Breathing Black

by Piper Payne

  Max, on the other hand, was the epitome of geek chic. He had everything from the black-framed glasses, gadgety watch, and Ralph Lauren boat shoes. He was a brainiac with computers and spent way too much money on electronics and clothes. Guys loved him because he was exactly the dirty blond eye candy they drooled over in ninth-grade math. You know, the guys that hid their erections behind their Trapper Keepers because they were still sexually confused and hadn’t come out of the closet yet. Yep, those were the guys I found sneaking out of Max’s house at eight in the morning.

  Austin and Max could definitely dish it out, but I could give it right back. And that meant I had to share my side of the story, which I was kind of hoping to avoid. Then again, the pleasure of throwing Landon Black under the bus did have a huge appeal. I used an alias for him: Mr. Mother Trucker. My story was short and sweet, and since everyone just pictured me looking like a homeless person, I described poor little ole me getting my tight white shirt all drenched with water by the big bad truck and having to dry my delicates off in the girl’s bathroom under the blow dryer. I was very detailed. Boys are such pigs, I even had Max adjusting his pants a little. I did make sure to include how I threw a snowball and nailed Landon in the face though. At the end of our shift, just as I was pulling off my headset, I turned and looked through our studio window into the lobby and locked eyes with Mr. Mother Trucker himself. He’d been listening. Then he gave me the sexiest smile I’d ever seen and walked away.

  Shit.

  When I was younger my reflection in the mirror always taunted me, a walking carbon copy of the way my mother once looked: slender frame, long, silky, wavy brown hair and gray hypnotic eyes. Our genetics were eerily similar, same with our handwriting: round, loopy, and poetic—deceitfully happy with its beautiful appearance. When I looked in the mirror it was almost nostalgic. I held on to my first visual memory of my mother like a dream I never wanted to forget. Her warm creamy skin with tiny moles speckling her small frame, and long black eyelashes that didn’t need mascara. But once the scalpel and drugs created their masterpiece, she couldn’t turn back. I no longer looked like her, because she looked like something else completely, and it shamefully made me happy.

  Nancy had moved us around nine different times by the time I was fifteen years old. It was always unpredictable, usually in the middle of the night or when she was paranoid after a bad drug trip. We were always running away from the trouble she had got herself into, the warrants for her arrest, and the money she owed people. A new city meant a brand-new start in her mind, and she used that philosophy every time she uprooted our lives trying to find her next husband who had enough money and ignorance to support her addictions and dreams of fame.

  That was how we ended up in a shitty apartment in Aspen, Colorado. Nancy thought she could snag herself a rich divorcé. We’d been living in Palm Beach, Florida just the year before until my mom’s elderly pharmacist husband had a heart attack. She cremated the body and had the remains put in a dollar store canister with roosters on it. Fucking roosters. A reminder of why I couldn’t kill myself because I’d end up in a canister next to his being mistaken for brown sugar.

  Once she drained his bank account, we packed up all of our stuff in our rusted brown ’79 Cadillac and drove to Colorado. The money didn’t last long. It never did. She spent every dime on meth, alcohol, plastic surgery, and lingerie the first few months of us living there.

  Nancy said Aspen would be different, but I knew better, especially when those words came out of her habitual lying mouth. My first day at Aspen Hills High School proved true, and I instantly became what I was good at—being a wallflower. It was easier that way. At least that was what I told myself whenever I felt sorry for my circumstances. Being a loser was survival; when you were numb to your worthless life, it was scary to picture anything else. Wanting something hurt almost as bad as losing it. I wanted my life to be different all the time, but I knew where I stood and wasn’t naïve to my reality. With nothing to lose it meant I might make it away from Nancy, and out of high school and Aspen alive.

  Aspen brought me another form of misery I had to cope with and his name was Landon Black. I hated myself from the moment I saw him.

