Girl Talk

One leg folded over the other, I moved with a careful hand.

“ . . . left to pursue better opportunities, known as the American . . .”

The stink of permanent marker filled my nose. My face was tilted down, bangs in my eyes. It squealed, slowly, as I filled in a checkerboard on the rubber of my Converse.

“. . . its peak, over a million immigrants arrived in a year. The first wave was . . .”

The classroom windows were peppered with laminated printouts of spring flowers. The shadows stretched in odd shapes along the floor. I was stuck in a sunny spot; the light was making my scalp heat up like a cast iron pot.

“Lauren?”

The Sharpie hit the floor, rolling capless under my neighbor’s desk. Ms. Wood stared down at me from the front of the classroom, arms folded.

She asked, “What are you doing?”

Unfortunately for her, Ms. Wood was short, young, and round-faced. Even with her eyes narrowed, she couldn’t have intimidated me if she tried.

“Listening,” I said.

Someone snickered behind me.

“Perfect,” Ms. Wood said. “Then you can answer my question.”

My eyes flickered behind her, to the Smartboard displaying a slide of Ellis Island. I flipped between the picture and her for a couple seconds. “. . . Immigration?”

On the opposite end of the row, Sydney’s hand shot up. I suppressed a groan.

“No, that’s not right,” Ms. Wood said. She turned to Sydney. “Yes?”

“Actually, Lauren, just so you know,” Sydney said. She leaned forward in her desk, nodding like a bobblehead to look me in the eye. “The question was asking what event led to a wave of Irish immigrants to America.” She looked to the teacher. “The Potato Famine.”

“That’s right.”

Sydney smirked at me, and anger swelled.

“I—I knew that!”

“How? Obviously you were busy doodling—”

“Please, you two,” Ms. Wood said, though she was looking at me. I leaned back in my seat, crossing my arms.

My neighbor, a kid named Josh, kicked the Sharpie back to me. I capped it none too gently. As if the day couldn’t get any worse, Ms. Wood began to explain the perimeters of a group project to be completed over Spring Vacation.

We were going to partner up and prepare individual presentations about our family’s heritage, focusing on whether they emigrated to the US and when. Then, on the first day back, we would stand in front of the class and present each other’s family legacy.

Every word felt like it was revving up to announce my funeral. I already knew this was going to go poorly. But there was a glimmer of hope. One narrow possibility that might mean I wouldn’t have to—

Bianca raised her hand. “Ms! Will we be allowed to . . . ?”

“Yes, you can choose your own partners.”

The class fractured into pieces. Kids sprang from their seats and rushed to reach their friends first. I remained rooted in place, my hands curling into fists under my desk. Everyone paired off in less than a minute. The guilt flared again. I gripped the edge of my desk. Slowly, I turned around in my seat and met Diana’s eye.

I realized after the bathroom incident that I had failed my promise— not even a month later. Regardless of my anger, friendship was not something easily rescinded. I could be friends with Diana and Eris, no conflict of interest there. Ignoring Diana in her time of need was a bad thing to do, and I resolved twice as hard to make it up to her.

But friendship was a two-way street. And she’d ignored me first.

At recess, I sat next to her. She was sitting on the curb, still cool from last night’s rain. Her ragged haircut had been straightened out. It looked almost intentional, now. She was wringing her hands, staring out at the kids playing on the asphalt. It might’ve fooled anyone else into believing she was actually watching them.

I nudged her. “Hey.”

There was a delayed reaction. Her face moved to meet mine. “Oh. Hi, Lauren.”

That was my name. Yup. I nodded. Unfortunately, that didn’t leave me with much to go on.

So we sat in silence. Behind us was a big tree, its age revealed through its tangle of aboveground roots. When we first started at St. Cath’s, Diana and I spent all our recesses chasing each other around and around the trunk. If I concentrated, I could almost feel the old sting of a skinned knee or cut lip.

Diana had taken out her DS.

I fiddled with the thumb holes on my hoodie. I looked down and began to hum the beginning of Black Parade. I got through the piano, and even started on the first verse.

“When I was . . . a young boy . . .”

My voice trailed off. I stole a glance her way.

Nothing. She had her stylus pressed to the edge of her lips, barely gnawing. I heard the ping! of a message received, and looked around to see if someone else in the Circle was playing. But I didn’t see anyone.

I cleared my throat. “My fa-ther—” I elbowed her. “C’mon, Di, you know this one!”

