Lovely Vicious

“Sometimes, we can’t do the things we want to do for ourselves. Sometimes we wait for someone else to do them. You can’t always wait like that. You have to seek out change on your own. But in the meantime, I had to step in.”

I snort. He presses on.

“Even if you get accepted, you don’t have to go. Choose whatever path you like. But I can rest easy now, knowing at least you can see the open paths before you.”

The bell rings. I put my pen down and gather my stuff. I can feel Evans staring at me like a massive, balding elephant who smells. Like a poop-covered busybody.

I stop at the door and look over my shoulder.

“Thanks. I guess.”

“Consider it an apology for the pictures.”

“It doesn’t make up for it. You’d need like, a million cakes and a dozen clones of Joh

“There’s a very good cloning program at Duke –”

I politely scream UGH and slam the door shut behind me.

-14-

3 Years                           

22 Weeks                       

4 Days                           

 

Knife-kid comes up to me nearly four weeks after Avery’s party – right before Thanksgiving break. We’re watching a movie in English, bags of chips and trays of cupcakes littering the counter from the last-day-before-break party Mr. Teller let us have. It’s dark, and people are whispering and laughing and making plans for break and not paying attention to the movie at all.

Knife-kid slides into the seat beside me.

“Hello, Your Pointy Highness,” I say. “What brings you to the neck of my new girl woods?”

“You aren’t new girl anymore.”

“Oh? So what am I?”

“Weird girl.”

I laugh. “Better than fat girl.”

“They call you that, too. But weird is the most used.”

I smirk. We watch the TV for a few seconds before he starts talking again.

“You and Jack like each other.”

I hunch my shoulders and squeeze my face together. “Are you high?”

“I saw you at the Halloween party. You danced together, and then you pulled him into that room.”

I feel my mouth drop open.

“I did not!”

“I saw,” He insists. “I’m only bringing it up because Jack’s cool. He’s the only one who’s never been a shithead to me in this place. And he seems kind of down. Lately. Ever since that party.”

“Down?” I sputter. “Jack? His face muscles have atrophied – he doesn’t know how to make expressions, let alone look ‘down’.”

Knife-kid shrugs. “He just seems bummed. You and him are the only two I don’t fantasize about stabbing. So. I thought you should know.”

“Oookay, nice talking to you. I gotta go. To India.”

I make a bathroom excuse and escape, ru

I burst out of the front doors. Cold air nips at me as I run to the field, where the P.E. class is playing a lazy game of dodge ball. People stand still to purposely get hit so they can be out and sit in the grass and text and talk. Jack is lying on his back in the grass, looking up at the clouds. I march over and graciously kick his ribs.

“Ow! Shit –” He hisses and sits up. His glare stops short when he realizes it’s me.

“What happened in that room?”

“Isis –”

“What happened. In that. Room!” I shout. The P.E. teacher is too busy talking with the football coach to notice, but everyone else looks at me warily.

Jack runs a hand through his hair and breathes out, slowly. Now that we’re close I can see the dark circles under his eyes. When did he get those? And why does he look ski

“It was nothing,” Jack whispers. “Okay? Nothing. You just fell asleep.”

“Knife-kid said he saw me dragging you to that room. I was drunk. I can’t remember. So you better tell me the truth, or I swear to you, it’ll be a war all over again –”

“What do you want me to say, Isis?” He growls. “Do you want me to be the bad guy? Do you think I took advantage of you?”

I slap him, but he recovers quickly. The entire class goes silent, the dodge ball game ceasing at the sound of the slap to watch.

“Tell me what you did –”

“I didn’t do anything!” He shouts. “I didn’t do anything, I swear on my life!”

His constant unfeeling, low-voiced mask is broken. Nothing about him is calm or contained. He’s not the Ice Prince, anymore. He’s furious; his eyebrows tight and his mouth drawn in a cruel frown.

“I can’t trust what you say anymore,” I say.

“Then don’t! Don’t trust me. Don’t trust anyone! That’s the way you like it, right? That’s the way you’ve been moving through life for the past three years, right? It’s obviously working for you! So keep doing it. Have fucking fun trusting nobody for the rest of your life!” He roars.

His words sear like cold fire across my heart, leaving behind instant, dark scars. I run. I turn on my heel in one fluid motion and run. Everything is numb. I can only barely hear Jack calling after me. I’m underwater, deep, deep beneath the ocean of the past. Jack’s voice turns to Nameless’.

Ugly.

Did you think that’s what this was? Love?

I slam the driver’s side of my car shut and start the engine. I blast past the security booth and barrel home. Stoplights are mercifully green, and the ones that aren’t, I run through.

Ugly.

I don’t remember parking. I don’t remember getting out or ru

I don’t remember what happened that night.

That’s what you get for trusting someone.

***

Mom is understanding. She knows this is my breakdown. The last one was just a warm-up. She understands breakdowns better than my aunt does, and much better than Dad does. She knows there are tiny breakdowns leading up to the big one. This is my Big One. I sleep for days. I don’t shower. My hair is a knotted mess. Mom brings me up food sometimes, but I pick at it and leave the rest. She’s so happy to help me like I’ve helped her. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I don’t cry and the don’t-cry times are somehow worse than the crying ones. Sometimes Mom holds me, sometimes I lock her out. Kayla visits me, bringing snacks and homework and talking happily about nothing at all and it helps. Her mindless chatter helps more than sleeping, more than crying. It reminds me I’m not the only one with problems, that Kayla’s life is fraught with problems that, to her, are just as big – a missing blush color at Sephora, how she forgot there was a sale at Macy’s she’d been waiting for a year on, how her little brother constantly gets into her bras and stretches them out by putting them on his head. She mentions Jack, and I snap at her to never mention him again.

“Geez, I know you hate him, but saying his name isn’t a crime, okay?”

“It might turn into one,” I mutter.

“Is he…is he why you’re so sad?”

I scoff. “As if. And I’m not sad. I have strep throat.”

“You have a lovely strep voice.”

I glower, and she smiles, handing me another cookie.

“Okay, I gotta go. Mom wants me to watch spitglob tonight while she goes out. Text me, okay?”

My anger fades. “Yeah. Thanks for coming over.”

“It’s the least I can do.” She hugs me, and then wrinkles her nose. “You smell. But I love you.”