The S-Word

by Chelsea Pitcher

“Please.” He reaches out. “It’s me, Angie—your boyfriend. We’ve known each other our whole lives!”

  He doesn’t realize that just makes it worse. I slide the scissors into my purse. My fingers encircle the homemade pepper spray I brewed up at my mommy’s house. “All right, Drake, I’ll do what you say. If you stay back.”

  But he doesn’t listen to that. He’s too busy trying to get me to listen. Because that’s what’s important, right? Me behaving.

  “Just listen to me.” He steps closer.

  “I said stay back.”

  His hand goes around my wrist. It happens so easily. It just slides over my skin, and then he’s got me. “Why are you doing this?”

  “See, that’s your problem.” I yank back my hand. Now he can see the pepper spray. “You don’t listen—”

  “Wait—”

  “When people say—”

  “Stop!”

  “Exactly.”

  His hands go to his eyes but I’m already spraying.

  THE INSIDE OF the school is packed. Students run around like decapitated chickens, posing for pictures and peeking through the stage curtain at their seated families. I refrain from the latter—I can only imagine Mom and Dad are situated at opposite ends of the room, if Mom remembered to come—but I do get caught in a hail of photo fire by various members of my class. Shelby pulls me into a Drama Club photo. A couple of girls from English make kissy faces on either side of me. By the time I make it to the stairs my cheeks are worn-out from fake smiling. I wonder how I’m going to make it through the ceremony without my face muscles collapsing.

  I pull on my gown as I reach the second floor. This is a mistake. Jesse’s standing between the boys’ and girls’ bathrooms.

  How did he know? How does he always know?

  I make sure the girls’ gowns are positioned strategically as I approach. As long as I remain facing him I should be fine.

  “Hi,” he says, his voice quiet. His hair looks baby soft. He’s got on his gown too and I wish I had a picture of us together.

  “Hey.” I peer at his gown like maybe I can see through it if I stare hard enough. At the very least, I can keep him from staring into me.

  “Good luck,” he says.

  “What, are you naked under there?”

  “Don’t you wish.”

  I blush.

  “How are you doing?” he asks after a minute.

  “I’m doing okay.” My brain keeps telling me to stop enjoying myself. But it’s hard not to, with him. He’s so damn easy to talk to.

  “You look beautiful,” he says.

  “I look tired.”

  He shakes his head. “You could stay up for weeks and you’d still be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

  That makes me want to cry. I back away. I’m feeling unsteady. “You don’t have to say that.”

  “I don’t have to say anything.”

  “Jesse.”

  “I want to tell you something.” He steps up to me slowly. There’s something ritualistic about it, like he’s about to go down on one knee. It seriously gives me the chills.

  He lowers his head so his forehead is touching mine. “I meant what I said.”

  “Yeah?”

  “About loving you.”

  I should not have asked. I should not have stopped to talk to him.

  “But you still think you have to hide it,” I say. “I guess that’s the story of my life.” It’s not a fair thing to say. Lizzie had reasons for hiding and so does he. But I want him to leave me alone. I need him to.

  “That was wrong of me,” he says, and it totally throws off my game. “I was just using that as an excuse.” He touches a piece of my hair, following it down to my chin. “I was scared.”

  “Scared?” Behind me, the girls’ bathroom door creaks open. I see Elliot peering out.

  “Scared of us,” Jesse says. His fingers linger on my chin. “Scared of you.”

  “Of me?” I wave Elliot back inside.

  “Of how I feel about you,” he says, searching my gaze. I look down. “Like I said, I’ve had crushes before. But that’s not what this is.”

  “So you’re going to tell your friends?” I ask. Then, because I’ve never actually seen them talking in the halls, I add, “The people in the Gay-Straight Alliance.”

  “I already did.”

  I look up. I didn’t expect that. “What?”

  He nods. “I announced it at our final meeting.”

  “And that went okay?”

  “For the most part, yeah.” He shrugs. “They weren’t thrilled I hadn’t been honest, but they want me to be able to be myself. That is what the club’s about, you know?”

