Chelsea Rodriguez, “Bound Decay”
CW: Slight gore, lots of head bashing, blood, head explosion, eyeballs
I (unfortunately) empathize with men who had girlfriends post Kim Kardashian’s BBL.
“Do these jeans make my butt look fat?” Angelica asks.
That’s a loaded question. For starters, what spelling of “fat” does she mean? If it’s “phat” then my response would be, “OMG, yes. It’s literally busting out the denim.” However, if it’s “fat” my response would be, “OMG, no. How could you even say that? Your body is literally perfect.” The most I know is that she’s been in the gym. What she does in the gym, I have no idea. I watch, sitting on the bed, as she examines herself in the mirror. Her back arches unnaturally, and she pops her left leg in front of her right.
Her eyes flash to mine. I’m out of time. My mind struggles to conjure a response. My mouth opens and shuts like a goldfish destined to die within a week. I wish I could die in that instant.
“Aniyah?” she yells. “Well?” My eyes spot a magazine. It’s opened to a page that reads: How to Build a Bigger Butt.
God truly has favorites. “Your butt looks great, girl. Quite literally busting out the jeans.” Angelica smiles back to herself in the mirror, flipping her bleached blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Thank goodness because Brian is gonna be at the party tonight, and I have got to make him jealous.” Angelica adjusts her jeans and underwear looking back at it in the mirror. She turns to me. “Decriminalize the whale tail; am I right?”
I raise a fake glass to that. I don’t actually care about her outfit; I loathe mine. I let her choose what I should wear. If I didn’t she would likely be upset about something along the lines of “I look better than her” or “I don’t look good enough to be seen with her.” It’s all about the day. I’ve just resigned myself to being her dress-up doll because it’s much easier than hearing her grating voice tell me every single thing that’s wrong with an outfit I threw on.
Angelica brushes her hair in the mirror rambling on about her relationship problems. Her roster is long—far too long for someone her age. About four different boys’ names fly out of her mouth. I know who they are because they were in my DMs as much as they were in hers. In my heart, I want to tell her that. It would turn her face cherry-red and leave her a blubbering mess—struck with the inability to believe that I can pull the same guys she can.
“It’s too bad no one’s checking for you,” she says.
I let out a soft, “Hmm.” People are checking for me, but her ego is so large that it blocks her vision. Most days I wish to pop it like a zit, but that would leave me a puss-covered mess. I don’t wanna clean that up. I pull out my phone. A text from Brian.
“U gonna be @ the party?” it reads. I like the message and send back a thumbs up. He likes my message as soon as it’s sent. “Can’t wait 2 see u there.”
Brian repulses me. He walks around in a fake gold chain and speaks with an accent of a culture he doesn’t belong to. His hair is styled in cornrows that turn his scalp bright red. He likes to believe he’s better than everyone because he listens to Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, yet when I asked him about his thoughts on section.80, the most he could say was “It’s good.”
Still, I smile a bit. My eyes flicker to Angelica. Her eyes are on me. “What’re you smiling at?”
“Nothing,” I lie. I don’t hide my phone. “Just a text.”
Angelica snatches my phone out of my hand. Her eyes scan my phone screen, her face twisting the longer she reads. “Why is Brian texting you?” Her head cocks to the side.
I shrug. “He wanted to know if I would be at the party.” I want to say, “We’ve also been talking to each other for a minute.” The words boil on my tongue, waiting to bubble over.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do know.” Her eyes narrow at me, and her arms cross over her chest. “Are you talking to my ex-boyfriend?”
“It’s more like your ex-boyfriend is talking to me.”
Her face flushes bright red. Shit. I should’ve bit my tongue at that moment. Angelica looks like she’s trying to conjure up a response but is falling short due to her disbelief. My chest tightens, eyes flitting over her features. A small smirk forms on my lips.
Finally, she says something. “Why would he be talking to you?”
“I dunno.” And I didn’t. We’re polar opposites. Angelica’s fair skin contrasted with my deep tones. Her blonde hair whipped in the wind, while my cornrows ran down my back, stagnant. Her blue eyes captivate the masses, while my brown ones simply exist next to hers. “I guess he saw something liked.”
As much as I dislike Brian as a person, I like his attention. He treats me like he cares about what I have to say. He’s always attentive and quick to respond. He laughs at my jokes, and he remembers the little things. Most importantly, he’s Angelica’s ex-boyfriend. We bond over our shared hatred of the she-beast, telling our horror stories late into the night. Brian didn’t like having her as a girlfriend; I hate having her as a friend. We were two sides of the same coin.
Shock writes itself over Angelica’s features, but it was no surprise to me; she views me as a competition, and she just lost. “Well,” her voice falters. I stare, awaiting her response. “He doesn’t really like you. He’s only talking to you because he wants me back, and he can’t get me back now. You are just a lesser version of me.”
