messy and overflowing.
Hailey would replay some of those moments over and over in her head, mortified by the way her laugh sounded a bit too much like Michelle’s. She could always see her out of the corner of her eye, so she’d shut her eyes super tight like a girl back in grade school pretending like she couldn’t see the monster in her closet.
Once, they kissed. Hailey was throwing a party, so of course she had to invite Sue and the other girls and everyone else she deemed acceptable. A couple boys had shown up, and she could feel their eyes trained on her body every time she walked past them. She made eye contact with them a couple of times and figured that it was time for her to get a new boyfriend anyway.
Somehow, she ended up in a circle of truth and dare. The game had escalated quickly, with people stripping or taking shots or shoving their tongues down each other’s throat, so when she picked dare, one of the boys dared her to kiss Sue.
Sue was as calm as ever, smiling patiently the way she did when she was indulging someone she truly didn’t care about, and it irked Hailey, even though she herself was a little hesitant. A girl kissing another girl was something she only saw in the lesbian porn one of her exes had shown her. It was a little odd, maybe a little disgusting, but it’s not like she was ever planning on doing it. Then Michelle would wail with longing and Hailey recoiled from the subject altogether.
But if this was a way to make herself seem desirable, then why not? She ran her fingers over Sue’s cheek, and the others in the circle had started laughing and chanting for them to kiss.
She met Sue’s eyes. They were dark and inscrutable as she motioned for Hailey to continue. Kissing a girl wasn’t the worst offense she could make, but it wasn’t the best look either. She could chalk it up to a case of peer pressure, an unwillingness to back down from a dare, and the whole thing would be forgotten soon enough. Still, there was no benefit to it. Maybe Sue just wanted to appease her and figured that the cost wasn’t too high.
Hailey brushed her long, dark hair behind her ears; cupped her cheeks and drew their faces closer together. The loud beating of her heart drowned out everything around her, as if it was just the two of them in her bedroom with the door locked and the shades drawn.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Michelle’s footsteps followed suit.
Sue closed her eyes. Hailey slotted their lips together.
There was an explosion of noise around her, but she barely registered it. Sue tasted like soda and her bland vanilla lip-balm, soft and almost comforting. She wanted to disappear in the feeling, to bury herself deep in this instant and never leave. One of Sue’s hands had moved to rest on her shoulder, and she almost melted from its warmth.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Michelle was right behind her, arm raised, reaching past her to clutch Sue’s face-
Hailey shoved Sue away and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. She looked away, her lips tingling, but arranged her face into a confident smirk as she asked if they were satisfied. She knew they were - it showed on their faces, that weird mix of incredulousness, disgust, and hunger.
But inside, she was reeling. Michelle had been right there, closer than she had ever gotten. This couldn’t happen again. She wouldn’t allow Michelle to overtake her. She’d dump her bloated body back in the graveyard where it belonged.
She had the fleeting thought that if she wasn’t the magical girl of beauty, Sue would fit the part.
Hailey didn’t look at Sue for the rest of the night. They would never speak of this again.