  “Well, good. I’m glad it worked out for you.”

  “I didn’t do it for me. I did it for us. I’d kiss you in front of everyone if you’d let me.”

  “I won’t.” It kills me to say it. But it must be worse for him to hear it. For a minute it’s like he forgets how to breathe.

  When he remembers, his breath comes out in a rush. “It’s okay if you don’t like me. I can deal with it. Just don’t shut yourself off completely.” His fingers are tangling in my hair. I don’t even think he realizes it.

  “What makes you think I am?”

  “Open your eyes, Princess. You push all the good shit away until all you can feel is hate. I’m trying to touch you here and you keep backing up because you know you’ll feel something.”

  “So touch me.”

  He does. His arms go around me in that soft way of theirs, but they’re not wings this time. They’re just arms. He’s just a boy. And love isn’t the answer to all my problems because this isn’t a fucking fairy tale.

  “I don’t feel anything,” I say, but of course I’m lying. I’m still living. I still have senses. He smells like shampoo and sweat and rain. Most of all he smells like him: that indefinable scent he left on my pillow and blanket. His skin is cool but it warms the moment our bodies touch. I can’t stop myself from leaning into him. I can’t stop myself from holding on.

  His words drift into my ear. “I do love you,” he says, so softly. “You know that, right? I want to be your friend. But if you go through with whatever you’re planning, I can’t be a part of your life.”

  “Your love knows no bounds.”

  “It doesn’t,” he says, and his voice sounds so familiar. How did I get so attached to him so quickly? “But I have to love myself first, you know? It’s something that’s taken me a long time to do.”

  “I want you to love yourself,” I murmur, and he knows what I’m saying.

  He starts to shake his head. I can feel his gut clenching, like his body’s rejecting my words. “Baby, please,” he says, lowering his lips to mine.

  We kiss. His mouth parts to let me in. He’s so warm, I could stay like this forever. Tasting him. Feeling the softness of his lips. Believing I deserve to be kissed.

  But I don’t.

  I have to detangle myself from him. To push him so far away he’ll never get back. Teeth tugging on his bottom lip, I pull away.

  “Good-bye, Jesse,” I whisper in his ear.

  His arms go slack. He backs away from me like I’m some angel of destruction. It feels good, in a way, to see him look at me like that. It proves I was right about myself.

  Still, it takes far too much effort to push my way into the girls’ bathroom, and when I do, I must look like a mess because Elliot’s face falls at the sight of me.

  “We need to talk to you,” she says. Poor girl, she’s already tearing up again. I can see where she wiped her cheeks clean of mascara stains, but she must’ve reapplied. When she blinks, little black dots appear beneath her eyes.

  “There’s not really time for that.” I hold out their gowns.

  They just look at me. Well, Cara won’t meet my eyes, but her face is aimed in my general direction. I get that creepy-crawly feeling, like spiders are skittering over my skin. “It’ll just take a minute,” she says, clearly mesm
erized by the wall behind me.

  “We wanted to say we’re sorry,” Elliot says. She takes Cara’s hand and I know it’s not an act. She’s being a good friend, like friends are meant to be. “About Lizzie.”

  Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t.

  “No worries,” I say, which sounds absolutely idiotic. But what else can I say? I can’t do this here and now. Can’t have real feelings. Can’t feel sympathy or sadness. Do they want me to dissolve into a sniveling mess in front of the entire student body? It’s horrible enough when I do that alone.

  “Not just her death,” Elliot says, pushing the words out with obvious effort. “What we did to her. We shouldn’t have been so mean. There was no reason for it.”

  There must’ve been, I think, but I don’t say it. Why bait them? Why say anything at all?

  “This whole thing is our fault,” Elliot says.

  “No, it’s mine,” I murmur. My hand goes to my lips. Why did I say that? Why am I doing anything but shoving their gowns in their direction and bolting? I don’t need their forgiveness, and they’re in no position to give it to me.