“That’s not what the guys are saying,” I say. My eyebrow raises. Her nostrils flare. “Streets are saying that you’ve been trying to copy me. I mean, you basically stole my old style.”
Her eyes shut, and she takes a deep breath. More words bubble under my surface, but I wait. Angelica’s eyes open; she still seethes.
She’s turned to face herself in the mirror, adjusting her outfit and setting my phone on her dresser. “I don’t even know why he thought talking to you would make me jealous. I mean, look at me, and look at you. You can’t compete with me. You don’t even come close.” She stares at me through the mirror.
My phone pings. As I go to grab it, she gets it first. Her face contorts, and the red deepens. “You bitch,” she heaves.
I snatch my phone out of her hand. A text from Brian. “Still with the devil?” He accentuates the message with a devil emoji.
“Who’s the devil, huh? Is that me?” she screams. I wince at the high pitch.
I stand to match her height. You shouldn’t poke a sleeping bear—or any bear, at that—but Angelica wasn’t a bear. She was an insecure teenage girl who got broken up with. “Yeah. Was that not obvious?”
She lets out a roar. Her hands wrap around my throat faster than I can comprehend.
I’m backed into a wall. I claw at her wrist, trying and failing to pry her off. Black spots cloud my vision. I try using the last bit of strength to flip our positions. My hands grab her head and slam it into the wall. I cough as air refills my lungs.
Angelica rubs the back of her head. Her palm is bloody as she pulls it in front of her. “Look at what you’ve done,” she screams. Shame doesn’t pang my chest. Nor does guilt.
“Let me see it,” I say. I feign gentility as I walk towards her. My hands wrap around her head again. “God, this looks bad.” I slam her head into the wall again. “Like, really bad. We should probably get you to a doctor.” The back of her skull cracks with each slam against the wall. I let her head go, and I back away from her. I stare at my bloodstained hands. They shake with the sins of moments prior.
Angelica lunges towards me. I sidestep her movement, sending her skull straight into the corner of the dresser. Her cries of pain reverberate through the room. Blood drips on her plush pink carpet, staining the fur. She pulls herself off of the ground with uneasy arms. She crawls toward me. I try to back up, but the space is too small. Her arms wrap around my ankle and pulls me to the ground with her. My head hits her bed frame. I clutch my head.
Angelica, with the little strength she has left, lunges at me, hands finding home at my throat again. “You think you’re better than me?” Her hands tighten. “You aren’t shit without me. I made you. I am the reason you’re popular. I am the reason you go to every party. I am the reason Brian even likes you.” She copies me once again, slamming my skull into her tile floors; my head’s dangerously close to the bed frame. “Get that through your skull.” She drops my head, and I lay there.
Her body slumps against the wall. Her eyes travel back up to mine. “F–” her voice falters, “you.” Angelica blacks out for a split second. When she comes to, she stands on shaking legs and goes back to the mirror. She brushes her hair, ever the perfect queen bee. I can’t take it anymore; I get up and stand behind her.
I cackle. “Me? Me?” I scream to the mirror. “Screw you. On everything, screw you. You have forced me into this stupid lifestyle of parties, and fakeness, and bullying and, oh my God, screw you.” We stare at each other in the mirror. Her eyes twitch, mine are red. “I am so tired of being forced to be your dress-up doll that you break because you are a deeply insecure and miserable girl.” I grab her throat from behind. I squeeze. Tighter and tighter. Her nails dragged against the backs of my hand, but I didn’t let go. I squeezed tighter.
“I want to be my own person,” I whispered. “I want to be pretty—I am pretty. I want to date whoever I want. I want to wear whatever I want.” I watch her pale skin turn blue, eyes rolling to the back of her head. “I want you dead.” One final squeeze and her head pops like a zit, brain matter exploding all over me and her room.
Her body falls to the floor. I’m alone in the mirror. It’s the first time I’ve seen myself in a long time. My brown skin glows in the soft sunlight of her room. My hair forms a halo around my head. My clothes drip with blood, and they look like mine for once.
I look back at her body on the floor. Her eyeballs landed right next to my feet. I pick them up, careful not to pop them, and hold them out in front of me. I hold them in my palms facing the mirror and smile.
I look beautiful—in her eyes and mine. God truly has favorites.
***
“Aniyah?” Fingers snap in front of my face. “Answer the question.” I stare at her in the mirror. Her head is fully intact, eyes are no longer in my hand. My beauty is gone. My eyes water and pain hits my chest.
I blink the tears away, refusing to show weakness in front of the devil. My eyes spot a magazine on the ground. It’s opened to a page that reads How to Build a Bigger Butt. I think God hates me. “Your butt looks great, girl. Quite literally busting out the jeans.”