Johanna Molina, “Shadowgirl”

SHADOWGIRL

Johanna Molina

Back then, a little incident happened, but not just any incident. An incident that impacted my whole school personally. It was October 28, 2004, and I just got home after a long day of school. My best friend Josie, who’s a witch just like me, came over to my house after school to practice some spells with me for history class. Our assignment was to do a spell that shows our family tree and present it in class together. After an hour of practicing and almost perfecting the spell, we decided to take a break. Then out of nowhere, Beth, the girl who used to be my best friend in middle school and is now a part of the popular mean girls squad sent me an invitation to a party that she’s hosting tomorrow night at her house. So, I look at Josie while we’re in the kitchen getting some snacks and ask her, “Did Beth just send you an invitation to her party?” She looks at me confused and tells me, “Hold on, let me check my phone . . .” She walks towards her phone that’s on the kitchen counter and looks back at me in shock saying, “Is this a joke?” “What?” She says, “Beth literally just invited me to her party tomorrow night as well.” I walk toward the fridge and take a bottle of water out and ask her, “Should we go?” She slowly looks at me and yells, “Hell yeah!” I let out a low chuckle saying, “But don’t you think it’s a little suspicious that she’s inviting us? I mean, what if she’s planning something?” Josie walks to the sink to wash her hands and pauses to say, “Then we get our revenge.” We slowly look at each other and

laugh, taking our snacks upstairs into my room. Next day, I woke up feeling good. I took my morning shower and decided to wear a black long sleeve crop top with black skinny jeans and black Crocs. It was a Friday, so I didn’t put much effort into my ’fit, nor my makeup, as you can tell because all I did was put on mascara and lipgloss. It’s now 9:00 AM and I’m in the kitchen eating cereal. When I was done, I got my bookbag and drove to Starbucks real quick ’cause school starts at 9:30 AM. I got my drink and walked in school to my locker and saw Josie. She ran up to me all excited like she had something to tell me. I looked at her with this smile and said “What?” She said, “We got a new girl and she’s in the principal’s office right now.” Then, I opened my locker and said, “Oh, well, what is she?” Josie pauses and says, “Well, I don’t know, I haven’t seen her yet—” Then out of nowhere, I hear everyone making loud noises and making room in the hallway for someone I knew and someone I didn’t know, Bri (Beth’s little sister) and some other girl I have never seen before. My guess is that she’s the new girl. What was weird though . . . is that she’s half robot. We only have like four of those in our school, she would be the fifth, but what made me so interested in her is that she’s walking next to Bri, with an evil smirk, meaning they must be up to something and I wanna figure it out. After a long, boring day at school, Josie came over to my house today because she wanted to help me get ready for the party Beth invited us to tonight. My mother Nessa and my little sister Jenny barged into my room saying, “You really didn’t ask us for help!” in sync. I rolled my eyes, saying, “No, you guys always put together the most embarrassing outfits for me. Never again.”

Jenny jumps on the bed saying, “Well, can I watch you guys pick out an outfit?” I let out a little giggle and said, “Yeah, of course.” My mother then says, “Well, have fun at the party and don’t come back late!” Josie says, “She won’t!” After I picked out something to wear to the party, which was a short black dress and my Vans, I left. Me and Josie got to the party and saw a room filled with basically our whole school. All the witches, vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, fairies, etc. Of course, as soon as we get there, the first person I bump into is Noah, Bri’s ex. I had this crush on him in middle school and then to my surprise last year (10th grade), a rumor started saying me and him slept together. That made Bri break up with him because she was so gullible that she believed those rumors and hated my guts ever since. As for me, I didn’t really care how she felt about me—he looked at me like he wanted to say something but I didn’t give him the chance to. I just walked away to the table for some punch with Josie running behind me. She looks at me and says, “Hey, don’t worry about him, let’s just go and dance,” smiling at me. I look at her and say, “You know what, you’re right.” We danced for a little but then I saw Bri and the new girl, whose name I found out is Lina. They walk in together, look at me and all around me, just for them to walk out five minutes later into this room. So, me being me, I follow them. God, I’m so stupid for doing that. So, I follow them into the room and see this big timer that has five minutes left in it, so then I think to myself, in five minutes it’s going to be 12:00 AM, so clearly they’re planning something dramatic. While I’m peeking inside the room, I can hear Bri ask Lina, “Is the plan all set?”