“Huh?” Diana blinked, as if I had just woken her from a deep slumber. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“Ugh. Never mind.”

“I’m sorry, Lauren. I’ve just been . . .” She held the DS close to her chest— but she didn’t close it.

“Yeah. I know.” I’d meant it as forgiveness, but it came out bad.

Diana looked like I’d hit her.

I flicked up my hood. “Just forget it.”

When I looked again, Diana was back to chatting with whoever. Her eyes were wide, like she was scared, and her stylus moved almost too fast for my eyes to follow. Ping, ping, ping!

She had gotten a new hoodie recently— a cute one that looked like a dinosaur. Underneath it, around her neck, I thought I saw . . .

“What are you wearing?”

“Huh?”

I reached out and hooked my finger around the string of beads hiding under Diana’s collar. I tugged, revealing a heavy silver rosary.

Diana flushed. “Oh, it’s nothing! It’s just, like, you know how my Mom gets, so I—” She tried to look back at her game.

“You’re not supposed to wear them,” I said.

That shut Diana up. She looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “What?”

“That’s what Sister Agnes said. You’re supposed to hold it while praying—” I mimed crushing a bug between my hands. “But you’re not supposed to wear it like a necklace.”

Even as the words left my mouth, I wanted to flinch. Who did I think I was, Sydney?

I let the rosary slip from my fingers. It fell down, limp and heavy as an anchor. Diana didn’t say anything, so I gave up.

Looking over my shoulder, I left the Circle and began walking. We had no real playground, just a public park and a ring of unshaded concrete. I passed the kids playing kickball with the tallest trees as bases, the girls sharing fortunes on white benches, and the older boys attempting to play football without getting into trouble for tackling. I wandered over to the edge where a stone wall overlooked the river. Underneath the dappled shade, I followed it from the dam to the flagpole that signaled the outer limits for students.

Craning my neck over the brambles that threatened to eat the stone wall, I watched the river. The water was gray, rushing like a rapid from the spring thaw. The banks were overflowing, nearly onto the railroad tracks that ran parallel. I stood above, idly looking down and wondering if anybody had walked there since the trains were still running.

My conversation with Diana was forgotten, but only in the sense that a black cloud makes you forget the sun. At the end of the day, as I collected my stuff from the closet, something rattled around in my lunch box.

I frowned. I looked over my shoulder. Josh was the only kid near me, his fist dangerously close to my eye as he pulled his jacket on. He, and all the others, barely noticed I existed. Hugging the lunch box tight to my chest, I unzipped it at the corner, slowly, until I could peek inside.

Diana’s rosary glinted in the sparse light, resting on top of my sandwich bag.

I grabbed it roughly in my fist. I looked around the room, but Diana had already left.

“What’s that?” Josh had noticed my twirling.

I stuffed it in my pocket. “Nothing.”

That weekend, I went to the mall with Eris.

A group of girls pushed past me. They were all wearing skinny jeans or shorts, Abercrombie bags swinging from their tan arms. The tallest one hit me on her way past, but didn’t seem to notice. Her face was pinned to her friend’s, glossy lips flapping. I couldn’t stop staring at them until they left my line of sight, slipping into Hollister.

Eris giggled. “What was that about?”

“Huh?” When I turned around, she was watching me with a smirk and a hand on her hip. “Oh, I just— I hate those kinds of girls, you know?”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets. Whenever I would admit that sort of stuff around Dad, he would chide me for being unkind. Which was true.

But sometimes the truth is mean, I thought.

Eris wasn’t my dad. She snorted. “Oh, they’re not worth the energy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Girls like that,” Eris said, “are sheep. And you know what you do with livestock?”

I frowned. “You eat them?”

Eris laughed. It was abrupt and hearty, making me jump out of my skin. She tilted her head back, ponytail bobbing.

Earlier, riding the bus, I hadn’t been able to admit to her that this was my first time visiting the mall without an adult. I just sat on my seat with my hands between my knees, staring up at her hair, rocking with that same motion. As the twenty dollar bill Dad had slipped me burned a hole in my pocket, I bit my tongue to keep from admitting how nervous I was. It felt like something big to me— the cutting of an invisible cord.

“I wanna go to Hot Topic,” I said, attempting to steer the conversation away from . . . cannibalism?

“Naturally.” Eris grinned.

Inside the narrow black-walled space, I leaned over the pins, carding through them with the flat of my hand. The place was blasting Skrillex so loud that I didn’t notice Eris slipping away until she touched my arm.

