by Karen Rivers
“A root? Seriously? So freckles have roots?”
She frowns. “I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re the same or not. Anyway, your freckles are cute.”
“I hate the word ‘cute,’” I say.
She slowly opens and closes the scissors. “I love that sound,” she says.
I nod. “Me, too.”
“Are we doing this?”
I look at her in the mirror, pixie-blond and gorgeous. I try to imagine my face without hair to shade it from everyone, from everything. I can’t do it. But I want to be ugly. That’s my impulse. If I’m ugly, then I’m safe. I want to grab the scissors from her hand, make my face ugly with the blades. The impulse is so strong, it scares me.
“I didn’t like it,” I say.
“So you’ve said,” she says. “Doesn’t matter; it’s done now.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter.” She hangs her arm over my shoulders. “I only meant that you were brave to do it and now we’re the same again and thank you, thank you, thank you, I appreciate it more than you know, and I love you.”
“It still doesn’t make sense,” I say. There’s an aching in my vagina that’s not quite a pain. The feeling of it reminds me of what I did. What I chose to do. I want to unchoose. Sorry, I want to say. I made a mistake. I meant no.
“Be brave,” she says.
“I’m not brave,” I mutter.
“But you did it!” she protests. “You were brave. Now you’re going to be brave about the hair.” She touches her tongue to her lips, forgetting that I’m not a boy and I’m not going to go crazy for that. I want to slap her. That’s a strong impulse, too.
What I really want is to tell my mom.
I want my mom to make it okay.
But I can’t tell. I can’t ever tell.
“That’s not bravery,” I say. “It was terrible.”
She shrugs. “So it can only get better from here. Think about it. You don’t have to explain to the love of your life why you’re a virgin, and you’ll have such good sex the next time you have it.”
“Again, that makes no sense,” I say. “It was really uncomfortable. I don’t think I’ll want to do it anytime soon. It was like”—I think about it for a second—“it was like being stabbed by a pencil.”
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. “Stabbed by a pencil!” she repeats. Then we’re both laughing and laughing and laughing and I’m crying and crying and then she stops laughing because I’m crying.
“You are completely wrong,” I manage to say. “It would have made all the difference if I loved him.”
She looks away from me. I can’t make her eyes meet mine in the mirror. I grab her arm. “You tricked me,” I say.
“I did not!” she says. “You wanted to do it.” She puts her face right next to mine, fiercely hugging me to her. “We’re the same. Remember?”
“But it wasn’t the same.” It comes out fiercer, sharper than I intend. “It was like I was an actor in a crappy porno. I wasn’t involved with it. It did matter. I don’t know why I did it! Now I’m not a virgin and it hurts and I lost something. I lost something that I can’t get back. Not ever.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” she snaps. “It’s friction.”
“It’s more than that and you know it,” I say quietly. “You knew it.”
She shrugs. “Think what you want.”
“Well, that’s what I think. That you wanted it to suck for me and be awesome for you. I just don’t know why.”
“You sound crazy.” She rolls her eyes. “I love you. I just wanted you to feel what it was like.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Now I know.”
I grab the scissors from her. Before I can change my own mind, I pull my hair into one handful and I slice. The scissors don’t cut through cleanly, but I saw away at it until it’s gone. My hair feels so soft, falling down, falling to the bathroom floor in drifts like blond leaves being shed from a tree in the fall, golden leaves, leaving me winter-bare and pale, eyes wide in the mirror, surprised at what I’m capable of doing, at how brave I really am.
* * *
While the bleach simmers on my scalp, we sit on my bed. Between us, the camera is plugged into the wall. Charging. I have in my hand the cord that will connect it to the computer, that will upload the files.
“I didn’t know you filmed it,” I say. “That’s sick. I want you to delete it. I don’t want to see it. Why did you do it?”
She shrugs. “Documentaries are merciless,” she says. “Remember? Nothing is off-limits. What did that guy who you like so much say?”
“Werner Herzog?” I ask. “He said lots of things. He said that being filmed could destroy a person.”
“He did not,” she says. “You’re just saying it.”
“He did so,” I say. “Seriously, I think watching this could destroy me. I can’t see myself like that. I don’t want to. I don’t even want to upload these. Can you delete it right on the camera?”
“No! We’ll lose the good stuff, too. Besides, you might not be ready yet, but you should see it.” She pauses. “You looked really beautiful.”
“Beautiful? Are you serious? I don’t care about being beautiful!”
“You do so,” she forges on, even though she can tell I’m about to cry. “Everyone does. Being beautiful has been wrecked because men want to consume beautiful girls. But if there weren’t men, we’d still want to be beautiful.”
I stare at her. “You’re a terrible feminist,” I say finally.
“No, I’m not,” she says. “I’m right.”
She grabs the camera and hits the play button.
I can’t see it but I also can’t not see it. It starts with Charlie.
I’m smiling.
I’m laughing.
I don’t remember smiling or laughing but I’m watching myself smiling and laughing.
I can’t be smiling and laughing.
Can I?