Lina giggles and says, “Well, obviously. They’re going to wish they were never born.” Bri looks at her satisfied as if she was a baby who had just gotten a big lollipop. Then, I suddenly see Lina put this chip in her eye and she’s sending a message to everyone about something. I moved closer to try and see, and I fell. Of course I fell. With my luck, this was bound to happen. I quickly looked up to see Bri look at me and say to Lina, “That little witch was spying on us!” and I quickly got up and ran to the living room. Panicking, I bumped into Beth, asking her, “What are you guys up to?” She looks at me confused, saying, “Summer, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I looked at her and said, “Yeah okay, I gotta go. I only have one minute to stop whatever you’re up to—” When I walk away, suddenly everyone has gotten a notification on their phone that says, “Look at the TV.” We all look and see a whole bunch of videos of everyone getting exposed. Everyone’s deepest darkest secrets. And then . . . I suddenly see myself in it. It was a video of me in the club kissing a guy that was like ten years older than me. The only person who knows about that is Josie. This is sick. Everyone’s getting exposed right now and suffering. Suddenly, everything got chaotic. Some people were fighting other people, others were crying, and others left. I was going to leave but right before I left, I saw something at the end of the video presentation of exposed people. It said, “You’ll see more of me, so stay tuned everyone! Xoxo, Shadowgirl.” I look away trying to find Josie, but then Noah grabbed me and we ended up in the bathroom. I pushed him away from me, saying, “Noah…I gotta go.” Taking a step away from him, he grabbed my arm saying, “Summer, please hear what I gotta say.”

Then, I turned to face him and saw his beautiful face look at me like he’s hurt. Noah let go of my arm and put his hands on my face, looking deep into my brown eyes and said, “I miss you.” I stare into his deep blue eyes, saying “You miss what? The friendship we had in middle school?” He takes a deep breath. “Well, of course, I just miss you in general.” He takes a step closer and I look at him saying, “Noah, I can’t do this right now. Do you realize what just happened out there? Most of the people in our school had their privacy invaded and got put out there. I don’t think this person is going to stop . . . unless someone stops them.” I take his hands off my face and take a step back. He leaned on the sink. “I know, I do realize what’s happening because I could be next, or Josie, or Beth.” I cut him off, saying, “Let’s not mention Beth.” He sighs. “When are you two ever going to talk and become friends again?” I let out a little laugh. “Whenever she stops acting fake and mean.” I look at my leg and see I have a bruise. I must’ve gotten it when I fell. “Oh my gosh bro,” I said. Noah looks at me and then my leg, having this concerned look. Then he goes and bends down with his back facing me and says, “Get on, I’m not letting you walk home alone.” I stood there frustrated, telling him, “I’m not walking home, Josie drove me here.” He stayed silent for like five seconds and said, “Well, where is she? Because she’s not here and as I recall I saw her leave the house when everyone else was leaving.” I just look around almost speechless and say, “Fine. You win.” Getting on his back, he stands up and walks out of the bathroom where there are still people fighting. Making his way out