Distracted, one of the pins jabbed me. “Ah!”

I uncurled my hand. It had gone deep enough to draw blood; the tiniest bead rested underneath a freckle on my palm. Eris was already at the back of the store, turned away from me. I laid my hand over my mouth. The pink-haired cashier watched me, tilting her head. Embarrassed, I turned to the door.

The mall floor was large and sterile; bodies passing brought a cold breeze into the cramped space. Goosebumps rose over my arms. On the bench right outside, one of the Abercrombie girls was sitting with her bags on the floor. She seemed in a world all her own, pulling off her sunglasses and hooking them around her tank top. No way did she notice the emo freak gawking from its cave, or else she wouldn’t have—

I made a beeline for the counter. In my rush, I bumped into the glass jewelry case. Hip twinging, I asked, “Do you have any tissues?”

The cashier’s eyes raked over me. “Why?”

“There’s a girl crying outside.”

“Here.”

Ms. Abercrombie looked up from the ball she had curled into.

I shifted my weight, holding out the skull-patterned pack of tissues. “Do you want them?”

“Oh— thank you?” She took them in a manicured hand and tore them open, dabbing at her raccoon eyes. When she pulled back, the tissue had been stained pure black. She huffed, her voice still sad. “Guess that’s what I get for not going waterproof, huh?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Crap. “I mean, uh! Why were you. . .?”

She crumpled the tissue in her fist. “You’ve seen the news?”

I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. I nodded.

“I knew Chelsea Wright,” she said.

“Who?”

The girl flinched. I fought the urge to run away. She shook her head as if talking to herself, and tucked a strand of hair— blonde with brown roots— behind her ear. “The girl who died.”

As soon as she said it, I remembered. Local news had been flooded with pictures of this one high schooler’s face in the past two weeks. It had been a sudden tragedy, no warning signs, or so they said. There was a growing shrine in front of Hilltop for the dead cheerleader.

“I’m so sorry.”

She was staring off into space. “I thought a shopping spree would clear my mind. But, obviously not. I didn’t know how to explain it to my girlfriends–”

“You’re gay?”

She looked up. “No. . .?”

“S-sorry!” I coughed into my hand, looking over my shoulder. “Um . . . How did it happen?”

The girl blinked at me. “How did Chelsea kill herself?”

“Sorry.” I looked at my feet. “That was rude! I’ll leave you alone.”

I began to turn around, but she caught me by the hand. It was cold, her long nails like a bear trap. “We’re not allowed to talk about it.”

“Really?” I met her eyes.

She stared right back, the glitter of tears drying. Behind her drooping eyelashes and powdery blue eyeshadow, I thought I might’ve seen something— like recognition. Like mischief. Like we were the same, in some way.

She nodded. “But I saw the pictures.”

When I went back into the Hot Topic, Eris was flipping through tees— she’d made a mess of the whole display. I didn’t say anything, but as soon as I got close enough, she turned to me with a white grin. “Already eating well?”

Even if I’d understood the joke, I’m not sure I would’ve found it funny. My stomach was in knots, after what the girl had described. I wanted to think about literally anything else.

“Eris. . .” My voice was shaky, certainly drowned out by the music. “Did you, um, know Eleanor Colón?”

I assumed at first that she hadn’t heard me. We left the store and stopped for snacks. I got a soft pretzel. Eris got a bottled water, which she tucked into her bag.

I was busy sucking off the salt when she finally spoke. “I miss her very dearly.”

Eris’s eyes were lowered, shadowed by her sparkly purple eyeshadow. I swallowed.

“Why didn’t you mention it at Easter?”

Eris smiled down at me, and then I didn’t need an answer. There was sorrow in her eyes, deeper than I had even seen Diana express.

I tore off a chunk of pretzel and offered it up. Eris pushed it away politely. We kept on walking.

“I feel really bad for the high schoolers right now,” I said. “That’s two girls dead in only a couple months.”

Eris was quiet.

I turned to her and, with the same hesitance as before, asked, “Did you know Chelsea Wright, too?”

Raising her wrist, Eris readjusted her chunky watch. “I think it's time to go home.”

I could not tear my eyes away from the screen.

My back ached from slouching for so long. When I blinked— rarely— I saw a wall of green.

It was getting late— the shadows of tree branches slouched down my walls, double-images through the thin curtains.

In my mind’s eye, I was seeing, over and over again, the pictures that I’d been told about. The girl had leaned towards me, radiating heat, and whispered in my ear.

“She slit her wrists.”

