.:girl, put your records on:.
massie block
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who dreamed of ruling the world.
Of course, even from the age of five, Massie Block wasn't a normal child - she didn't dream of being a princess, prancing around with frilly dresses and corsettes that squeezed the life out of an individual, until they were an empty shell of themselves; she dreamt of being a strong individual, one that everybody would always respect, like her father - somebody that people would always like, and somebody that she wouldn't have to pretend to be. Nevertheless, her dreams didn't matter, in the long run.
On the first halloween - it's a simple holiday for simple individuals, of course, but Massie's too young to think like that - she dresses up like Superman, and nobody in Prebysterian Elementary School talks to her for the next four weeks. It's not difficult to realize that she's a girl and she can't do certain things, and that she needs to learn her place in society, but Massie doesn't think that she could live like that.
Upon returning home, Massie carefully examines her mother and father at dinnertime, cooling a piece of ravioli by blowing cold air onto it, and sees a pair of equals, bonding together over similar interests - she sees two individuals who have mutual respect for one another, and somehow, over time, that mutual respect has created a bond between them. She's only a child, though. Children are stubborn - but they can be fixed.
.
Massie never really fixes herself - she's always going to be strong and independent, she reassures herself. At the age of ten, she knows that she's old enough to understand that one needs to be independent in order to survive in this harsh realm of reality - at least, that's what her mother tells her when they're living in a one paycheck family after her now estranged father lives with a new trophy wife and new trophy children, ones that know their place in society. But she doesn't want to change - she's not supposed to change.
Her teachers tell her at school that friendships are formed between people who have equal respect for one another, but then again, her teachers also tell her that the basis of a family comes from respect, and that people who deserve a good family will get one, so it can't be true - Massie won't let it be true. She takes a deep breath, smooths down her hair and peels a clementine, staring up at the ceiling.
The principal enters the room, and Massie folds her hands over her lap, crossing her lands in a dainty manner, and replaces her striped headband with a plain white one - school uniform, of course - and inhaled the smell of never being good enough, not even back then.
Mother and Father have dinner with her another day - it's been a year since the divorce, and they're not exactly back together, but they're working out the deal, like a contract - and they're eating lobster with mayonnaise, like they do in the movies. Massie stares up at her parents, who are nothing less than the trophy wife and the businessman, and she can't realize why she hasn't seen this before - and she inhales the boiling water, a small gulp that nobody even hears, and relishes the burning at the back of her throat.
Nobody could understand, but she's not even punishing herself. She's not a good person - not at heart - otherwise she would have realized her parents weren't normal much earlier, and maybe done something to fix that, like they do in the movies.
.
The day everything goes downhill is at the start of high school.
Massie's no longer strong or independent, and she's forced to be Derrick Harrington's first girlfriend before she can be Massie Block - something by her parents about finding the perfect boy for their little darling (ugly idiot) and maybe she just wants to be Massie Block, not associated with any guys for a while, because all they seem to bring her is heartbreak and pain, but her parents would never understand.
In a way, sometimes, Massie doesn't understand herself - her parents have never taught her to act in this way, and if they have, it was all the way back then in the depths of her childhood - but she's learned from the cinema and Audrey Hepburn movies, and she's learned the way to live a perfect life, but she's followed all the steps - curled her hair into angel ringlets, dressed up with the money, but she's still not perfect enough.
She makes a mistake three weeks into high school - loving Derrick Harrington isn't enough, because he doesn't really love her back now does he? Like any other guy in Briarwood Octavian High, he's head over heels for her blonde best friend, Claire Lyons - who, to be honest, doesn't seem to amount to anything more than a trophy wife, in the future, so Massie lets them fall in love with each other.
Massie tells herself that it's okay when they're kissing in the courtyard, she tells herself that it's going to turn out fine when everybody looks at her as if she's on the bottom of the list, just because she's not the only girl in Derrick Harrington's life - not anymore, not for a long time coming - and she tells herself that everything's going to go back to normal when Derrick officially declares that Claire is his new girlfriend. But, it's not okay.
.
She makes the biggest mistake of her life after Derrick Harrington and her break up.
Massie walks home - the limo's with her pretty committee, or what's left of it - in her five inch high heels, still feeling insigifnicant, as whispers and negative attention follow her down the street. She stares at her reflection through the tinted windows of passing limosuines, and notices that her eyes are dropping, and she's not glowing like she did when she was with Derrick, but there's something about her life that feels slightly more free, enlightened right now, as if she doesn't have to pretend that she loves him anymore.
