Chapter 8 My Bad Girl
Ladies and Gentlemen, the letter of the day is O. O is for Oblivious and Oblivion.
My Magdalena had changed so much of my life and me, but she was completely oblivious.
She’d split each of my days in half—heaven and hell.
When she’d walk up those steps closer to me and say hi with too wide of a smile, almost giggling, nervous; and when I’d sit behind her, listening to every beat of her voice, smelling her hair, then meeting for lunch, only to listen to her again…
that was the purest of heavens. The safety of her allowed me to soak up her innocence so for a few minutes I, too, could be innocent.
Her world full of cheer became mine for that brief time on the daily.
Even though I had to work so hard making sure I didn’t say anything weird to keep her safe from the hell that was the other half of my life, it was beyond worth it. She was rain to a desert; blood and oxygen to my dying heart.
I couldn’t let my heaven mix with my hell.
All the darkness had to stay home. I had to push it to a corner of my mind, and no matter how much of it scratched at the inside of my brain with its sharp talons, wanting to come out, I had to ignore it.
It was all for her, to keep her safe from it, to not ruin her.
But also, it was for me, to not scare her away, to keep my angel, my heaven for as long as possible.
She thought I’d been sick for a few weeks with pneumonia because that’s what we told everyone.
But the truth was that Uncle Ricard had beaten me until my body had lost almost all semblance of life.
I was still in pain because he’d broken three of my ribs.
This time was because I had been sneaking into his office and taking the books from his shelves to read without permission.
So, the day I returned, during recess, I stood behind the bushes, waiting for her to join me, hoping she wouldn’t notice how much pain I was in.
The last time we’d talked, she’d told me her mum didn’t allow her to eat sweets as often as she wished.
Since she always brought me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I figured the least I could do was bring as many sweets as possible for her to gobble up at her own discretion.
I ended up having to beg the cook for two days before we spent a night making chocolate chip cookies.
The next day, I brought them in my backpack and whispered to Magdalena in the morning to convince Bessie to lend us her phone so we could listen to some music.
It was funny how obvious it was that Magdalena had never broken a rule in her life.
I might as well have told her to rob a bank with me.
When she snuck out of lunch, she bolted out the back of the building, running to me, failing miserably to hide what she was holding in her hands.
Thank God the coach and the football team behind us weren’t paying enough attention. Immediately, she shoved it to my chest.
“Good job. Come… Let’s hide,” I whispered, then pulled her to the other side of the bush where no one could see us.
As we lay down, “Summertime Sadness” playing in the split headphones we were sharing, I asked, “What songs do you like?”
“Just keep playing Lana Del Ray. Mom and I listen to her a lot.” I nodded while searching for the surprise in my bag.
When I showed her the bag of cookies, her mouth fell open. Success. “Look what I brought today. But”—I held my finger in the air, informing her I had a condition— “you have to answer my questions with honest answers.”
“Okay.” Her ecstatic smile stayed while her gaze shifted from my face to the cookies as if she were starving for them.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“This.” She chuckled as if the simple deed had deemed her a little demon, with her palms covering her mouth, then unsuccessfully reached for the cookies. I pulled them away.
“Really?” I laughed even though the pain made me feel as if my body would collapse.
“God, Magdalena, you’re such a Goody Two-shoes.” I was surprised she wasn’t upset by my observation. Her lips had thinned and spread into a subtle fake smile.
“Don’t you get bored from being such a perfect Goody Two-shoes?”
“That’s not what I am.”
“What? Oh, come on. I’ve been watching you for months now, Angel. You’re nice to everybody, answer all the teachers’ questions, do all the homework assignments. Explain to me how my impression of you is wrong?” I handed her a cookie, and she savored it while shrugging.
“I mean… that’s what we’re supposed to do, right?”
“But doesn’t it get boring following every rule?”
She moved her eyes from the sky to me. We were so close it hurt my eyes to look at her, so I shuffled a few inches away then turned on my side so I could really enjoy the sight of her, and she mirrored my action.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Always.”
“I’m not a good person. I think... I’m a very evil villain, Killian.” She nodded with her eyebrows lifted, trying to convince me.
