“The rest of you, jog!” Nelson shouts.
The jogging starts up—a stampede. Noise explosion. As Anna and I exit the gym, Nelson orders everyone to do sit-ups instead.
“Don’t talk to me,” Anna says, as we march down the hall. “I’m serious. Anything you want to say to me, I don’t want to hear.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Good,” she says.
“Good,” I say.
“Fine,” she says.
“Fine,” I say.
“You—”
She makes an exasperated noise and keeps walking. I start stressing. And then the stress turns to laughter that tries to bubble up my throat and out of my mouth. It’s not funny. If I laugh, I’m dead. But I really want to laugh.
That must mean I’m losing it.
My stomach reminds me this is no laughing matter. I find myself stopping in the middle of the hall, searching my pockets for an antacid. Anna doesn’t realize I’ve fallen behind until I’m shoving one in my mouth and forcing it down, and then when she sees me, she rolls her eyes. I’m white hot, like with Kara in the hall, except I don’t want to hurt Anna, I just want her to see what a mistake she’s
made. My hand autopilots back into my pocket for another antacid because I can feel my stomach boiling. “Pathetic,” she says.
I don’t blame whoever bailed on Nelson: The volleyball net is wedged at the back of the storage room, unraveled behind a row of gym mats against the wall. “Forget it,” I say.
“You want to be the one to tell Nelson that?”
I sigh and we start shifting mats. They’re awkward as hell. The first ten minutes pass in the sounds of us breathing and the shuffle of the mats as we move them. When my arms start to ache and cramp, I notice she’s stopped, letting me do the work for both of us, waiting for me to catch on.
“Would you help?” I ask. She just stares. I grab the edge of a mat and get back to work. “Fuck you, Anna.”
“Fuck you ,” she returns. “I thought I could trust you, but I should’ve known you’d stab me in the back, especially after Liz. You were never the same after that. I should’ve known you’d fuck me over.”
I don’t want to hear Liz’s name come out of her mouth.
“Anna, shut the fuck up—”
“Don’t tell me to shut the fuck up. He was my boyfriend. He was my boyfriend for two years, and no matter what you felt about him, whatever you think it was, he was still my boyfriend.”
I let go of the mat. ” I didn’t sleep with him!”
“Shut up—”
“I didn’t sleep with him.”
“Regina—”
I’m going to keep saying it until she hears it. “I didn’t sleep with Donnie, and Kara is totally setting you up. You look like a fool—”
“Regina—”
“Anna, he tried to—”
“Shut up!”
She pushes me. I hit the row of shelves behind us, and the metal edges dig into my skin, and then she’s gone and I’m alone. I sit on the floor and close my eyes, and when I open them again, it’s not quite three-thirty, but close, so I leave.
The air-conditioning lasts the first five minutes of homeroom before dying a spectacular death, and now I’m navigating my way to my next class through too many sweaty bodies, and I want to tell everyone to stop exhaling because they’re just making it worse.
“Hey, Afton!” I only stop for a second, until I realize it’s Bruce, and then I keep moving. His voice follows me down the hall. “Is it true you like it in the dark?”
I ignore him. So does everyone else. His is one voice among many.
“Because Josh says you liked it in the dark.”
I face him. He’s annoyingly self-assured, smug. He makes his way over to me, talking the whole time, his voice carrying over the noise, forcing people to listen.
“You know. When you have sex. You like it in the dark.”
“Shut up.”
An uncomfortable heat works its way up to my face from my toes. Everyone seems to have paused to listen now, and the people walking in on the moment slow down, knowing instinctively that whatever comes out of Bruce’s mouth next has to be heard; that it’s going to be good. A redhead and a blonde are in my periphery. They’re grinning.
“Because you hate the way you look. I mean, that’s what he told me.” Go to hell. I can’t say it. My voice is gone. Bruce smiles. “How’d he put it?…you ‘wish you were a little more filled out.’” A few girls snicker behind me. “He wished that too.”
“Stop—”
“And you won’t let him go down on you, right? What’s up with that?”
I force my way down the hall through the crowd that’s gathered, but Bruce follows me. I try to tune him out. I can’t.
“Is there something about you we should know? Should Josh get tested?”
He keeps talking. Everyone’s laughing. He stays on me. I dodge into the girls’ room, but he grabs the door and holds it open. “I’m not done,” he says.
