Magical Christmas

Ghost of Christmas bad

8 years ago, Erin POV

The sun was heating up my room, making it light and stuffy. My stomach was rumbling. I needed to use the bathroom. But I could barely muster the energy to do anything. I did not want to go to school. I honestly was not even sure I wanted to be alive. Everywhere I went, everything I did it reminded me of them. Frank and Lisa, my parents. Who had made me feel loved and wanted every day.

They were open about the fact that I was adopted from an early age. They would often tell me the story before I went to bed. About how they had wished upon a star on Christmas and then woken up to baby cries in the middle of the night. There, on their doorstep, the beautiful baby girl Erin had been. Erin had stopped crying the moment she saw them. Her little arms reached up to them and they loved her instantly.

There had been no way to identify me. My blankets were all homemade. Frank and Lisa had put her DNA in the database but it had never yielded results. Frank and Lisa were upstanding citizens and were soon granted the right to adopt me. They did immediately. Then they kept me safe and happy until a month ago. It was a gray rainy October day. She had been in school complaining with her friends about how there was nothing to do, flirting with boys, laughing and being worried about her results on a test. Then the school got a call. Her parents were in the hospital. She took a cab there but they had passed away before she even made it to the hospital. A car accident caused by mechanical engine failure in a three-year-old car which had never acted up in any way. As far as I knew, I had not accidentally done magic recently, but what else could have caused the car to fail? It had always been one of my fears since magic started leaking out of me. That I would somehow harm them or that my magic would repulse them so much they decided not to keep me.

I inherited everything from Frank and Lisa. Their lawyer helped me emancipate myself so I did not need to go into foster care. Then I entered a depression. Stopped doing the things which needed to get done. Watched my tests scores fall (if I even took the tests). Stopped meeting with and texting my friends. I isolated myself in my room mostly.

I don't know why no one told me to seek help. Honestly, I would not suprise me if my magic told them to stay away from me. I did not like myself and I wanted someone to realize everything was my fault. I wanted to be punished. That is when I met Mathew. He was sitting in a parking lot outside the food store. He was drinking from a brown paper bag. He was slightly older than her. Tall and fit with dark shiny hair and deep green eyes surrounded by thick lashes. But while most people were drawn to him for his handsomeness, it was the anger and sadness which attracted me. He was equally unhappy as me. Possibly even more.

I'm honestly not even sure, after all this time, why he bothered seeing me. He never had any romantic feelings for me. But I was clearly self-destructive and I never criticised him. I did not ask for dates or compliments or any form of effort from him. I was just there when he wanted me to be and open for pretty much anything. If he felt in the mood to tie me up I let him. If he wanted to f**k me in the ass I let him. Hell, the more pain it caused me the more loyal I was to him.

And then one day, while I was at home, the family photoalbum fell to the floor. I had not been able to look at those pictures since it happened. And I wished in that moment for just a minute with my parents again. The magic heard and granted my wish. They looked just like normal standing there in front of me. They pulled me into a hug, kissed my head and told me they loved me. They said they wanted me to be happy. That I was the joy of their life and that I could never have harmed them. I held them till they faded away. My minute was over.

I did not return Matthew's texts. I had no interest in him anymore. But then one day when I came home from school he was waiting for me inside the house. He caught me by uprise and slapped my face so I fell to the floor.

"Do you think you get to choose when our relationship is over, you little b***h?" He grabbed my hands and tied them with a rope. In my mouth he placed a gag. I was flailing and trying to fight him off. But my vision was blurry from the hit and he was much stronger than me. He kicked me several times until I played perfectly still. Then he started cupping my breasts. I was disgusted. When his hand pushed inside my bra I almost threw up. His other hand started moving down my stomach and inside my tights. No! I would not allow this anymore. I asked for my magic to help me but nothing happened. f*****g unreliable magic. He started pulling my tights down. I could feel his erection pressed against me. He lifted me up so I was standing on all fours with him behind me.

"f*****g stop" I screamed. I had managed to push the gag down under my chin. "I want you to leave my house, right this f*****g moment. Are you so desperate that you need to rape women now?"

He looked at me with a shocked expression. He honestly looked like he was coming out of a daze. Then he backtracked away from me quickly. He pulled up his pants.

"I don't understand what happened. Don't worry, you won't see me again," he said, and left.

I lay on the floor sobbing in pain and humiliation. After what felt like a very long time, I managed to push myself to our knifedrawer and cut the ropes on my wrists. This was much harder to do than one thinks. I cut myself several times. Then I locked the doors and pushed myself to my parents' bed, where I fell asleep. I probably had a concussion, so what I should have done was visit the hospital. But I survived. I called in sick at school and asked to work from home. I returned once all the bruises were gone. I took the tests I had missed and finished school with decent grades. But I no longer felt safe. Eventually, I sold the house and moved.