of the house, he walks toward this black Jeep, opening the door and placing me in the passenger seat. Then, he walks around the car to the driver seat and gets in. During the drive, it was silent for like eight minutes. I decided to break the silence and say, “I think I know who did this.” Noah says, “Really? Who?” I look out the window and say, “Bri.” Noah stopped at a red light and looked at me. “How would you know that?” I look at him and then to my leg. “Well, the whole reason I got this bruise is while finding out.” “Again, how would you know? What did you see?” I take a deep breath. “I saw her and Lina in the room talking about a plan that was going to happen in five minutes. It was 11:55 when they said that, and most of the school got exposed in exactly five minutes. Sounds pretty suspicious to me.” He parks in front of my house and looks at me just to tell me, “You’re right, it does sound suspicious, I’ll help you in any way I can. I promise.” I smile at him. “See you Monday.” Leaving the car, I walk into my house thinking about everything that happened tonight and what school will be like on Monday. I take a cold shower and head to bed. After a long weekend home, it was finally Monday. I got up and did my morning routine. I put on a white long sleeve crop top with gray sweatpants and my Air Forces. I put half of my hair up and the rest down and decided to put on my fake lashes with lipgloss. I went downstairs and saw that my mom made pancakes with eggs and bacon. I suddenly felt so happy because my mom knows that’s my favorite. After breakfast, I ran out of the

house because it was 9:25 AM, and I live ten minutes away from school. When I got to school, I didn’t see anyone in the hallway but I did see posters that said, “Go to the auditorium.” I thought to myself, how weird is it to be in the auditorium first thing today? While I was on my way there, I suddenly saw Beth stand in front of me, looking like she was going to confess something to me. I stood there and looked at her. “What do you want?” She says with a low voice, “I’m sorry.” I said, “What?” Stunned by what she just told me, She said, “I’m sorry, I know we haven’t talked and that our friendship ended because of me and my obsession with wanting to be popular and then leaving you because of it. I’m sorry for it all and I really, really miss you.” A flash of sadness was showing on my face and I took a step closer, saying, “Do you mean it?” Desperately looking at her, she takes a step closer and says, “Of course.” I suddenly found myself hugging her and crying. She hugged me back. “I love you.” I smiled. “I love you.” We hugged for a good minute and let go of each other. I took her hand and we walked inside the auditorium and saw everyone sitting. Then, I looked up to see a video on the projector of . . . Beth. She looked like she was about to cry but I just grabbed her hand tighter, which made her calm down a little as we were watching. It was a video saying that she’s transgender and there were a bunch of pictures of her when she was a boy. The whole school started laughing and then gossiping and being transphobic—as if most of them weren’t exposed last Friday. That made Beth cry and run out. I tried to run after her but she was already gone. Then, I see Bri and pull her arm and drag her out of the auditorium.

She aggressively moves her arm out of my hand and says, “What’s your problem?” I quickly said, “You . . . you’re my problem.” She looks at me annoyed. “Seriously, after everything you put me through, I’M your problem?” I looked at her like she was delusional. “I put you through nothing and if you’re talking about the rumors that—” She cuts me off. “They weren’t rumors.” I look at her and laugh. “Well, clearly you’re still delusional.” She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.” Taking a step away from me, I grab her arm. “Who said I was done talking to you?” She stops, saying, “What do you want?!” I tell her, “For you to stop all of this.” Now she’s the one looking at me confused. “Stop what?” I let go of her arm. “Stop playing dumb. All of this. I know you’re the one who’s exposing people.” She takes a step back. “And what makes you think it’s me? I mean, I’m happy you think I’m clever enough to do this but—” I cut her off. “Wait, how is it not you? I literally saw you in the room that day. How could you explain that?” She looks at me like she was guilty and tells me, “I’m not going to lie, I was the one who sent out the videos on the night of the party because me and Shadowgirl made a deal.” I look at her curiously. “What deal?” She sighs and says, “The deal was for me to upload all of those videos in exchange for Beth’s life. I needed to upload it somehow so I got Lina to do it for me. I had to pay her a thousand dollars just for her to do it.” I looked at her in shock. “So you’re telling me if you didn’t up-

