The S-Word

by Chelsea Pitcher

  “Okay, well . . . thanks,” I say.

  “No problem. I just figured, you know, earlier . . . You were looking out for me.”

  So he did know I was hovering at the bathroom to protect him from Drake. Wait, why am I insisting Drake is harmless?

  “What did you think he was going to do?” I ask after a minute.

  Jesse keeps me waiting. “I didn’t know that he was,” he says finally. “Just a feeling I had.”

  Hmmm.

  “Well, I appreciate it. But you don’t have to worry.” I slide my key into the ignition. Not that I have anywhere to go, not really. “I can take care of myself.”

  “So can I,” he says. “But you keep looking out for me, don’t ya? ’Night, Angie.”

  “Good night,” I say, but the phone’s already dead. Jesse’s gone and all that’s left is silence.

  April 21st

  My transformation is complete. Once a caterpillar creeping along the halls unseen. Now a butterfly torn to bits. Bleeding red. This school becomes the glass cage from which I cannot escape.

  The taunt is tiny. A baby’s scrawl. There, on the corner of my locker door.

  SLUT

  To go from virgin to harlot in the span of a day . . . this must be some kind of record.

  I doubt I’ll be given a prize.

  Even worse, if my father learns of this, I’ll be the girl locked in the tower. Home school. No contact with the outside world. Part of me wonders if it would be for the best.

  A small part of me.

  Instead I hold my head high, walking the halls as if this title were my birthright.

  My scarlet letter.

  Tonight I etched the word into me with a blade from my father’s razor. Small, red letters above my hip. I romanticize the idea of being branded. It’s the only choice I can make. There is no coming back from where I have been.

  Still, throughout the night I keep opening my eyes, hoping this dream has passed, praying harder than I’ve prayed since I was a child that this is just a dream, just a dream, just a dream.

  Wake up, Lizzie. None of this really happened.

  Why would it happen to me? What did I ever do to anyone? I spent my life caring for those around me, putting my feelings last, remaining silent so as not to upset them with what I really want. So as not to bother them, I’ve bottled it up. I’ve done everything I could to make things easier for them.

  Surely they would do the same for me.

  But they don’t. Clearly, I am not worthy of such things. No one will step up beside me, hold out a hand, listen to my voice, except when I sing the songs they’ve chosen for me. How many girls feel this way, ignored until we speak the words they have given us to speak? How many boys learn to converse through violence so as not to invoke the earthquakes their voices might bring? How many years have we sat, silent, waiting?

  But I must have missed my turn. That elusive moment between speaking too soon and remaining silent too long. That night, in the hotel room, when it was just you and me. The moment passed, my voice was taken, and now they’ll all speak for me.

  They are speaking for me.

  SLUT

  Couldn’t they, at least, pick a word that means something?

  Ask a hundred people the meaning of that word and you’ll hear a hundred answers. It means absolutely nothing. But the moment it is unleashed, it changes me. They look at me differently, all of them. As if I am no longer human. As if I am somehow a monster to be destroyed.

  These things I have feared about myself. Now they are telling me.

  And still, I sit up in the night, willing the world to rearrange so that this will have all been a dream. A nightmare from which I can escape. But sitting up only serves to rustle my nightdress, tugging at the blood that dries on my skin. The scabs rip away, awakening fresh wounds.

  The shock of it knocks the breath from me. It takes my breath away.

  I remember his voice then. Too real to have been a dream.

  There in the room, he whispered to me, “You take my breath away. I want to do that for you.”

  I didn’t say anything, not then. I admit to wondering what he meant. But I’m sorry now.

  I was wrong for wondering, and they won’t let me forget that. I’ll be sorry forever, until the day I die.

  When someone says “Take my breath away” they don’t literally mean take away my breath; tear from me that intangible thing that makes me human, that makes me alive. They mean, surprise me with the urgency with which we kiss. Surprise me with your lips’ desire.

  Surprise me.