She enters through the servants' entrance, at the back of the penthouse and her mother is at the front of the staircase, legs slightly crossed, muttering about how big of a disappointment her daughter his - breaking up with Derrick Harrington to have no successful, millionaire boyfriend at all? It's an absolute disgrace for Massie Block to be the daughter of Kendra Williams-Block. An absolute disgrace.
Then, Massie finds herself releasing hours later, holding onto the sound of the drumbeat, the lulling in her ears - she remembers how Derrick always said that she was immature, that Massie wasn't good enough - not for him, not for anybody else, and how she deserved to have all of the punishments that would result. Massie was nothing to Derrick, nothing more than a reminder of a life filled with mistakes, now reversed - she's thrown towards the sidelines as he blindly stumbles his way into the heart of another victim, she soon realizes.
It's the only way to realize the truth - that much, Massie understands - the truth that she's not even worth his attention. He never tried stopping her from leaving, he never tried getting her back before she left to Paris, he never tried, and she just tried so hard - but in the movies, if she tries, and he never tries, it can only mean that Massie is the devil in disguise.
And the devil, the devil must be killed - brutally stabbed into a thousand shreds until there's nothing left of her, not now, not anymore, but then again, she's an empty shell, not being independent and fierce and everything that Massie could have been ( she curses the day that she met Derrick Harrington ) and she can't take this anymore.
Massie finds her relief in front of the sweet porcelain, and purges his name. Massie eats one Chocopologie - cacao, blended into a creamy ganache with truffle oil, a delicacy that would only be offered in times of great condolences, when her mother and father divorced for the first time, of course, not the last - for every time that Derrick had looked at Claire, every time that Claire had given him a flirty smile back in middle school that had been easily returned.
She swallows a pound of Noka chocolates - cacao butter and sugar all mixed into vanilla, downing a glass of bold red wine and a glass of vodka mixed with a cup of milk and oh, there's some bleach over there - and Massie just finds herself mixing liquids together until it looks like something that the Munchkins fed to the Wicked West of the West, a hard poison that kills slowly, through the brain. Massie downs bottles of this liquid, squirming as it foams instead of her, until she sees the droplets of blood foaming out of her mouth, but it's still not enough.
There's an iPhone 5, blaring with gossip updates and texts about how she should go die in a whole, people un-following her on Instagram and her friend number on Facebook dwindles down to five - probably individuals who are on vacation in the Bahamas or somewhere without wi-fi. She plugs in a pair of headphones, and lets the music absorb herself, insults going in one ear, stuck in between by a metal rod.
There's a bottle of brandy next to the toothpaste, and it swallows down her throat, sticking; then, there's the metal stick; her blood boils a defiant red, and Massie can tell that her blood's trying to resist, but it's stubborn, and it needs to get in line with the rest of her head, and become a pure white, she needs the purity more than ever, and it pools into her hands, until she stares at her broken reflection in the mirror, everything in disarray. Massie turns on her phone, and records this - it's one of those movie magic moments, where the wicked witch is finally killed - and maybe if she doesn't want to watch it, somebody else will watch it. She embeds the tip of the bullet into her skull, and her heartbeat vibrates for a moment, and then she's gone.
.
When Massie wakes - she's not dead, horribly, but after all, it was expected - she's lying in an empty bed, a white nightgown barely covering her fat frame, her face completely abstract and puffy with the lack of sleep, and her head is without any curls. Individuals come into the room and take out the bullet by force - somebody puts her down with anesthesia, so she won't stop them from letting her feel good about herself, just a simple release, that's all it is after all - and there's suddenly no more vibrant curls.
Derrick Harrington is sitting on a chair next to her, nodding off to sleep. She doesn't bother waking him up, but there's a glimmer of hope in Massie as he wakes up, and gives her a smile. It's not an "I'm sorry" but an apology won't absolve him this - in a way, Massie will never forgive him, she'll never forgive him for what he made her do, for how disgusting he made her feel. But, it's okay.
Eventually, everything will be okay - just not today, or tomorrow, or ever.
notes | um, i actually sort of like this, (: i don't know why - it's weird and it probably doesn't make sense - but it's probably one of the first fanfics that i'm actually sort of proud of writing - hope you guys like this!
thanksgiving plans, anyone?