Ashley Masters sits next to me in the cramped office, her nose wrinkled with piggish pride.
I sigh casually, “Ashley said something nasty. So I slapped her.”
“Now, Miss Albright,” Principal Brown says in his deep voice, “I’m sure you’re aware that school policy is no fighting. No hitting, no punching, and that includes no slapping.”
“What about no insulting?” I glare at Ashley. “And no posting photos that are an invasion of privacy on ChatBrat.”
“You’re referring to the photo I called your father about?”
I arch my eyebrows at him with proud acknowledgment.
He glances at Ashley, “Do you have anything to add on that topic, Miss Masters?”
She smiles, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I roll my eyes, “Everyone knows you posted that photo, Ashley. Who else calls me Slutbright?”
“I’m sorry, what?” she asks innocently.
I make a sour face. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Ashley. You posted that photo, you wrote the caption. End of story.”
“I have noooo idea what you’re talking about.”
I sigh, “She’s lying. She did it.”
Ashley’s arms are folded over her gray cardigan. Her legs are crossed and she bounces one foot repeatedly. She probably sucks at poker because she’s obviously nervous.
Principal Brown nods thoughtfully. “I’m sure the two of you know that ChatBrat is anonymous and we have no way of knowing or proving who posted what.”
Ashley smirks.
His eyes dart toward her. “Be that as it may, I have to wonder about the name calling Miss Albright is referring to.”
“You mean her calling me Slutbright every time she sees me?” I blurt.
Ashley’s leg stops bouncing. More precisely, it freezes in mid air. Thought so.
Principal Brown represses a smile, “Yes, that.”
“I’ve never called her that,” Ashley growls.
Oh, geez.
“And anyway,” she continues, “she slapped me! Then she took my picture and posted it on ChatBrat with her name on it!” She glares at me. “Isn’t that right, Suh—” she stops herself and purses her lips, “…Skye.” She says my name almost like it’s admitting defeat.
“Gosh, Ashley, let’s find out.” I reach into my bag and pull out my phone. I’m still on the ChatBrat app. “Well goodness, almost three hundred likes already! And we’re still in first period. What do you think will happen at brunch when everyone gets on their phones?”
Ashley narrows her eyes and catapults a huge basketful of eye daggers at me.
I smile pleasantly as the daggers bounce off. I’m bulletproof this morning. Because I stopped caring the second I walked on campus.
“Now, Miss Albright,” the principal intones, “let’s not gloat.”
No, let’s gloat. Let’s gloat very much. Let’s throw a gloat party. The first round is on me. “Are we done here?” I demand.
“No,” the principal smiles. “I’d like to know what Ashley said to you to provoke you.”
“She asked if I had incest sex over the weekend,” I grumble.
His face twitches imperceptibly while he maintains composure. He would be much better at poker than Ashley. He turns to her, “Is that true, Miss Masters?”
“That’s not what I said,” she whines.
“Close enough,” I chuckle.
“What did you say, Miss Masters,” Principal Brown asks.
She curls her upper lip, “Can I plead the fifth?”
“You could,” he chuckles, “but you would end up in detention.”
“If I tell you, will I not end up in detention?” she whines.
“That will depend on what you say,” he offers.
She rolls her eyes. “Just give me detention. What about her? She gets detention too, right?”
“I’m afraid so,” Mr. Brown says, giving me a compassionate look.
“Can we have detention together?” I ask snidely. “I totally want to spend it with Ashley.” I turn to her. “You do too, don’t you, Ashley? We can be like the kids in The Breakfast Club and become BFFs before the end of the movie.”
“I don’t think so,” she groans with superiority.
“Detention is in the cafeteria, as you know Miss Masters,” Mr. Brown says pointedly, “but I will give Mr. Rhodes instructions to seat you on opposite sides of the room. Please report to the cafeteria after your last class.”
oOoOoOo + O+O+O+O
SLUT
That’s what’s lipsticked red on my locker door when I go to it at the beginning of brunch.
I stop short and marvel at it. I wonder what shade of red it is? Scarlet Harlot or Crimson Tart?
Several freshman notice the red writing as they walk by my locker. The guys giggle or laugh. The girls whisper and glance at me. Everyone at North Valley knows who I am. I don’t even need the Scarlet A or I or whatever the hell other letter Ashley Masters would have me wear on my shirt.
Fucking Ashley.
It had to have been her.
First, SLUT is written in a bouncy girlish hand. Second, SLUT wasn’t written on my locker when I came in this morning. The word is underlined twice because everyone knows underlining is meaner and two underlines is twice as mean. Shiver. Sarcasm. I can totally picture Ashley sneaking over here after leaving Principal Brown’s office so she could vandalize my locker. She probably thought she was Zorro when she slashed the underlines onto the door. In her case, she should be called Slutto, because she’s the one who tirelessly defends the reputation of the entire community from sluts like me.