  Landon was the stereotypical all-American boy. The popular, sexy, and outgoing type of boy that annoying teen love songs were written about. All I did was torture myself throughout high school by breaking my number one rule: never L anyone. L as in like, lust, love. Was it possible to feel something for someone just by watching how he was with someone else? Observation had always been my sickness. Wallflowers observed everything, especially the things in their life they couldn’t have. So I just observed how much I wished it was me Landon kissed against the locker, tongue twisting and gum swapping, instead of his girlfriend Ashley. I observed his routine, his habits, his talents, and interests. Likes and dislikes. I observed how he was different from all of the other guys I’d never met. And because of that I felt like I knew him better than everyone else around him because I was truly looking. In every way, Landon seemed perfect. But I knew him better because I knew his weaknesses and flaws. He pulled off perfection not even realizing the mask he wore, and it made me happy to see we were similar. I hid and so did he; he just did it in plain sight.

  A couple of years later I found myself trying to find the positive in the wasted time I spent fixated on a boy who didn’t even know my name. I felt like if there was a reason, it would all be justified and make sense. Liking him would hurt much less when I graduated and left Aspen if I gained something in return for the heartache.

  The answer: Landon led me to June.

  “Just a quick announcement. The Valentine’s dance preparations are in full swing, so make sure you pick up your tickets today at lunch. Oh, and don’t forget to enter your name into the raffle for a brand-new snowboard, courtesy of our very own city councilman Dan Chambers. All proceeds of the raffle are being donated to help our school get a new football sound system.”

  The muffled intercom clicked off and I went back to ducking my head, wading through the sea of pubescent high school students crowding the hallway, trying to get to my sophomore geometry class. I dragged myself through the hall in my combat boots and flannel shirt tied around my waist, ignoring the laces that’d come untied. The only time I shifted my eyes onto anything other than the floor was when I passed the school’s janitor, Darlene. She gave me a small smile and I smiled back, a non-verbal way of us saying “good to see you’re still alive” because no one else would notice if we weren’t.

  As I turned the hall corner, Ashley Monroe’s voice barreled into my eardrum—shrill and potent. “Landon! There you are, baby!”

  I quickly took two steps back retreating behind the brick wall. Geometry punctuality wasn’t important enough that I’d subject myself to squeezing past her and Landon’s make out session to get through to my classroom door. I’d wait it out.

  “Ash, please tell me these rumors about Katrina aren’t true. Tell me that you and Dylan weren’t involved.” Landon’s angry voice echoed throughout the hallway. I clutched my books, eavesdropping without remorse, completely ignoring the students bumping into me as they tried to exit the girls’ restroom.

  “Landon, don’t be silly. That was all Rebecca. You know she and Dylan are hooking up. She was just marking her territory. I had nothing to do with it.” Ashley’s voice imitated sincerity, and I wondered how she didn’t just choke on her lie. I pictured her batting her eyelashes and swinging her blond ponytail back and forth, playing innocent. I didn’t dare peek around the corner to find out if I was right.

  “Good. I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late for class. We’ll talk more about it later.” Did he seriously just fall for that shit? No. No way. He wasn’t a moron. She just lied to his face and he believed it?

  Landon began walking toward where I stood. To avoid him crashing into me as he turned the corner, I grabbed the closest door and jumped inside. I’d almost made it through my entire sophomore year without
a single disruption to my plan of anonymity, and I wasn’t about to start now. I leaned back against the inside of the bathroom door and let out a sigh. When was he going to open his eyes?

  I sat there stewing over my frustration until I was suddenly drawn to a small muffled noise coming from the other side of the bathroom. Without thought, my curious feet started walking me toward the sound until I was looking down at a girl who cowered in the corner of the bathroom floor, ashamed and embarrassed. It was Katrina June Ellis. I should’ve just walked away. I shouldn’t get involved. My life was far too complicated to dry someone else’s tears.

  “Are you okay?” I asked in a sympathetic whisper, reluctantly ignoring my hesitation as her watery blue doe eyes streaked with mascara looked up at me. She must have felt like she’d hit a new low if I was the only one making sure she was okay.

