by Hugh Howey
It didn’t feel good. I didn’t drink the drink. No one noticed that I was freaking out.
I didn’t want to be pretty anymore.
I did not think I was a slut.
THE NEXT TIME it happened, or at least the next time I remember it happening, I was fifteen. I’d been babysitting this little kid for my mom’s boss, Susan, and it wasn’t too bad, just watching cartoons with him and feeding him crackers shaped like fish and hoping he wouldn’t need a new diaper before his mom came home. But his mom didn’t come home first this time. His dad did. And he offered to drive me home.
It was getting dark then, and the little boy fell asleep in his car seat. I lived twenty minutes away, which didn’t seem far when Susan drove me back and forth and we talked about work and books and stuff. But the dad, John, was silent. It was a weird, expectant silence, the kind that I didn’t know what to do with. I could tell he was watching me at stop signs or when we passed under the white-blue lights of storefronts, and it made me feel strange, like maybe there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t see in the mirror.
In my driveway, he put the car in park and placed his hand on my knee.
“You look really grown-up,” he said. “Really pretty. I can’t believe you’re only fifteen.”
“Well, I am.” I unbuckled my seat belt. “Um, the door is locked?”
His chuckle was low, but like he was trying to be sexy. “Yeah, it’s the childproof lock.” His hand slid to the thigh of my jeans as I messed with the door and got the window open. Before I could start yelling, he laughed again and unlocked the door. “Just playing around,” he said.
But he wasn’t.
I didn’t babysit for them again. I told my mom I was allergic to their dog.
BY THE TIME I was sixteen, I wore hoodies like armor. My skinny jeans were weapons, tight and thick and impossible to pull down if some guy on the street decided that he wanted to make his threats truth. My boots were tall and stompy, laced to the knees and ready for kicking shins. I never wore ponytails or braids or kept my hair long and loose, because I’d read an online article about how that was basically giving a rapist a handle. I wore jogging bras and fierce eyeliner like a goth football player daring anyone to mess with me.
When I looked in the mirror in the morning, I saw a sheep in wolf’s clothing, or perhaps, to be more accurate, as my English teacher was always urging us, a gazelle in a rhino’s bulletproof vest. Everything I did was strategically planned to keep myself from becoming a victim.
Which is kind of funny, because that’s exactly what made me a victim.
I WAS DOING my homework at the dining room table last night, and my dad came in from cutting the grass. I knew he’d been drinking, because he was always drinking when he was in the yard. But he was drunker than usual, and I didn’t know that until his fist slammed into the table just a few inches away from my Calculus book.
“Why do you dress so weird?” he said in a haze of moldy wheat breath.
“Because I like it,” I answered. I moved the book over, sighed, and tapped my pencil against the table. “Do you mind?”
“Hell, yeah, I mind. You look like a lesbian. Short hair and baggy shirts and army boots. Is that what you are?”
I bit my lip and forgot everything I knew about numerals. My dad hadn’t talked to me much since I’d gone through puberty, and I’d just gotten accustomed to being ignored most of the time and staying out of his way when he noticed me. I wasn’t ready to have this conversation, but his fist landed on the other side of my book, boxing me in, and I could feel his sweaty shirt against my back, and my mom wouldn’t be home from work for another hour, and there was nowhere else to go, nowhere at all.
I took a deep breath.
“Yeah, maybe I am gay. Is that a problem for you?”
I didn’t know if it was a lie or a truth or a half-truth, but does it matter?
He shoved my face down into the math book, the paper cold against my cheek. “No, you’re not.”
I exhaled, my hands in fists. “Make up your mind, Dad.”
He growled and pressed harder, and I closed my eyes and wished that he would quit, that he would just explode, that he would catch fire and scream and go away forever with his stupid face and bad breath and bigotry.
Something popped overhead.
“What the hell?” He released me and backed away, staring at the dining room chandelier. All four bulbs had exploded, and tiny bits of hot glass covered the table, my book, the arms of my sweatshirt. His bloodshot eyes jerked back and forth from me to the chandelier. His hands were covered in glass, red with tiny cuts and burns.