What a joke.
Ashley.
This school.
And everyone in it.
It’s all a big joke.
I stuff my bags in my locker. Then I get an idea. I close my locker door. Then I take a picture of it and the word SLUT. Then, since I’m wearing a white V-neck T-shirt, I step up to my locker, slide my palms up under the cotton material, and press the chest of my shirt against the lipstick.
“What are you doing?” Jason Carpenter asks, walking up behind me.
“Making a new shirt. Here, take my picture.” I stand beside my locker facing the camera. I hand Jason my phone. “Make sure you get me and the locker.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Jason. Please?”
He’s frowning with uncertainty.
“Please?” I beg.
“Okay. I won’t get in trouble, will I?”
“No. Don’t worry.” I glance down at my shirt and you can read SLUT but it’s backward and kind of mushy and blurry. I smirk a cocky disinterested smile and flip off the camera.
Jason snaps the photo and hands me my phone.
In the picture, you can read SLUT on my shirt just fine, even though it’s backward. “Thanks, Jason.”
“I guess,” he says. “Are you okay, Skye?”
It’s so sweet that he cares. No one else does. “I’m fine.”
“Are you gonna play Magic with us in the library today?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I might skip school.”
“Don’t do that.” He sounds so serious.
“Want to come with me?” I offer.
He shakes his head, “No, I don’t want to get detention.”
I shrug. “I already have detention today. What’s another hour or two?”
“Um, okay. I should go.”
I’m freaking him out. “Bye!” I wave. I sigh when he’s gone.
Then I upload my SLUT lipstick photo onto ChatBrat with the caption:
Someone defaced my locker between first period and brunch. If you saw who did it, let me know. Skye Albright.
Then I walk to the nearest girls’ restroom and sit in a stall until brunch is over. I hear girls come and go, chatting and giggling and gossiping beyond the steel isolation of my stall. All I see are some shoes. Their banter is nothing more than white noise to me. I coil a
lock of my hair around my index finger over and over. I pick a few split ends. When the warning bell rings, I flush the toilet for no reason and walk to third period.
I have Chemistry third period. When I walk in the classroom, Mr. Goldberg takes one look at my SLUT shirt and sends me to the office. I walk right past it and stroll out the main entrance.
Fuck school.
oOoOoOo + O+O+O+O
I begged him to fuck me right here, across from the school.
I’m standing behind the church where I wanted to have sex with Dante back in the beginning, before things blew up.
What was I thinking?
My stomach knots so I turn around and go back to the sidewalk.
The last thing I want to think about is Dante.
I don’t know where to go. I don’t want to go home. That sounds too dreary. Too many memories of Dante and Dad and everything.
I look up and down the street in front of school. Just parked cars and buildings but no people. So lonely.
I’ve cut school a few times since I started high school, but it was always with Rox. I sigh when I think about it. I miss her so much, she doesn’t even know. I wonder if she knows how much she hurt me when she abandoned me when all this slut shit started.
SLUT
It’s on my shirt.
I guess that makes me the slut. Just like mom.
“You’re a slut, Crystal! Nothing but a lowlife slut!”
Sigh.
I walk aimlessly down the sidewalk, heading in the general direction of nowhere. I end up at the mall that’s close to school. Why didn’t I think of this before? Retail therapy is every girl’s best friend. Macy’s is calling my name. I think I need to try on shoes today. You can never have too many.
The saleswoman in the shoe department is sharply dressed. Her brassy blonde hair is pulled back in a snooty hair pin barrette. Her chiffon blouse and wool skirt scream “uppity”. She sneers when she sees me wander in with my lipstick SLUT shirt. I don’t think it’s to her liking. When I ask her if I can try on a pair of leopard print pumps, she scowls, “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I graduated,” I lie. “I go to UCLA. I’m in the fashion design program. I need shoes for one of my design classes.” I love the fantasy version of me. She doesn’t get slut shamed. She’s too busy getting her collection ready for Mercedes Fashion Week.
Ms. Uppity purses her lips before snipping off to fetch the shoes.
I leave before she returns.
Bitch.
I wasn’t going to buy the shoes anyway. I wander upstairs and try on a few outfits. It’s no fun by yourself. I wander through the mall for over an hour, going in and out of different stores. Forever 21, Bath & Body Works, Aldo.
Eventually I lose my enthusiasm and end up chilling at a table in the food court, people watching. I guess it’s lunch because the place is super crowded. Maybe I should get something to eat.