  “I just can’t believe I … I … let Dylan and those girls …” Her pouty pink lips quivered as she strangled out her words. “I thought he liked me. I was finally trying. Finally feeling hope. All I wanted was for someone to care about me. To take this emptiness away …” Her voice trailed off as her eyes flooded with tears and poured down her flushed cheeks.

  “Hey, don’t let them get to you.” I knelt down beside her on the bathroom floor. “I know it’s hard, but they are not even worth a single tear.” I was losing my internal battle of indifference because I could feel how much pain she was in.

  I handed her some paper towels so she could dry her eyes and sticky chestnut-colored hair while she told me what happened. Of course it was a completely different version than the one being announced throughout the school hallways. I knew the truth before she told me, but I still listened because it seemed like she needed to plead her innocence to someone.

  Apparently Dylan Chambers, Landon’s best friend, and Ashley Monroe, Landon’s girlfriend and queen of Aspen Hills High School, sent semi-naked photos of Katrina to the entire school campus, making them go viral. Revenge pornography: the ultimate life ruiner.

  Katrina was once friends with all of these people, but after spending the last two years in self-destruct mode, banishing herself to social exile, she shocked everyone when she asked Dylan to the Valentine’s dance. As punishment, Ashley and her blond cookie cutter robot, Rebecca, plotted her demise. Unbeknownst to Katrina, Rebecca was Dylan’s fuck buddy for the moment. And whether it was out of boredom or because he was getting laid, for two entire weeks Dylan played her. He called and texted her pretending he liked her and that he was starting to fall for her. He told her he wanted to keep their relationship a secret because he didn’t want anyone to ruin what was happening between them. Needless to say they all ended up with plenty of material to work with and a few pictures.

  I never understood the nasty jealously that came along with teenage girls in high school—the dirty looks, backstabbing, and gossip. It made me grateful for my solitude because with friends like that who needed enemies? And in Aspen it seemed like it was ten times worse because the cats had manicured claws, a sense of entitlement, and played dirty.

  At 7:25 a.m. today, a text went out to the entire campus revealing more than just the words privately spoken between her and Dylan. It was sent as the warning bell rang for first period, so for an entire hour every student had to sit in class holding in all the juicy dirt they’d just been sent. It was like watching kids trying not to pee their pants when they were about to explode. All antsy and dramatic, having to bite their tongue, watching the clock tick until they could huddle in a circle and laugh at someone else’s expense. The moment the first period bell rang, it was like an explosion of gossip pouring into the hallways.

  “Then at lunch I confronted them. I got in Ashley Monroe’s face and called her a bully, which I ended up paying for when she opened up a can of soda and poured it all over my head.”

  I lifted up a piece of her long, sticky hair. “Which explains this.” I frowned sympathetically, untangling what looked like a child’s pink bow.

  “To make things even more humiliating, Dylan decided to come up and tell me he thought I was a pathetic loser in front of everyone while passing around his cell phone showing pictures of my … of my …” She looked down at the floor struggling to get out her next words.

  “Man they are ruthless,” I huffed, taking her ugly houndstooth designer jacket so I could rinse it off in the sink.

  Every part of me wanted to find Ashley, grab her by her dead, bleached-blond hair and drag her into the bathroom to make her apologize. But that would mean the wallflower grew thorns, and I still had a few more years to survive.

  I knelt back down and looked at her. “You should go tell the administration. They would all be expelled.” I knew they were empty words. She was hiding in the bathroom instead of the principle’s office, which meant she’d already decided not to.

  “I can’t,” she sobbed. I didn’t press her further. I of all people understood.

  “Okay, well … here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go grab some stuff from my car, then I’m going to come back in here and we’re going to lock ourselves in one of these stalls for the rest of class. By the time next period starts, you’re going to walk out there and pretend that nothing ever happened, that none of it even fazed you, okay?”

  I knew the only thing that would piss them off more was thinking their plan to destroy her didn’t work. She nodded her head in agreement and as I walked out of the bathroom I decided right then and there that I needed to be friends with this girl. I could tell she was damaged, and it wasn’t from some stupid high school girls and a bad reputation. It was deep, dark, and ugly, and I felt like maybe she needed me, but I might need her a little bit more.