  Don’t destroy me.

  ten

  THURSDAY MORNING BEFORE first period I trap Marvin against his locker. Don’t worry, I’m not actually employing violence here. I just kind of corner him until he has nowhere to go.

  “It’s now or never, Marv. You spill the dirt on Kennedy or I march right into the principal’s office and tell them why your right arm’s so much stronger than your left.”

  “Shows what you know.” He turns his back to me, opening his locker. “I’m left-handed.” He’s trying to appear casual, but he keeps dropping his books and this little deck of cards leaps off his top shelf, spilling on the floor.

  “What’s it going to be?” I crouch to pick up the cards. They’re from that game, Alchemy, the one where you get to be wizards and elf-knights and princesses.

  Every teenage boy’s dream, right?

  Something about the cards looks familiar. The artistry is really unique, but Marvin steals each one before I get a good look.

  “I told you.” He shoves the deck in his pocket, just like I did with the book of poems. “I’m not talking about it here.”

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  “Use your brain, Angie.”

  Oh, right, because I’m a cheerleader.

  “My brain?” I puff up my lips. “Let me see if I can find it.”

  He snorts derisively. He’s such a sweetie. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not exactly at the top of the food chain here. Getting my ass kicked by a bunch of cheerleaders? Not going to help.”

  “I’m offering you Cheer Immunity.”

  His lips curl, but he doesn’t speak.

  “Come on, Marvin.” I play-punch him like we’re buddies. “You’ve pretty much told me it was Kennedy. I just need the itty-bitty details.”

  He pauses as the first bell rings. Underclassmen scurry to their classes, but we seniors take our time. What do they expect? We’re almost out of this place.

  Marvin ducks his head closer to mine. “If I tell you this, we’re square,” he says, all low-voiced and authoritative. “You forget what you saw in the library. Promise?”

  “Scout’s honor.” I make up a hand signal on the spot.

  “Okay.” He inhales like he’s about to implicate the president in a sex scandal. Looks like Shelby has competition as Drama Queen. “The day SLUT showed up on Lizzie’s car, I got excused from first period to work on a library project.”

  “I bet you did.”

  “I did,” he almost-squeals. “Miss Marilyn asked me to put parental controls on the library computers. She caught one of the underclassmen looking at naked celebrities.”

  “I’m going to fall over from the irony.”

  “At least I cleaned up after myself.”

  “Ew.”

  He sneers. “I don’t mean literally. Don’t be such a prude.”

  “Considering the alternative, prude’s looking mighty decent these days.”

  He’s quiet for a second. “Guess it’s different for guys.”

  “Ya think? Tell me what you saw.”

  “Kennedy on her hands and knees in front of Lizzie’s car.”

  I take a minute to collect my thoughts. Nope. They’re not collectible. “Did you actually see her writing anything?”

  “The car was covered when I got there. But it wasn’t just writing. She scratched that word into the paint. Used a key or something.”

  �
��A hundred times,” I whisper, remembering that morning. I never saw the car, but everyone had a story about it. The words were written in blood. They wrapped around the car in a spiral. People talked about it like some kind of spell had taken place; like writing that word, over and over, had the power to transform Lizzie.

  But if she needed to be transformed, what was she before?

  “What’d you do?” I ask Marvin.

  “I yelled at Kennedy to stop.”

  “And?”

  “She bolted.”

  “And you bolted too, didn’t you?”

  “No.” He’s shaking his head. “I mean yes. But I went to find Lizzie.”

  This catches me by surprise. “You did?” I take a step back, as if to see him more clearly. It doesn’t help. “Did you find her?”

  “Right after first period.” He smiles. “We left, just the two of us. We were like Bonnie and Clyde, two lovers on the lam.”

  Except for the lovers part. And the lam. Pretty much all of it.

  But to loverboy I say, “Did you go back to her house?”

  That dreamy smile slips. “It was a mistake. Her father was supposed to be at church, setting up for some event. We should’ve had plenty of time to paint over the words.” He squeezes his eyes shut, but they open almost immediately. I wonder if he’s sick of seeing the same dark images behind his lids.

