Page 86 of Everdoll
I stared at myself in the mirror, my pain intensified. She had left a bunch of bruises on my throat, even a small tooth mark. My Mina had left a mark on my skin. She marked me. I looked down, then leaned my back against the bathroom door.
I needed to mark her too.
☾
Mina
Sometimes I felt like a witch.
A greedy one, roaming the Mars shouting, “I want people! I want love! I want attention!”
First I ate my mother, then my best friend Eli, my journalist dad, and finally my safe paradise, Remi…
I ate everything, but never felt full. I was a hungry witch, and my appetite would know no peace until I had bled dry every soul that dared to love me.
Remi was right, I used people and tossed them aside. All I cared about was the attention they gave me, I didn’t love them. I loved the idea of being loved.
No.
I just wanted to control them because control was safer than love. I never considered myself superior in that, just to be able to control, to be needed was a guarantee I’d never be abandoned. People’s free will was too unpredictable, too unreliable, I didn’t want to deal with it. That’s why I was so attached to Remi. He had no judgement, no expectations, no agency, only me. He needed me.
He doesn’t need you anymore. He has free will too, he has the possibility to leave you at any moment.
I ran after people, creating a different mask for everyone and playing games. I needed to please them, entertain them. She couldn’t get enough, neither of creating new masks nor of deceiving people with those masks.
No.
Witches never cared about the dose of what they wanted. It didn’t matter who was hurt and how much, only my feelings, my loneliness, my pain, my will to live. It didn’t matter even if others died, none of it mattered as long as I could keep the solitude away from me.
“All you do is cause pain to humans; you see them only as your slaves.”
Hasn’t I always been like this? In the past, we used to fight about silly things. When Remi teased me, instead of fighting back and letting it go, I would take it seriously, really seriously, and I’d isolate myself. He’d end up apologizing for a harmless joke, and only then might I accept him.
I was testing people, seeing how much they could stand me. Because there was nothing more important than my feelings, my fragile, spoiled heart could not be hurt even a little.
I was disgusted with myself.
When I opened my eyes, I sensed I wasn’t alone. Warm breaths on my back made my heart beat faster. I stirred slightly, turning to face him. Remi wasn’t asleep; he was likely catching my scent as usual, now looking at me with a smile.
“Morning, my love. Slept well?”
I closed my eyes again when his hands went to my hair, gently stroking.
I didn’t deserve him. All of this was so unreal. It was doomed to go away.
So perfect, so far away.
Hesitantly, my fingertips traced the sharp contour of his face. His lips were still red, the wound hadn’t healed. I frowned at the memory came to mind. It was my fault, I hurt him, but somewhere inside me, a voice whispered, good. After all the lies he had fed me over the years, this was the least he deserved.
My Remi had deceived me for years.
With his free will. My safe place had damn free will. Now I couldn’t show him my real feelings, I shouldn’t. Ever since I started suspecting him, I wore a mask around him, but I could no longer keep it on for very long. Remi was always forcing it on me, exposing my ugliest, most despised parts.
Maybe I exposed deliberately. I wanted him to see me. I wanted back that special thing I had with Remi. I longed to be heard like everyone else; someone to see the pain inside me, to understand me beyond my witch-self and love me… My robot had said he loved me, for years he looked like he would die for me. And now, even though he turned to be a human, he was the same.
I shouldn’t have liked that, shouldn’t have liked someone—an actual human—was so devoted to me. But I did. That was another sign I was a witch.
“What about you?” I murmured. “Why are you sleeping here? Didn’t I tell you to leave a thousand times?”
