It's Not Your Fault

(Day 9: Monday Afternoon)

"Why are we here?" Carlos asks.

"Yeah." Jay accuses Fairy Godmother, "You made the coach pull me from practice."

"I'm sorry about that," she sincerely responds, "but I'm afraid this is more important."

"What's more important?" Mal examines the situation with paranoia. Her and her three friends are seated in the headmistress's office. Either we're all in huge trouble, she's giving us more required classes to keep busy, or… Her mind goes through multiple situations, none of them good.

"Can any of you tell me what abuse is?" the fairy godmother asks.

"On the Isle it was a term used for when someone in a relationship would physically hurt the other in unnecessarily extreme ways regularly," Mal calmly comments. "When Doug accused our parents of it I looked it up, and apparently it can be applied to parent-child relationships too, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"It's just one of the many concerns your friends have brought to my attention over the last few days," she answers, her hands folded in front of her. "They're afraid that your experiences may have impacted you negatively."

"Okay." Mal shakes her head, "But you already talked to me about this, and I told you that it wasn't abuse. Our parents did what they thought would help us and make us stronger."

Jay looks over at her questioningly, "You just admitted it was abuse at breakfast a few days ago. What? Are you in denial again, just because you don't want to be some stupid victim?"

Mal doesn't look at him, "No. It's just that abuse comes from ill intent and has negative outcomes. What our parents did was for our own good."

Fairy Godmother hesitates, "People have reasons for doing things, but that doesn't make it any less wrong." She glances at Carlos, "And what about your friend. I hear his mother has burned him? How was that supposed to be good for him?"

Mal's about to speak, but then Carlos mutters, "All I had to do was do my chores." as he stares at the floor. "I could have stopped it any time I wanted to."

"Except that's not how abuse works, is it?" the fairy godmother counters, before Carlos looks back up at her. "If it wasn't your chores, then it would have been how well you did them, and if it wasn't how well you did them, then it would just be something else." She looks over all of them, "The purpose here is to have you all recognize if it could have been abuse, and then you must accept that it's not your fault."

"But it is our fault," Mal disbelieves. "We should have found a way out."

The headmistress partly smiles, "Really? I hear your mother was using her hypnotism on you?" Mal looks away. "Now, how were you supposed to find a way out of that?"

"I wasn't talking about that," Mal whispers, before she looks up at her again. "But no matter what the situation was, it doesn't matter if we were born into it or if we stumbled upon it. We should have been able to escape. We should have been able to stop it, see it coming, or just something. Not just lay down and take it."

"Ah." Carlos corrects, "I think the expression is sit down and take it, not lay down and take it."

Mal falls silent before mumbling, "Same difference. We should have been able to defend ourselves. We should have done something."

"But what if there was nothing you could do?" the headmistress asks. "What if you just did the best you could to survive, that there were no good options?" She doesn't respond. "You need to accept that whatever happened wasn't your fault." The fairy godmother looks over them all, "You all do." No one speaks. "So. How about we do an exercise? Jay. Let's start with you." He looks at her in unsureness. "Name something your parents did to you, and then say it wasn't your fault."

It takes a minute for Jay to say, "There's this time where my father told me to go out and steal something good for the shop. So, I broke into Lady Tremaine's manor to steal their jewels, but they had a lot of cats. I was bitten and clawed, and I left. When I went back home with nothing my father was furious. He was furious, and— and—" He looks away from the headmistress. "It was my fault. He got mad because of me."

"No," Fairy Godmother assures him. "It's not your fault. Say it. 'It's not my fault'."

Jay remembers, "He was cooking dinner. He had this knife." He looks back up at her. "And he threw it. He threw the knife at me, but it wasn't— it wasn't."

"Not your fault," she reminds him.

"It wasn't my fault," Jay finishes.

"Good. Very good," the fairy godmother smiles at him, before she scans the others. "Who's next?"

Evie nods, "I'll go." and the headmistress warmly nods in response. Evie looks around as she recalls, "My hair used to be black, but my mother thought I'd look better blond. So." Evie laughs, "She poured a bunch of bleach into a bucket and stuck my head into it for what felt like an eternity." She grins as tears intrude her eyes, "And it burned. It burned like crazy, and when it was finally over we both knew I didn't look better that way. Of course, she never admitted to her mistake. I only know she knows it was a mistake, because when I went to get my hair dyed she didn't complain when she saw it. It was her mistake, and there was nothing I could have done to stop it." Evie nods, "It wasn't my fault." before she finally looks back at Fairy Godmother.

She nods in approval before looking between the remaining two, "Who's next?"

"This is stupid," Carlos comments as he sits up straighter. "What if it was our fault?" He looks away for a moment as he remembers everything, "I'm not going to say it was her fault if it really was just mine."

The headmistress's smile fades, "This isn't about saying it was your parents' fault. They could have had their own psychological problems, or as Mal insists, they may really have thought they were just doing what was best for you; however, that doesn't make it right. It's left all of you scarred in one way or another, and it's important that you know it's not your fault."