“Did you do that?”
I smiled, or maybe sneered. “Yeah, maybe I did. Is that a problem?”
“You didn’t. You can’t.”
I didn’t blink, didn’t waver.
“Make up your mind, Dad.”
THAT WAS LAST night, and this morning there are new light bulbs in the chandelier and my dad already left for work. My mom says nothing, just goes about her routine of coffee and pills and a sensible breakfast. When she’s left for work, I put my Calculus book on the dining room table, press my cheek upon it, hard, until I can feel the grain of the paper. I try to think of every horrible thing anyone’s ever said or done to me, try to remember what it felt like when my dad was hurting me again, try to make the rage bubble up, to remember what I was thinking exactly when the light bulbs burst, but nothing happens. I walk to my car with a red splotch on my cheek and brighter red lipstick on my mouth, because I feel strong.
I pull into my space in the student lot at school and get out, and the ape who parks next to me knuckle-walks around to my side of the car.
“Nice lipstick, slut,” he says, and his sportsball buddies laugh and creep closer. “What you got under that hoodie, huh? Do the curtains match the drapes?”
“That doesn’t even make any sense, Chad,” I say, and I feel bolder than I did just yesterday.
They box me in, four guys against one me, and I drop my bag as my butt hits the car door. Chad puts a hand on either side of me, presses his stupid pelvis toward mine, and smiles like what he’s doing is going to actually work. He runs a thumb over my lips, and I turn away and close my eyes and imagine him dying suddenly, run over again and again by a monster truck, his heart a ball of mush and his legs severed from his torso in the exact area that he’s trying to rub against me.
But nothing happens. No car lights explode. Chad doesn’t scream. He just pumps against me once, grabs my tit, and walks away, laughing. “It feels like my little brother,” he calls over his shoulder, and I bite my red-painted lip until it bleeds.
I guess I was wrong.
WHEN I WALK into third period, half the girls are crying, and all the guys are trying not to.
“What’s going on?” I ask the cheerleader who sits behind me.
She shakes her head and wipes away mascara-splattered tears.
“Chad Bird had a heart attack in PE. He was doing sprints and just…collapsed. Like, his heart exploded in his chest. I just can’t …” And she starts crying again.
It’s hard not to smile. Hard not to pump my fist. Hard not to laugh.
Because it’s working. It has to be.
I kind of hope someone messes with me on the way home, just so I can see what’ll happen this time.
AFTER SCHOOL, I pull over at the gas station and head inside to get a Coke. Two skate rats outside whisper about me, and when I walk back out, one of them says, “Hey, sexy.”
I stop and look him up and down.
“I’m sorry, but were you talking to me? My name’s Maria.”
“Hey, sexy Maria,” he says with that weird, narrow-eyed, smiling nod that dumb guys do.
“Do you have any idea how unwanted your advances are?” I tell them. “Catcalling, whistling, staring. I mean, no girl ever said Wow, I’m so glad that strange guy outside the convenience store told me I was sexy because now we’re married. It’s just so offensive.”
&nb
sp; The first guy is totally dumbfounded, but his bigger friend gets in my face. “Girl, I don’t care if you’re offended. We all know what that mouth’s good for.” He looks me up and down and spits on the sidewalk. “And you ain’t sexy, anyway.”
I give a polite smile and punch them both on the arms like we’re friends.
“Bullets are too good for you,” I say.
As I’m pulling away, I watch them flick me off in the rearview mirror.
When I get home, everyone on Facebook is talking about how two kids got shot outside of the gas station.
THE NEXT MORNING, I don’t put on my usual hoodie. I wear a normal bra, normal skinny jeans, and a normal shirt, the blousy kind the popular girls wear. Instead of stompy boots, I put on dainty flats. And I keep the red lipstick, because it makes me feel fierce.
“Well this is a welcome change,” my dad says. “Finally, you look like a girl.”