“Turn it off,” I say woodenly, but I don’t reach for the camera. The angle changes, like the camera itself has been dropped in the sand. Then I can see myself pushing him off, but I’m still laughing, and he looks confused. What does laughing and pushing mean? Yes, no, no, yes, what?
And then there is Soup, his knees, his feet, I recognize his sneakers. Then the fight unfolds blurrily in the distance and then it stops. My heart is beating fast, like I’ve been caught. “What?” I ask irritably.
She shrugs. “Nothing,” she says. “Camera never lies, right?”
“Sometimes it does,” I say.
The camera keeps playing. There’s Piper, cutting her own hair. There’s some footage I took sitting at the beach, the waves going in and out. The splash of the oar going into and out of the water. A tree, bending in the wind. A crow, who stared into the camera long enough that I started to laugh; the camera shakes.
“That crow is creepy,” I say.
“I love crows,” she says. “Did you know that crows are really smart? You can teach them to mimic. Like parrots.”
“Maybe I should get one as a pet,” I say. “It’s probably the closest thing to a pet that my parents wouldn’t know about. Do you think I could tame one on the balcony? It could be like a homely parrot.”
“Sure,” she says. “I don’t like parrots. They’re too colorful. They’re offensive to the eyes.”
“Weirdo. But crows are beautiful?”
She shrugs. “They are,” she says. “They’re sleek.”
“You should get one as a pet,” I say.
“Maybe I will,” she says.
“A whole murder of them,” I say.
“Funny,” she says. “But one would be plenty.”
The screen goes blurry for a minute, then I see Piper’s foot. She’s sitting on my chair on the deck upstairs. She films the island, a long sweeping view of the beach.
Then there we are.
Me and James.
The terrible, ugly blanket that smelled
like dust and something worse, something masculine and animal.
I can’t stop looking at myself. I don’t look like me. Am I really that thin? We both are. We look like catalog models. I look like I’m trying too hard. Showing off.
It looks sped up and then slow motion. Piper isn’t very good with a camera. It jiggles and jumps. “Very Blair Witch,” I say.
I close my eyes, but I can’t stop seeing it.
I can see the moment where I should have stopped it.
I can see the moment where I wanted to stop it.
I can see the moment where Piper must have known I wanted her to help me, to call out, to save me.
I hate her, I think.
I hate him, I think.
I hate him.
“I hate him,” I say out loud.
“He didn’t really do anything,” she says. “He did what you wanted him to do.”
“What you wanted him to do,” I spit.
“You didn’t say no.”
“I should have,” I say. “You’ve got to stop saying that. Anyway, not saying no isn’t the same as specifically saying yes.”
“True,” she agrees. “But you specifically said yes, in this case.”
We both watch, me on my back on that ugly blanket, my long hair spread around my head like a halo, my eyes closed against the sun, against James, against this thing that I was doing that I didn’t want to do.
“Too late,” we both say, together. We sit there for a long time on my bed, heads on each other’s shoulders, the smell of bleach burning in our noses, stinging our eyes, both of us crying, but I don’t know really why.
* * *
The texts start coming the next day.
James: “Hey, want to meet up?”
James: “Thinking about you. Guess why?”
James: “Want to hang out?”
James: “I’m off at 9, meet me.”
James: “Do you have me blocked?”
James: “I’m not going to give up.”
James: “Sloane?”
James: “Are you kidding me with this?”
James: “WTF?”
It goes on and on. I turn my phone off. I go to the gym. Piper is at work, but I don’t stop in to see her. I feel like I have to run. I have to run so hard and so fast that I don’t hear the beep of my phone.
I get on the treadmill.
I run.
I run.
I run.
I can outrun myself.
Can’t I?
* * *
“You stink,” says Piper. “Why don’t you shower at the gym like a normal person?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I don’t like people seeing me naked.”
“Weirdo,” she says. “No one is looking. It’s a gym. You can’t be in here smelling like that. You’ll scare people away.”
“Fine,” I say, “I’ll leave.”
“No, stay. I’m bored out of my mind.”
“I’ll sit downwind.” I move to the other side of the blowing fan. “Better?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Not really, but I’ll take it.” She grabs a box cutter and slices open a brown box of new merchandise. “This is hideous.” She holds up a fringed top.
“Seventies,” I say. “Boho chic.”
“Ugly,” she says. “I’m going to put it on. Don’t move.”
I hold my hands up. “Not moving. Too sore to move.”
While she’s changing, I take out my phone. Forty-two texts, six missed calls. James. What is wrong with him? “James keeps messaging me,” I call. “What should I do?”
“Call him back?” she says.
“No way,” I say. “He’s not going to suddenly show up here, is he?”
“Nah, he only works in the evenings. Actually, he hasn’t come around since you did it with him. That’s weird, no?”
She emerges from behind the curtain in the terrible top. It’s the shade of green that can only be called bile, tie-dyed with red. She looks like the insides of an organ. She looks like something that’s been opened and flayed. But she still looks good.
“You look good in that, you cow,” I say. “How is that possible?”
She shrugs, goes to the mirror. Twirls. “It’s kind of cute,” she concedes. “I’m going to wear it, see how many I can sell today.”
“All of them, probably,” I say. “Do you get a commission?”