  “What are you talking about?” Cara asks, still avoiding my gaze.

  “It was my fault,” I say. “Everyone tortured her for me.”

  “For you?” Elliot’s face gets all scrunched. “Who did it for you?”

  “Everybody. They hated her because of me.” I pause, thinking of everything I’ve learned. “Most of them anyway . . .”

  Elliot’s shaking her head. They’re both shaking their heads, looking at me like maybe I’ve gone a little crazy.

  Just a little? Please.

  “But everyone wrote the same thing,” I insist. “Why would they do that, if not for me?”

  “I don’t know.” Cara looks at me finally. “It was just easy. You call some other girl a slut, and nobody’s looking at you anymore. Nobody was looking at Kennedy.”

  “Why would they be looking at Kennedy?”

  But that’s a stupid question, and she answers it quickly. “She dates more than anybody.”

  “At least dates,” Elliot supplies, dabbing at her eyes. But she doesn’t look bewitching anymore. She’s more like a dime-store magician, performing emotional sleight of hand:

  Look this way, at the amazing slut-girl, Lizzie Hart!

  Meanwhile, Cara sneaks Miss Popularity out through a panel in the floor.

  “You were protecting Kennedy?” I shift the gowns in my arms. They feel heavy. The whole world feels heavy, pressing into me. If the girls would just get dressed, we could get out of here, and my final act of vengeance would be completed. The karmic balance would be restored to the world.

  That’s how it works, right? You battle hate with hate, and things even out. That’s why I can’t look in the mirror. That’s why I feel so fucking fabulous right now.

  “We were trying to make things easier. But we’re sorry,” Cara says, reaching for me. I jerk away involuntarily. It’s only after I’ve stepped back that I realize she was trying to comfort me.

  “Really sorry,” Elliot agrees. “But we don’t expect you to forgive us.”

  “I’m the last person who needs to forgive you,” I say, thinking immediately of Lizzie. I want to be able to choose the right memory of her, the one that will fit this moment, but it doesn’t work that way. My mind jumps to the day I stood beside her locker, too afraid to talk to her. I was scared, so I did what was easy.

  Over and over, I chose easy over right.

  Just give them the gowns and this will all be finished.

  But I can’t. Their apology has ripped a hole in my anger and I feel myself inching toward the door . . .

  Wondering if Jesse will still be waiting for me outside. His words circle around my head: We can’t do what they did. We’d become them.

  I push out of the bathroom and into the hallway. For a moment, it looks empty. Then I see his silhouette, lingering at the top of the stairs.

  “Help!”

  He turns around so quickly, my battered heart squeezes. He must think I’m in real danger. I’ve got to stop doing this to him.

  “I need you to guard the boys’ bathroom,” I call before any more dark images can form in his mind. Hopefully, my words will amuse him long enough to abate the fear.

  “Is this going to become a thing?” he asks, jogging toward me.

  “Last time, I promise.” I duck inside the boys’ room before he can answer. Thank God the room is empty. My footsteps echo as I hurry to the sinks. I force myself to look in the mirror.

  To see what I’ve become.

  What I find there surprises me. It’s just me. No monster or unrecognizable beast snarls back at me. I’m still Angie.

  I’m still a human being.

  I realize I can find a way back to myself. I can be the person Lizzie wanted me to be, the person I want to be. No matter what I’ve done I can still stop this cycle, because what does hate do but breed more hate? Destroying a person’s life doesn’t solve anything. It just keeps the circle going, making the world uglier and uglier.

  And I have the power to stop it.

  I spread the gowns over the stall doors. It takes about ten seconds to cut the words out of them; good thing I didn’t leave Kennedy’s scissors in one of Drake’s extremities. When I’ve done all the damage I can do, I pin the black squares over the holes so the girls won’t know what’s missing until it’s too late. Then I send Shelby a text thanking her for letting me sort the gowns.

  She’ll know what to do with it.

  Jesse’s the only one waiting for me when I come out of the bathroom. “I ushered them down the stairs,” he says, looking worried, like maybe he helped me do evil.