load those videos then Beth was going to die?” She turns around with her back facing me and says, “Well duh, I just told you that, but what I didn’t know was that she was going to expose Beth today.” She walked away before I could even say anything. I walked out of school to get out because I couldn’t handle all of this. Once I was out, I saw Noah out too. I suddenly felt happy and ran to hug him. He hugs me back. “Bad day?” I chuckle. “You have no idea.” He says, “Wanna go somewhere?” I looked up to see his beautiful eyes and said “Yeah …” After hanging out with Noah for a few hours, I went home, got in bed and took a five hour nap. I woke up feeling good and went downstairs to get a bottle of water. I went to the living room and decided to text Beth to check up on her after what just happened today. She didn’t reply to me so then I went on Instagram. While I was on Insta, I went to see if Beth posted anything recently and the only recent thing she posted was from a week ago. I opened the comments only to see people write “R.I.P.” I thought it was all just a joke so I texted her saying, “Bro, there’s people commenting R.I.P. on your post.” I was waiting for a response and ended up falling asleep on the couch. I woke up with a blanket over me. I’m guessing my lovely mother did that. I walked upstairs to brush my teeth and use the bathroom, when I was done I went back down to eat cereal, like always. I turn on the TV to see the news and all I see is Beth on the screen and them saying she’s dead. It all felt so unreal. I quickly grabbed my phone to call her, but she didn’t answer. I left my house to go to hers. Once I got there, her place was surrounded with cops and the news people. I made my way inside and saw Mrs. Forbes crying over her daughter’s death. She looks at me and makes her way toward me to hug me and

says, “Summer . . . she staked herself . . . Why would she commit suicide?” I started crying thinking to myself how she wasn’t killed . . . she committed suicide. This sudden feeling of anger came over me, and it’s all because of Shadowgirl. I left her house after an hour of comforting Mrs. Forbes and texted Josie about the news. After texting her, I saw Bri out in front of her house and I go up to her saying, “Who do you think could be Shadowgirl?” She looks at me with these puffy red eyes that were caused from crying and says, “I don’t know but . . . I’m getting real tired of her. She drove Beth to kill herself with a stake so I decided to ask her to meet up with me and she said yeah.” I look at her with a smirk. “For once, you could do something right. So what’s the plan?” She smirks back. “I’m gonna plant a small camera on me and record her, make multiple copies of the video and show one to the police and the other to the principal. Once they see her identity, they’ll arrest her.” I laughed a little. “You evil little genius.” She moved her hand toward me and said, “So it’s a plan?” I put out my hand to shake. “It’s a plan.” The next day, I didn’t go to school. It was the day where Bri was gonna meet up with Shadowgirl, and I planned on coming along just to spy and because Bri asked me, too, in case something happened to her or the footage. I wasted my hours by catching up on some homework when I was done. It was almost 7:30 PM, and the meet was at 9:00 PM, so I took a hot shower and got ready with just black shorts and a white oversized t-shirt and my converse. I called Josie over because I think the backup should have a backup, and plus she’s my best friend. The place where Bri is meeting Shadowgirl is in a park that’s eight minutes from my house by foot, so I decided to walk there. I made Josie go first while I was trying to find my phone. Two minutes later, I found it and rushed out of the house only to find Noah

out. I look at him confused. “What are you doing here?” He looked at me worried and then it started to rain hard and he said, “Josie told me about your plan and I don’t think you should do this.” I walk into the rain away from him and he follows behind me. “Summer please . . . you don’t know what she’s capable of.” I turned around saying, “I don’t care, she literally took Beth away from us. I won’t stop until she’s gone.” Turning back around and walking in the rain, I try to make my way to the park, mad. He catches up and grabs my arm again, pulling me into a kiss. A long, passionate kiss. I kiss him back and we’re like this for like thirty seconds, then we let go and he looks at me and says, “Be careful, okay? Please.” I told him, “I promise I’ll try to be careful.” Walking away, a few minutes later, I got to the park. When I got there, I immediately saw Josie. She signaled me to quickly go to her. While I was, I turned on my camera to record everything. Josie looked at me saying, “You won’t believe who Shadowgirl is!” I look at her worriedly saying “Who is it?!” She grabs my shoulder and all I see is Bri with . . . Lina? I rolled my eyes and Josie said, “HELLO WE JUST FOUND OUT THE NEW GIRL IS SHADOWGIRL AND YOU’RE NOT SURPRISED. Okay, what am I missing here?!” Yeah, um, I totally forgot to tell Josie about what I saw at the party so I told her everything and she looked at me with her jaw dropped. “You didn’t think to tell me, your own best friend?!” I move to see Bri talking to Lina still and while looking at them I told her, “Well, with everything that has happened, I forgot about it.”