  God knows I am.

  “He came back?” I ask softly.

  “He was already home,” Marvin says. “He must’ve forgotten something. He dragged me out of Lizzie’s car, like I was the one who defiled her.”

  Defiled, huh? Ironically, he sounds like Lizzie’s dad. But I don’t point out the comparison. I’m too disturbed by what he’s saying. “He dragged you? Mr. Hart? Did he touch Lizzie?”

  He starts to shake his head, but something stops him. “He locked her in the house. I heard screaming; Lizzie could yell when she was angry. They both could . . . I didn’t think he was going to let her come back to school.”

  “Apparently they reached a compromise,” I mutter, trying to push the memories away. But there they are, flooding my head with ugliness. Lizzie was out of school for three days. When she came back, her father was driving her to and from class.

  He’d sold her car.

  I exhale slowly. My chest feels tight, and the last thing I want is to cry in front of Marvin. But that sadness creeps up on me, lacing my veins with cold. “She hated being treated like a kid,” I say, half to myself. Across the hall, one of my classmates skitters around a corner, and I’m happy for the distraction. The boy’s wearing blue jeans under a black lace slip.

  I’d recognize those long legs anywhere.

  “Listen, Marvin,” I say, making a move to chase them. “I appreciate—”

  But my gratitude never makes it past my lips. Marvin grabs me, spinning me around to face him. “Not so fast,” he says.

  “Ho-ly shit.” I try to take back my arm, but he’s got me in a death grip. He’s gone from superhero to villain in an instant. I match his tone. “You just made the biggest mistake of your life, little boy.”

  To my surprise, he laughs. “You want to talk about mistakes? Let’s talk about Lizzie trusting that freak and getting pushed out of the play. Let’s talk about me going into the bathroom this morning, to find SUICIDE SLUT written there.”

  “The guys’ bathroom?” My heart races. “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes.” Marvin grins. “Right after Jesse Freakshow Martinez used it. So don’t say I didn’t warn you, little girl.”

  He drops my arm and stalks away.

  FOR THE FIRST half of first period, I focus solely on Kennedy’s guilt. I’m not ready to make Jesse a suspect yet. Honestly, I’m not ready to admit he’s capable of evil whatsoever—it’s easier to imagine him dancing alongside unicorns in a forest of candy canes.

  After a half hour of this, I’m feeling more grounded.

  Fact is, I need an accomplice to clinch Kennedy’s confession, and Jesse’s the only person in this entire school who might help me. So why not kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and spend a little more time with him? With any luck, I’ll be able to lure Kennedy into confessing and prove Marvin’s evidence against Jesse is circumstantial.

  Oh yeah. That’s definitely the way to go.

  And I’m definitely not blinded by my desire to prove Jesse’s innocence.

  I shoot him a text near the end of the period. He doesn’t respond until after the bell rings. Such a studious boy. For all the transparency at this school, I can’t quite figure him out.

  But I will.

  I try to get him to come to my locker. We’ve got, like, seven minutes until second period starts. For some reason, he refuses. We have a mini text war that lasts until the bell rings. That’s when I know I’ve lost. As a consolation prize, he agrees to meet up at lunch.

  I walk to my next class begrudgingly.

  Time drags. I want it to be lunchtime so badly and the clock just refuses to cooperate. I try to trick myself into enjoying French, you know, so time will fly? But the clock outsmarts me. It knows how I feel about conjugating verbs.

  We spend the hour learning about je ne sais quoi. Then in Art we paint pictures we could’ve created in kindergarten. I’ll graduate high school with a major in Cynicism and a minor in Irritation.

  I am seriously depressed by the time my meeting with Jesse arrives.

  He keeps a safe distance as he approaches my locker, like he’s afraid I’ll be branded his new hag. As if polishing my rep is at the top of my concerns.

  I pull him closer. I can feel the curve of his bicep beneath his tailored suit jacket. He’s wearing this pink, see-through petticoat over flared jeans that could’ve come from my closet. Ballet flats.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I say as he slinks out of my grasp.