“No,” she says. “Just something to do. So why don’t you call him back?”
“No! I thought you understood. I never want to see him again. Like, never never. I want him to … well, not die exactly, but not exist either. I want him to stop existing.”
She makes a hand gesture. “Like puff away in a cloud of smoke?”
“Exactly!” I say.
“I get it,” she says. “I kind of want Soup to do that, too. He likes me too much, you know? It’s weird. It’s enough. But what am I supposed to say to James when he comes in here? You’ve kind of put me in an awkward position.”
“Golly,” I say. “Sorry for you.”
“Don’t be like that,” she says. “I’m on your side, remember?”
“A cloud of smoke would be perfect. Anyway. Should I block him?”
“Nah,” she says. “He’ll stop. I’ll tell him you have herpes or something. I’ll tell him you decided to go gay or get back together with your ex or … something. I’ll make something up. Don’t freak out. I swear, he’s really a cool guy.”
My phone buzzes on the floor beside me. We both look at it.
“What if he isn’t?” I say.
The bell chimes to indicate someone has come into the store. “Shhhh!” she whisper-yells.
I put my finger to my lips to indicate that I won’t say anything. “I’m invisible!” I whisper.
“Oh, hey,” she says in her normal voice.
“Hey, yourself,” says Soup. His voice is so familiar to me, I feel like I recognize it on a level that’s below sound. It’s something inside me. My spleen, my heart. That doesn’t make sense, I tell myself. That’s dumb.
But I can feel every part of me tuning in to what he’s saying, listening, needing to hear. I look at my phone. My headphones are in my bag. I need to put them on. I need to listen to something else. A podcast, anything. There’s one that I was listening to on the treadmill about someone who was obsessed with stalking a celebrity, only to find out how tall he was. That’s all he was interested in: the man’s height. It was both scary and funny. I want to hear the end. How tall is Jake Gyllenhaal?
But I don’t reach for my bag.
I listen.
I can hear the sound of them kissing. For a second, I want to die or hide or both. Then I’m angry. I’m not allowed to even exist in the store, but she can kiss him in full view of the whole mall?
“Want to do something tonight?” he asks when they finally break it off. “I feel like I don’t see you anymore.”
“Your work hours have been messed up,” she points out. “But sure. I mean, I promised Sloane I’d help her with something, though.”
I laugh silently at the lie.
“Yeah?” he says. “What? Maybe I can help, too.”
“Maybe. The thing is, she slept with this guy and now he won’t stop calling her and I think she should get to know him better before she decides that we need to off him with a hit man or something.”
I can’t believe she said that.
I can’t believe I heard that.
I can’t believe she told him.
And now he knows.
What must he think of me?
I want to stand up and storm out so badly that my legs feel like they’re going to start straightening of their own volition. My voice is in my throat, ready to yell. My ears are ringing so loudly, I can’t even hear what she’s saying anymore.
You told him, I want to scream. You promised you wouldn’t tell him.
You monster, I want to hiss. I want to hurt her.
I want to kill her, if I’m being ho
nest.
I close my eyes and I picture her dead.
I’m that angry, my pulse roaring in my ears like wind pushing the waves onto the shore, my breath coming so hard and fast that I’m beyond hyperventilating, I’m so far past the part where a paper bag might help, I’m gasping, I’m gasping, I’m …
When I come to, Soup and Piper are both crouched down next to me.
“Are you okay?” Soup says, at the same time Piper is helpfully explaining, “You fainted!” She smiles sweetly, looking largely unconcerned. I squint at her through the fog in my head. Nothing comes out of my mouth.
“Don’t talk,” says Soup. “Take a few seconds and breathe normally.” He’s holding my wrist in his hand, his fingers pressed against my pulse point. I can feel my heart speeding up.
“Soup,” I whisper.
“Anyway,” says Piper. “Dramatic, much?”
I don’t think I’ve ever hated her more intensely than I hate her in this moment. She doesn’t even like you anymore! I want to say to Soup. She’s going to dump you! She’s a terrible person! My vision goes cloudy again.
“Hey, whoa,” says Soup. “Head between your knees.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “It’s passed.” I pull my wrist out of his hands. “I’m totally okay, I swear. It happens sometimes. It’s no big deal.”
“It’s totally a big deal,” he says. “Are you sure you shouldn’t go to the clinic? The hospital? Maybe you have that thing that athletes sometimes die of suddenly, long QT syndrome.”
“Yes,” I say shortly. I don’t know what else to say. The awkward silence is broken when the store bell goes. “I’m sure. I don’t have long QT,” I add. “I was tested for it already.”
“Someone’s here!” says Piper. “Stay invisible.”
Soup slides down next to me. “I spend a lot of time here,” he whispers. “The floor in this shop is so lovely, don’t you think?”
“Oh, absolutely,” I whisper back. “We should bring pillows. Make it a real home.”
He leans against me just enough that I feel like he’s holding me up. I’m aware of the warmth of his skin, the smell of him, the strange tinny taste I get in my mouth after I faint. I close my mouth so he can’t smell it.
“Are you fainting?”
“Nope, being invisible.” I cover my mouth with my hand so he doesn’t breathe me in.