“You look pretty,” my mom says. “The guys are definitely going to notice.”
“Let them,” I say with a shrug. “What other people do isn’t my problem.”
My mom tears up and hugs me, and my dad just looks uncomfortable, like there’s something he wants to remember but can’t quite grasp.
“Be careful out there, honey,” he finally says. “Not all guys are nice.”
“Oh, I know,” I say.
I’m counting on it.
AT LUNCH, I end up sitting with a couple of kids from Calc class. It’s cool but weird, as if they didn’t actually see me when I was wearing my gray hoodies and then I suddenly just sprouted up among them in class this morning. But they’re nice enough, and I’m better at math than most of them, so it’s okay.
I’m sitting next to a boy named Bryan Kim, and he’s actually really cute. I can’t say I didn’t notice him before, because I did—I just didn’t talk to him or anything. He likes Adventure Time and tumblr and we have a lot in common. I like his dark brown eyes and spiked, ink-black hair. When I say something, it’s like he really sees me, and his eyes don’t stray too much, and his smile is real.
“Why didn’t we ever talk before?” he asks.
I shrug and look down like I got caught doing something wrong. “I don’t know. I guess I was scared.”
His hand lands on my arm, gentle and warm through my shirt. “You didn’t have to be. You’re really cool.”
“Thanks,” I say. “You are, too.”
WHEN THE LAST bell rings, I walk down the hall with my head up high, my hips swinging. I feel as fluffy as frosting, untouchable.
“Hey, girl.”
“Woo hoo, sexy mama.”
“Mm hmm. I want me some of that.”
I stop and spin, and three jocks lean against the lockers wearing sadistic grins and letter jackets.
“You shouldn’t talk to girls like that,” I say.
“It’s a free country,” says the first little piggy.
“Hos don’t tell me what to do,” says the second.
“What’re you gonna do about it?” says the third, and the other two fist bump him.
I hold out my fist, and they fist bump me, too, although they’re obviously pretty confused about the whole thing.
“I’m going to let karma take care of it,” I say.
“Hell, yeah!” one of them shouts. “She’s down.”
As I walk away and they make animal noises and promise to do all sorts of horrible things to my various orifices, I smile and imagine them being crushed under a steamroller, their leers exploding in cracked teeth and their bones flattened and gushing marrow.
They’re not in school the next day.
It was a car accident, I heard.
I’m not going to the funeral.
TOO MANY STUPID girls at school are crying about dead boys who deserved it, so I decide to take my retribution to another part of town where the pool of misogynists is bigger and less likely to arouse suspicion. I know that a heart attack and a car accident can’t be connected to me, but it’s still a lot for one high school to handle in one week. The way I see it, I have a gift, and I’m ridding the world of filth. Everything happens for a reason, right?
I wear headphones between classes so I won’t hear what they say about me. It’s not that I’m even dressed provocatively or that I’m super pretty or have a great body. It’s just part of being a girl, having things whispered in your wake. All that time I hid in my hoodie, I heard the guys by my car talking about Jessica McCarthy’s boobs and Gin Martinez’s butt and how Isabelle Boone had the best kind of lips for you-know-what. I’ve heard the dorkiest guys making outlandish claims about the chicks they banged at summer camp, and I’ve seen the coolest guys nod as they slipped baggies of pills to their friends, promising a night of whatever-you-want-bro, wink. Even when it wasn’t directed at me, it might as well have been. Nobody ever did anything to stop it. Including me. But now I can make up for that.
After school, I drive downtown and park my car in an alley by a strip club. Not that it matters, but I’m wearing skinny jeans, flats, a tank and a loose sweater. And makeup, but that doesn’t change anything. I feel pretty, but it’s not like I’m trying to look hot, showing off my cleavage or wearing high heels that make my butt stick out. I seriously went out of my way to choose something normal, just what any girl would wear. It makes it seem more fair, somehow. Lions mainly focus on obviously sick gazelles, but I’ll give my prey the chance to run.