  Grabbing the extra clothes and makeup my mom always had stashed in the Cadillac, we used the entire class period to wash away everything that’d just happened. When we were done, she walked up to the mirror and almost started with the waterworks again.

  “Hey, no more tears, okay?” I smiled softly, nudging her shoulder that felt too boney to be healthy.

  “I just …” She tried a little more fearlessly to stand up straight, pushing her frail shoulders back as she looked at her reflection with a quivering lip. She was trying to hold herself together; she was trying to pretend she wasn’t about to break. “I just want to thank you for doing this. I’m fucked up and a social pariah. You didn’t have to be so nice to me and bother with my stupid drama.”

  “Everyone has a story, just because ours isn’t pretty doesn’t mean it’s stupid drama.” I pushed the girls’ bathroom door open to leave but paused. “It just means that one day we’ll be strong enough to change our ending.”

  Funny how everything can change in a moment. The butterfly effect of life amazed me, and it became increasingly clear that my life had changed the moment we met. Suddenly we mattered to someone. I didn’t care if it was only her, because it was one more person than I had before. From that day forward we became best friends. I didn’t plan on it. Truthfully, at first I didn’t know if I really wanted it to happen. I was scared. Correction, I was absolutely terrified. I’d never had a friend before. But she was persistent, and for once I didn’t feel so alone. As time passed we shared every detail of our horrid lives, every hope, and every dream. We were protective of each other, and I instantly knew we would be in each other’s lives forever. I wasn’t sure if it was one hundred percent healthy to have two damaged people trying to put each other back together, but it’s worked so far. Sometimes I honestly believe the universe brought our lives together for a reason.

  “So you never told me why you wanted to go with Dylan to the dance anyway?” I asked, watching a satellite skate across the night sky. “It’s like for a week I watched you turn into an Aspen robot acting and looking like a completely different person.”

  We’d parked the Cadillac off a dirt road overlooking the town and spent the last half hour sitting on the hood munching on the junk food we’d shoplifted from the convenience store.

 
“It’s creepy you’re that observant.” She sighed, throwing a Cheeto at me knowing I didn’t take offense to her comment. “That was the old me,” she said. “I looked and acted just like all of those stupid girls.” She wiped her orange fingers on her denim pants and then lay down against the windshield next to me, putting her arms above her head, her wide eyes changing to the color of the vast dark sky.

  “I just wanted to pretend like it never happened, that my uncle Robert never existed, and that nothing inside of me had changed. I wanted to stop feeling so dirty and used. I thought if I acted and dressed the same as I used to, then maybe I wouldn’t be so fucking miserable. I kept thinking of things the old Katrina would be doing, and choosing to lose her virginity after a school dance—to a guy she’s liked since elementary school—seemed better than my sickening reality. I wanted Dylan to change what happened to me. I wanted him to help make me forget.”

  With our backs against the windshield, she slid down until her head was resting on my shoulder. Her hair smelled sweet, like baby powder. “Katrina died a long time ago,” she said, linking her arm through mine. “I guess I was just trying to resurrect myself.”

  We sat there in silence. At this point my need to run and push her away had vanished completely, so instead I reached down and grabbed her hand softly. “For the record,” my voice vibrated in the air, “I like June a lot better.”

  June’s mom should’ve never got pregnant with her. My diagnosis was simple and close to home; it was as if June’s mom and Nancy were missing the part of their DNA which gave them their maternal instinct. They were the type of mothers whose selfishness caused little girls to believe that since their mothers didn’t love them, something must be terribly wrong with them inside. I always thought I was born broken.

  Growing up, June’s mom was only around to insure June received physical punishment for her wrongdoings, and her father ignored her very existence. The closest person she had for comfort was a Russian nanny who didn’t speak English. It wasn’t hard for June to convince me that we needed to run away together. I’d already been planning on it whether she knew it or not.