  “Do what?” His smile is casual, but his eyes keep straying to the arm I grabbed, like he’s not used to being touched. I wonder if I shouldn’t have done that.

  “Are people actually weird about standing next to you?”

  He looks up through his lashes. For a second, I think he’s going to bat them. But he remains guarded. “Most people don’t see me.”

  I try to push away the guilt, at least until I can turn it into something useful.

  “I see you.” I look directly into his eyes. For a second I’m just swimming in them. They’re so dark they’re almost black. But they’re also warm, if that makes sense. It’s comforting and intriguing at the same time.

  I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.

  “So what’s up?” he asks, leaning against the locker to my right. On our other side, Lizzie’s locker stands empty, stripped of its belongings. Sometimes, I think of slipping a note in there just to battle that emptiness.

  “I was hoping you’d do me a favor,” I say.

  Jesse smirks, but he’s followed my gaze to Lizzie’s locker. “I bet.”

  “How close are you with Kennedy?” I force myself to look at his face. To look away from another place where Lizzie was, and isn’t anymore. “Tell me the truth.”

  “She flirts with me,” he says. “I’m safe for her, you know? She can say whatever she wants and I won’t expect anything.”

  I nod, leaning in. This part is important. I need to give him enough information to pique his interest without turning him off to my plans. Even without Marvin’s warning, I’m not convinced I can trust him. I think he’s closer to Kennedy than he says.

  “I heard a rumor she did something to Lizzie.”

  “A rumor?” His tone is sharp. He’s either genuinely pissed or the world’s greatest actor.

  “That’s right.”

  “I want to know specifics. I want names.”

  “You’ll have that, if you help me.”

  Maybe a good actor can spot a bad one. He narrows his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  “That’s your choice. Look . . .” I pause as several Cheer Bears stroll by. Kennedy�
��s heading up the pack, with Cara and Elliot swaggering behind. The “twins” are holding hands, but their eyes are trained on Kennedy.

  Please don’t see me. Please don’t see me. Please don’t— Damn.

  Kennedy turns, catching my eye. The minute she sees Jesse she pivots, like a puppet on strings, and leads her girls over to our private meeting. “Hello, darlings.” Her smile is spun from sugar but her eyes could cut glass.

  Jesse lifts her hand and kisses it, like a knight. “Hey, sweetie.”

  Elliot scowls. Cara looks perplexed. I’m guessing this flirtation between Kennedy and Jesse often takes place in unknown places. Her friends on the squad just wouldn’t understand.

  I don’t understand either.

  What does she want from him?

  “Hello, ladies,” I say cheerfully. Between Kennedy’s blond hair, Cara’s black, and Elliot’s red, they look like a modern version of Hecate. Like they’re three parts of the same being.

  They’re even wearing red, white, and black.

  “Having a nice day?” Jesse asks Kennedy, eyeing her white dress, and now I’m wondering: What does he want from her? Does being seen with the Queen of the school offer him some protection? Right now, it doesn’t seem to be causing anything but confusion.

  “Better now,” Kennedy says, and her little Cheer Bear followers scrunch up their faces. It’s like they’re embarrassed to be seen next to Jesse, let alone talking with him. They tug on Kennedy, not so subtly.

  She turns on them. “What, do you guys need to pee? You’re acting like babies.”

  Cara frowns. Elliot fiddles with a string on her crimson top. As charming as they are, they have no power over their leader.

  Queen Bee returns her attention to me. “What’s going on?” she asks.

  “Drama project,” I say quickly, and Jesse tenses. I feel bad for lying, but I can’t tell the truth: We’re plotting against you, you two-faced Bee. That’s not a problem, is it?

  “Too bad. I’d hoped it was interesting,” Kennedy says. “Hey, I left you something in your locker,” she tells Jesse.

  “Did you, now?” He sounds genuinely intrigued. But part of me wonders if he’s forcing it, if he hears what she’s saying between the lines. Sure, she’ll stop by for a minichat in the hallway, but anything more personal has to be done in secret.