I sling my bag over my shoulder and walk to this coffee shop I like, where I usually huddle in the corner with my hoodie pulled over my head and my feet tucked up as I suck down Americanos. From my corner, I’ve witnessed hundreds of bad pick-up lines, of unapologetically staring dudes, of loomers and sighers and intruders and is-anybody-sitting-here creepers. It’s a college town, after all, and there’s always at least one dude planted out front with a puppy or a guitar or a leather notebook, waiting for some soft-hearted girl to notice how deep he is.
Today’s artificially deep guy has a carefully placed ukulele case and a notebook into which he’s staring soulfully, a fountain pen in his hand. The pages are empty, but as I approach, he writes something in a flurry of loopy catscratch, shaking his head and leaning back to stare up into the stark branches of a cherry tree as if hunting for meaning and fifty-cent words.
“Are you a writer?” I ask. Because this is what he wants, you see.
His smile is immediate and smug. “I wouldn’t call myself that, but yeah…I guess I am.”
He puts a hand on the ukulele case and takes a sip of his latte, and I play along.
“Wow. You’re a musician, too?”
He shrugs, as if he’s never considered the question before.
“Oh, I just mess around a little. Writing songs and poetry. I’m trying to start a band, but everybody in this town is so …” I smile, encouraging him. “So alpha male, you know? I’m more sensitive. Like, a warrior poet. I’m Drew, by the way.” He holds out his hand.
I shake it. “Maria.”
“So what’s your major?” he asks, pushing out a chair with his foot.
I don’t sit.
“Oh, I’m in high school.” I’m already bored and sick of his transparent dance.
“Wow. You look so much older. Like, really mature. Like you have an old soul.” He pushes the chair out farther. “Can I buy you a drink?”
I waver. I’m pretty sure this guy is a class-A douchebag using a carefully constructed facade to lure in stupid girls and use them until they’re dried up husks, but I don’t want to suffer through his entire song-and-dance just to make sure. So I give him a lightning round.
“Thanks, but I’m a lesbian.”
He squints, like he can’t quite see my sexuality on the surface and it’s impossible to reconcile short hair and a pink sweater. “Are you sure? Because I thought we had some chemistry there. I just feel like we’re connected. Don’t you feel it?”
He holds out his hand, and I take it. His palm feels like a dead fish.
“Nope
. Sorry.”
Drew looks down and snorts. “You shouldn’t tease guys like that. Acting interested.”
“I stopped and spoke to another human being. How is that being a tease?”
He looks beyond me, must see a better target heading up the sidewalk. “Whatever. Just go kiss your girlfriend.” He flaps a hand at me and goes back to staring at his journal.
“I hope the next girl sees right through you and your fake romantic crap,” I say. “Good luck with your polite date raping.”
I walk away before he can say anything else and hurry inside to get a good table where I can watch his peacock dance. When I leave to order my drink, there’s a pretty blonde girl standing at his table, swaying back and forth and smiling shyly. When I come back, she’s in the chair he offered me, listening to him play his ukulele. From here, he seems so earnest, so real, like he actually is a human being with a soul who writes deep things and plays sweet songs and genuinely has a connection with this girl.
She does not, as I wished, see through his line of BS.
But when a swerving car hits the cherry tree and a branch spears him through the stomach, she definitely sees through that.
I sip my Americano and smile.
WHEN MRS. KOENIG asks us to select partners for a Calculus project, Bryan looks at me hopefully, and I give him a thumbs up and blush. It’s a little awkward at first, since it’s clear we’re both new at this boy-girl thing. He walks over with his hands in his jeans pockets.
“So did you—”
“Do you want to—”
“Oh, sorry! Go ahead.”
“No, you. I mean, what were you saying?”
It’s like a dance that neither of us knows the steps to, and it’s refreshing, especially after the carefully coordinated script that Drew tried to pull on me yesterday. Which only makes me like Bryan more.
By the end of the class, we’ve exchanged numbers and have sent our first wobbly texts.