Josie calms down a little. “Okay, we know she did it but what we don’t know or get is what her reason was for all this.’’ Before I could agree, I saw Lina pull out a stake to try and kill Bri. Using my powers, I made Bri turn invisible and lit up the stake on fire until there was nothing. I told Josie to call the cops and she did. While she did that, I took the spell off of Bri and put a spell on Lina that made her freeze and not able to move at all. Walking up to her, I hear her chuckle. “Of course she didn’t come alone.” I look at her with anger. “Why are you doing all of this?! You’re the new girl!” She looks at me. “This. This is the exact reason I’m doing all of this.” Confused, I said, “What?” She said, “You really don’t remember me, do you?” I’m standing there not saying anything and she decides to continue. “Well, I’m sorry to break it to you guys but I’m not new. Actually, I have been going to this school since ninth grade and then half of tenth but then I left and came back now.” I look at her still confused. “I still don’t know who you are and why you’re doing this so get to the point.” She laughs. “Of course you don’t. I always felt like a shadow in school. Well, my name is Lina Parker and I’m the girl who had most classes with you and was bullied by Beth and her friends. You just watched from afar not doing anything to help.” I suddenly remembered her. Shocked, I said, “Wait, you’re Cowgirl?” She laughs again. “So that’s what you remember me by? Did you enjoy watching those girls make fun of me for being overweight back then?” I start to tear up because I remember how they used to treat her so poorly in front of the whole school and how much I wanted

to help her. I hear the cops pull up and I took the spell off of her so they can arrest her. I hugged both Bri and Josie crying. After that, they both walked me home. When I got home, I took a shower and went to bed exhausted. I didn’t go to school for the rest of the week because I didn’t have the energy to go, but the next week, I was forced by Josie to go. She also told me she had some exciting news for me, so I got up and did my usual morning routine. After I was done, I put on black sweatpants with a white crop top hoodie and my white Air Forces. After that, I put on mascara with lipgloss and left my hair out. I decided not to have breakfast today and to just have a bottle of water. When I walked in school I saw Beth’s locker filled with candles and flowers. I couldn’t do anything but laugh because not so long ago they were judging her for being trans. Lost in thought, Josie hugs me all happy and says, “I’m glad you’re here.” I smiled at her and we went to my locker. She told me, “I have some news but I’ll tell you at lunch.” I nod. “Alright.” Suddenly, I see Noah come up to us and tell Josie, “You finally got her to come.” She laughs. “Duh, anyways, I gotta go to my locker, see you later.” Noah hugs me and says, “I missed you.” I got butterflies and said, “Oh really?” He said, “Of course,” and kissed me. I felt happy then. * * * * *

A month later . . . Lina was in court and was found guilty, especially with the evidence we had. Me and Noah started dating, finally, and oh the news: Josie had to tell me last month that her and Bri were

going on a date—and now they’re also dating. Life was starting to become good again, but then today I was in the hallway with Noah when we all got a notification on our phone from someone that said, “Did you really think that you could get rid of me, and that Lina was working alone? Well, if you did, then you thought wrong because I’m back. ;) Xoxo, Shadowgirl.” Me and Noah both looked at each other. “Not again!”

THE END

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