"But it was mine," Carlos insists.

"No, it wasn't," Jay sternly responds.

Carlos looks at him in disbelief, "Did you hear anything I said the other day?"

"Yes," Jay nearly cuts him off, "but I don't care. I don't care if you think you prompted her. Hell. I don't care if you asked her to."

"I didn't ask her—"

"Even more of a reason for her not to have done it," Jay interrupts him. "I know you love her and all, but she's cruel, and she's been nothing but cruel to you."

"That's not true," Carlos denies.

"No. Of course, not," Jay infuriates. "There's those times where you said she'd let you sit next to her on the floor like some kind of pet."

"Why do you have to be so mean?"

"Because you're not seeing clearly," Jay slowly replies.

"Okay," the fairy godmother interrupts. "That's enough, boys." When their attention transfers to her she comments to Carlos, "Your friend clearly has strong feelings about this, and he should. Your mother burning you with cigarettes is an absolute horrible thing."

"But it got worse the older I got," Carlos explains. "The more I thought she would do it, the more I prepared, and then the more it happened." He eyes the floor for a second, "I can't say it wasn't my fault if she thought I was asking for it."

The headmistress nods and takes a moment before replying, "Your friend Jay said that he didn't care if you did ask for it, even verbally, and neither do I." She shakes her head, "You're only a teenager, and I can only imagine how old you were when this all started. As the parent, it was your mother's job to take care of you, not punish you, and even if you thought you deserved getting burned she shouldn't have done it."

"But if I really did want it," Carlos begins.

"Then she shouldn't have given it to you," Fairy Godmother finishes. "When a child wants candy or a teenager wants illegal substances, you don't just give it to them. You do what's best for your child, even if that means denying them of the things they want."

"It's not like you really wanted it anyway," Jay comments. "No one wants pain. You may have predicted it would happen. You may have even thought you deserved it, but in the end no one wants or deserves the kind of pain your mother gave to you all those years. It's not your fault. You have to know that." Carlos stays quiet. "Go on. Say it."

"It's not my fault," Carlos says, but when he does this unsettling feeling grows inside him, as if he'd just told the biggest lie in the world.

Fairy Godmother nods before looking at the last person, "Mal?"

Mal blankly speaks, "My mother hypnotized me, because she thought it would make me a better villain. It wasn't my fault."

"Okay," Fairy Godmother nods. "You've all made a great step today."

"Great," Mal irritably responds. "Can we leave now?"

"Just one more thing," the headmistress replies, and soon after she hands a couple pamphlets to each of them. "I'd like you to do some research."

"On abuse?" Carlos questions. "We already said it wasn't our fault. You said it wasn't. What? Now you want us to look online and check for ourselves?"

"I just want you to research these things. There's more than just physical abuse, and it can come in many forms. It's important that you can tell the difference between what your parents thought would do you good and what they were intentionally doing to you." Carlos doesn't comment, so she continues, "People in abusive relationships can also be met with intimidating threats or unseen manipulation. You need to recognize it, so you may move past it."

"And what about this?" Jay lifts up a pamphlet on depression and suicide, "The Isle made us stronger, not weaker."

"That may be true," the fairy godmother carefully responds, "but one of your friends stopped by today. He's worried about how your experiences may have affected you mentally."

"Today?" Mal questions. "What? Was it Ben, because I'm not going to kill myself." She looks away momentarily, as she remembers the razor in her hands and the blood washing away in the bathtub. "I wouldn't do that."

The headmistress frowns in worry, "You told him that back on the Isle of the Lost that you would tell children to kill themselves."

"Seriously?" Jay questions in surprise.

"Yeah," Carlos comments. "That's a little messed up."

The headmistress watches Mal glance at her friends, but she ignores their reactions, "He said that you told him it was sincere, and he thinks that since you really meant it that you may have been subconsciously thinking about it yourself."

"No." Mal shakes her head in denial, "I've never ever thought about it."

"Still," Fairy Godmother nods down at the pamphlets. "I need you to do the research, and if you—" She looks over them all, "If any of you need help— for anything— don't be afraid to come see me. We can have a meeting like this, or if you need more help than I can offer, then we can get you in to see a professional." There's silence for a second, "Any questions?" They shake their heads. "Okay. Then you may leave." The students stand from their chairs, "Oh. Ah, Evie." Evie looks at her. "The school nutritionist would like to talk to you whenever you're ready."

Evie doesn't speak and only heads for the door, grasping for Mal's arm when they exit the office. She whispers, "You haven't actually thought about it, have you? About… about doing that to yourself."

Mal slowly shakes her head, "No. Of course, not."

"Good," Evie lets out a sad breath of relief. "Because I—" She looks into her eyes, "I love you, and I couldn't stand to lose you. You know that, right?"

Mal's mouth opens, before she replies, "Yeah. I know."

Evie sadly smiles and hugs her, "Good. Because I'm yours, and you can't just leave me like that."

Mal hesitates to place a hand on Evie's back, "I won't."

- That's it for day nine. I hope you've all enjoyed.