  “You did a good thing,” I say as I take his arm. “I promise.”

  I savor the feeling of his arm against mine as we walk down the hall. I still expect him to say good-bye to me by the end of the day. But for now, as we approach the auditorium, I almost feel happy. No, not almost. I do feel happy.

  It’s kind of amazing.

  I pass Cara and Elliot their gowns when we reach the auditorium. Kennedy gives me a look, but she’s too far away to intervene. Then the music starts and we all look forward, mesmerized by the thought of getting out of this place alive.

  Of course, that opportunity isn’t afforded to everybody.

  The ceremony starts out uneventfully. Principal Paisley welcomes us in this monotone that practically puts me to sleep. Valedictorian Shelby gives us one of her typical dramatic speeches. The highlight comes when Drake Alexander stumbles across the stage, still half-blinded by the pepper spray, to take his diploma.

  As he exits, we get a perfect view of the back of his gown. The electric blue letters sparkle beautifully in the light:

  RAPIST

  twenty-eight

  DRAKE WASN’T THE first person to hurt someone this year. Two weeks prior to the start of winter break we all heard whispers about the girl who was abducted on Main Street. Two guys pulled over in broad daylight and dragged her into a van. The girl showed up three months later, but she was just a body then.

  I’m not going to tell you what they did to her, but you can guess.

  For several months afterward, everyone locked up their daughters like trophies in glass cases and pretended it would protect them from the evils of the world. Pretended it would protect us, even though the most common evils lurked behind our closed doors. Nobody said a word about the abuse already happening in those dark bedrooms. Nobody warned Lizzie that the worst moments of her life would be brought about by a family member and a friend.

  Just like nobody warned Drake about whatever messed-up shit he must’ve endured growing up, because good God, you don’t come out of your mother a monster.

  No, monsters are made. We make them. And when we don’t like what we’ve created, we play pretend.

  Today, in the auditorium, I watch the senior class play pretend. I watch them stare at the word RAPIST, just like they stared at the wo
rd SLUT so many weeks before, and have the exact opposite reaction.

  They’re not gasping. They’re not attacking Drake with hurtful names. They’re laughing.

  My classmates are laughing.

  I close my eyes. Behind closed lids I witness the scene as if I were standing in the Alternate Dimension Bathroom—the way it should happen. I hear the cries, the outrage. I witness the mob of angry students rushing the stage. Maybe they lock Drake up and throw away the key. Maybe they draw and quarter him. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he’ll never hurt anybody again.

  Yeah.

  That’s how it happens.

  I open my eyes back to the real scene. The football team’s bent over, slapping their knees and howling. Some of the girls are chuckling behind their hands. They’re having a grand old time.

  And I start to wonder, for the very first time, if Lizzie was right to want to leave this place.

  I start to wonder if there’s a way to see her again.

  I stand, ready to leave this room, and maybe the world; I haven’t decided yet. But as I turn, the auditorium doors open, bringing with them the light. I remember Lizzie’s words then, when she caught sight of the clock tower in her dream:

  The light of God will fill me up.

  For a second, I actually wish for divine intervention. I’m starting to feel like it’s the only thing that can help me. But it isn’t God that enters the room in freshly pressed blue cotton and heavy black boots.

  It’s the fuzz.

  And I’ve never been so happy to see the cops in my life.

  I press my fingers into my eyes to stop the tears of relief. Two boys in blue are hovering at the top of the room. It’s obvious they don’t want to interrupt the ceremony, but they can’t control the effect their arrival is having on us.

  The laughter tapers off.

  No, it dies. Invisible threads have wrapped themselves around the throat of every jerk who took Drake’s innocence for granted. They can’t laugh now. They can barely breathe. The possibility has finally dawned on them—not the realization, just the possibility— that Drake has had an ugly hand in things. And you know what else? Some of them are looking at me.

  I inhale sharply, swallowing my fury, and give them my cheeriest smile. I wave, as if to say: Yes, I did.