Then, after I’d nodded, Ms. Abercrombie went on to describe the awful scene– the messy, bloody aftermath. Chelsea had gone out in dramatic fashion, setting a tableau of grief upon her bed: a sexy set of lingerie, her report card, her unlocked smartphone pulled open to a notes app, her final words written with no punctuation, all lowercase.

“It was in her room. No one even noticed, no one heard a sound. But there was blood everywhere,” the girl told me. Despite the best-laid plans, the actual act itself was, quote, “Like she’d . . . hacked it up, you know?”

“Try telling that to Diana,” I murmured into my arm.

Before the words even left my mouth, I was hit with a wave of guilt and pain. That was low, even for me.

I swung around in my chair, to see a black cat sleeping on my bed.

“Uhh. . .”

My mouth hung open dumbly as the animal peeked open its emerald eyes. It was wrapped up, tight and cozy, into a near perfect circle. Its shadow was long across my back wall, covering my posters and Diana’s drawings.

“H-hey, Kitty.” I approached it, my hand outstretched.

“Prrrpp!”

“How’d you get in here?” I scratched the top of its velvet head, and it erupted into a ricochet of loud purring. “Did I leave a window open? Or was it the back door?”

The cat yawned, revealing double rows of sharp teeth.

“Did I leave a bowl of milk sitting? Or forget about an old wish on a star?”

It arched its back. White claws, like transparent half-moons, dug into my covers– including my grandma’s old quilt. I tried to push it off, but the cat held on tight.

“Hey, stop that–” I looked around the room and called, frantically, “Dad?”

At my raised voice, the cat jumped. It bit my hand, leapt off the bed and scurried into the hall. I chased after it.

The house was empty, the lights off. All of the doors were left open– why had I left them open? Dad was going to kill me. What if I let something worse than a stupid cat in?

I managed well enough on muscle memory alone, banging up against the walls and the open cabinets until my head felt like one giant bruise. But I kept on, determined— at least until the cat went through the open doorway and out onto the street. That was when I realized I couldn’t stop.

It was like we were connected— a plastic tab between my throat and the tip of its tail. It pulled me along in bare feet along the cooled concrete. I almost screamed— should have screamed.

My surroundings— that flat gray New England gothic— were made beautiful by a candy colored paint job, of a sourceless green light that pulsated between the neatly planted rows of trees, the wire fences, the curbsides worn down like rocks on the shore. I could not marvel at all, though. I was being led.

“Please,” I whimpered.

Something was splitting. Even as the gravel dug into my soles, I felt a warm coverlet around the small of my back. Night exhaust scratched my throat while the pale faces of MCR danced from the poster above me. The cat took me to an eerie colorful Highlands, the neighborhood where houses cost more than Dad’s living several times over— but the cat was also with me in my bed, licking my throat.

The cat’s shadow stretched out along the side of a big Victorian house. Then it wasn’t a cat at all, but a hand bisected by the siding, stretching out and out until it unlatched the front door.

I was brought into the center of that room— Chelsea’s room, hacked up, untouched by anything but the flash of the cameras. Red stained the silver sheen of cheer trophies, the Seventeen magazines on the desk, the contents of her makeup bag all along the floor. The bed was as I had been told– laid out, in contrast, like every piece was made to fit together on its silk sheet backdrop.

The shadow was gone. I was left all alone, standing there on her round rug, staring at her green walls, through her gold-edged windows. I took several shaking steps over to the art installation on the bed, and stared down. I reached out a finger and– like I was poking at a gelatin mold– tapped the screen of her phone until it came to life. The message there was not what had been reported.

According to Ms. Abercrombie, Chelsea’s suicide note had been paradoxically sweet, wishing her friends and family the best, that she would always be with them, watching from heaven, even if she wasn’t with them.

But the note in front of me read–

A sandpaper tongue raked through my hair. I cried out, fell backwards, and landed on something soft. I was back in my room. Paralyzed underneath the covers, but in one place. In one piece. My breath hitched. I traced the shadows on the wall, coming down, down. . .

The cat was asleep on my chest, like a lead weight. It purred, stretched out. Its claws scratched at my wide glassy eyeball. My mouth was agape, dry and scratching, but I could not scream. I just repeated, in my head, over and over again– please, please, please.

It was a bad dream, as I realized later. There was no cat. There was never any article. Chelsea’s room, wherever it was, had surely been cleaned out by now, homophobic messages or not. But even though that dream would soon be over, the nightmare had just begun.