I beg him with my eyes to stop. “Why are you doing this to me, Bruce? I have never done anything to you.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there grinning. It’s not like I need an answer. He’s working for Anna. He’s crushed on her for ages.
“Josh didn’t tell me shit,” he says. “Anna gave me all my lines. Is it true? Do you really like it in the dark?”
“If you think doing Anna’s dirty work is going to get you a free pass into her pants, you’re mistaken,” I tell him. “I’m pretty sure she thinks you’re too small.”
His face turns red and he raises his voice. “Josh called you a good lay, but not a great one—”
I yank the door shut, but he keeps shouting through it. I lock myself in one of the stalls and bite my fist until I gag, and every muscle in my body is tight and my joints are all seized up. I breathe around my fist, sucking in air through the narrow space until Bruce finally stops and goes, and then I thaw. Slowly. The bell rings. I study the teeth marks in my skin, slimy with sweat. Phys ed. I have to show my face in front of a gym full of people who think I like it in the dark. Is it true? Should Josh get tested?
When I step out of the stall, Liz is in front of the mirror brushing her hair. My heart flip-flops. Liz isn’t surprised to see me. She’s never surprised to see me. She runs the brush through her hair, takes an elastic from around her wrist, and pulls her hair into a ponytail. I feel hollow, just like I felt in the days after it became devastatingly clear to her we weren’t going to be friends again and I was going to have to make her life miserable. Enough for her……to want to die.
“I’m sor-ry,” I say, and my voice cracks, splitting the word sorry in two.
She lowers her hand and turns to me slowly, setting the brush on the counter. “What did you say?”
I try to find the word again— sorry —but it’s gone. I want to tell her she’s brave, she’s stupid brave for coming into school day after day knowing what is waiting for her, and I want to tell her she was the best thing in my life for one brief moment in time, and I want to tell her that I’m sorry I stood by while she was ruined, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I am so sorry.
She turns back to the mirror, silent.
When Nelson orders us to stand in a line against the wall, I know what’s coming next.
She’ll select two captains and they’ll pick teams.
Since we have an uneven class, the last one left keeps score, because the last one left always keeps score, because alternating is a pain in the ass. I’ve spent the first half of my life being one of the lucky ones; I’ve always had a team. Now my lack of a team, the lack of people wanting me on their team, is going to satisfy two sets of people—my ex-friends and everyone I’ve gotten picked over in the past. Picking teams.
How do teachers forget how horrible this is.
We line up. My hand goes for my pocket, but I stop short of getting an antacid. I don’t want to give anyone the satisfaction.
“Basketball,” Nelson says, blowing her whistle. “Myers and Carey, pick your teammates, and be quick about it.”
Kara and Josh amble up to the front. It says something about Nelson that she never gives losers the opportunity to captain. I don’t think she’s ever picked Kara to captain before, and I wonder if teachers always acquiesce to these shifts in popularity, like everyone seems to, whether they really want to or not.
Josh and Kara do a sweep of the room. Their eyes linger on each of us, sizing us up for a basketball game no One will give a damn about after everyone’s picked. When Josh gets to me, I feel like a piece of meat.
He nods at Bruce. “Burton.”
Kara grins and points at Anna. The whole ordeal lasts only ten minutes, the deliberations taking longer and longer the less people there are to choose from, until there are only two of us left. Me and Donnie. We stand beside each other, tense.
Last call belongs to Josh.
“Not Regina,” Anna says really loudly. I try to pretend I don’t care, but I do.
It’s completely humiliating.
“Whatever,” Josh says, nodding at Donnie. Donnie sags with relief and makes his way to Josh’s side, weaving slightly. I glance at Nelson. She notices—I can tell by the look on her face—but she doesn’t say anything.
I hate this school.
As soon as Donnie is hovering on the outside of Josh’s team, this is what the whole scene looks like:
TEAM 1 TEAM 2 ME
Nelson blows her whistle.
“Bench, Afton,” she says. “It’s your lucky day.”
Someone dog-whistles and barks at me, and everyone snickers. I make my way over to the bench. The game starts. I lean my head against the wall and stare at the ceiling. One of the fluorescent lights overhead flickers, and somebody scores and somebody else scores, but no one ever asks me for the tally.