I wrinkled my forehead, confused. To think of her as imperfect was not something my mind was prepared to do. “How can you say that?”
She shrugged. I could tell she was uncomfortable because she couldn’t look me in the eyes anymore. “Fine.” I sighed. “What makes you the villain?”
“It’s not what I do. Thank God. It’s what I think. And sometimes, I…”
“What?”
“It’s too evil, Killian. I’m not kidding.”
The tension pushed a chuckle to explode out of me, generating a big smile on her face that quickly faded.
Her eyes, which glared into mine, weren’t amused.
She was serious. My little angel seemed to have a dark secret, one that weighed heavily on her, and she was struggling to share it with me.
The amusement on my face was erased by her seriousness. I wanted to reassure her.
“You can’t scare me, you know that, right?
You’re my best friend ever, Magdalena.” I pushed her hair back.
“What would I do without my only friend?” I shrugged and waited as her eyes shifted all over the place then landed on mine again, digging into my soul.
I could almost read her thoughts; she was searching for any signs that I’d stop talking to her and abandon her if she confided in me. “What is it?”
“I’m always thinking of bad things, and when I’m not, I search for the darkness, the evil in them.
I try to figure out what they really want from me, from each other.
Because…” Her eyes lifted to mine like a puppy.
“If can figure out what they want, then I can...” She hesitated.
“I can control them. Get them to do what I want.”
Any semblance of a smile melted from my face. “What?” The whisper escaped me in one breath. “What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you noticed, Killian? People always want something from everyone. No one ever does anything just because.” I was just beginning to process her previous words.
“If that’s the case, then what do I want… from you?”
“I haven’t been able to figure it out.” She shrugged and smiled. “You’re so mysterious. It’s fun.”
“I’ll tell you—”
“Yes. Tell me everything.” She interrupted me with so much enthusiasm that I couldn’t help but titter. The hunger she had breathed life into me. For a few seconds, I had forgotten the beating, but the laughing made the pain intensify and a gasp escaped me.
“Killian.” She raised her voice when I winced and tried to push on the pain shooting from my rib cage.
I attempted to speak but my voice was gone, and in trying to fill my lungs again, I took a long breathe, and the pain intensified.
The frustration filled me. I was doing everything wrong, and if I didn’t get my shit together, she’d soon figure it all out.
“What’s wrong? What is it?” She tried yanking my fingers off myself, but I resisted.
“Nothing. I’m fine. Just ever since I got sick, I’ve been having a little pain here. That’s all.”
“Well, Daddy is a doctor, and he’s taught me a lot, so let me see.” She pulled at the end of my T-shirt, but I held down the spot covering my purple and yellow bruise.
“No! Magdalena...” I called, but she ignored me. “Wait.” I pulled away. “Please. Stop. I’m fine. Everything is fine!” I yelled.
When she gave up, she scrunched her eyebrows. Her eyes alternated between my face and hand, as if I didn’t trust her. But it wasn’t that, of course I trusted her. I just didn’t want to expose her to the hell surrounding us.
Sitting next to me, she muttered, “Why don’t you want me to look under your shirt, Killian? Why do you hide everything from me?”
I extended my hand, but I couldn’t reach her perfect cheek, so I lifted my upper body, leaning on my elbow despite the pain.
“Because...” I paused, calming my breathing by doing the one thing I woke every morning looking forward to doing—studying her eyes and lips.
“I’m fine. Now... can I keep telling you all that I want from you?
It’s a long, long list, you see?” I paused to enjoy her anticipation for the answer.
Finally, my words mended the pain in her gaze, and the worry on her face melted into that sun-blinding smile. “All I want is to marry you someday.”
“Still with that?” she asked, with rosy cheeks and a smile full of embarrassment and discomfort. “You said it was a long list.”
“I just want you to choose me, always. And yes, I’ll do anything you want for that.”
“But… what if I hurt you?”
“Oh, you will hurt me…” I nodded. As strong as my obsession with her was, so was my vulnerability.
Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “How can you be so sure? I don’t want to—”
“You will hurt me and when you do… I’ll still be right here by your side.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Tell me more about this dark side.”
“Most of the time… I mean… not with you or Daddy but with everyone else, I don’t feel anything. I get so tired … pretending that I do.”