SLOP!
Something smacks the back of my head. I reach my hand up and feel cold, wet, and mushy. Something falls from my hair and clatters on the tabletop. An M&M. I twist around and see Ashley Masters standing behind me, flanked by Brittany Price and Monica Webb. All three of them hold Fro-Yo cups.
“Did I give you brain freeze, Slutbright?” Ashley twinkles, holding her empty Fro-Yo cup.
I scowl up at her from my seat, “How’s your face?” Meaning: my slap.
Ashley’s twinkle tarnishes into a snarl. She snatches Brittany’s Fro-Yo cup out of the girl’s hand and jerks it in my face. Ironically, the yogurt doesn’t fly. It just sort of plops out and splats on the tiled floor at her feet.
SPLASH!!
From off to the side, an entire cup’s worth of soda flies in Ashley’s face. Cola drenches her head and shoulders, dribbling down her fancy embroidered white cami in brown streaks. The blonde hair at the front of her face clings to her cheeks in sticky streaks.
“Take a hike, Ashhole,” Rox says victoriously, holding a large empty cup in hand.
“Did you just call her Ash-hole?” I marvel.
“I did. And I’ll kick her ashhole if she even thinks about doing anything with Monica’s Fro-Yo. Other than shoving it up her own ash, that is.” Rox smirks confidently.
Ashley scowls, “I need napkins. Get me some napkins!” She glares at Brittany and Monica. “You two are useless!” She storms off without them.
Monica and Brittany glance at each other nervously.
“Brittany! Get over here!” Ashley yells from where she’s stealing napkins from Panda Express. “You too, Monica!”
“Your master is calling,” Rox says. “Oh, wait! Her name is Ashley Masters! No wonder you guys do everything she tells you.”
Brittany and Monica exchange a disgusted look and walk off in the opposite direction of Ashley.
“You’re gonna regret this!” Ashley yells, but they ignore her.
Rox turns to me like it’s business as usual, “Such bitches.”
“Thanks,” I say reluctantly. We haven’t spoken in over a month. It’s the longest we’ve gone without speaking. Ever.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Where are Nicole and Kayla?”
She shrugs, “They were annoying me today. It’s not as fun hanging with them when you’re not around.”
“Aren’t you still mad at me?”
She shrugs again, “No. I miss you too much.”
I hide a smile.
“You have yogurt in your hair.”
“And M&Ms.” I claw one out and toss it onto the table. The red M&M skids across toward Rox.
“Get that away from me! It has Ashley cooties!” She giggles and flicks it off the table with her finger.
The M&M bounces right onto the table next to ours and hops onto someone’s plate of spaghetti. The guy whose food it is is turned away at the moment, looking at who knows what while he chews. Unaware of the M&M, he turns back to his food and jabs his plastic fork into his spaghetti. The fork clicks against the hard candy shell and the guy frowns, confused. He leans his head to the side, trying to figure out what happened.
Rox represses a laugh and grabs me by the arm, pulling me out of my chair and away from the tables. I stumble after her, laughing as we exit the food court and head toward the rest of the mall.
"We need to get you cleaned up,” Rox says. “Wanna go by my house before lunch is over? I’ll rinse your hair out over the sink, so you don’t have to use the nasty mall bathrooms.”
“Sure,” I smile.
And like that, we’re BFSFs once again.
oOoOoOo + O+O+O+O
“You’re getting yogurt jizz in my eye!” I squeal with my head over Rox’s kitchen sink. Water from the faucet rains down on the back of my head.
She laughs, “I think yogurt jizz is supposed to be good for your eyes. All the lipids or vitamin E or whatever.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Probably,” she chuckles, hosing my hair down with the spray gun. She adds shampoo and lathers it up with her fingers.
“I feel like I’m in a hair salon.”
“Then you better tip good,” she chuckles. “Hey, I found a green M&M. You want it?”
“Ew!”
“Okay. I’ll eat it,” she quips.
“Gross, Rox! Throw it out!”
“Too late,” she laughs. After massaging the suds for awhile, she rinses me again. “All done.” She pulls my hair back and blots it with a towel.
When she finishes, I stand up and pat my hair dry. Good thing I don’t have a jungle growing from my head like she does, otherwise we would’ve made a mess all over the kitchen. I mop up what little water splashed on the floor with my towel, then we go into her bathroom and she gives me a light blow-dry and style. She insists on doing everything while I stand in front of the mirror. She spritzes some product in it and artfully arranges my bangs.
“There,” she smiles. “Perfect.”
“Wow, Rox, I can never get my bangs to do that without them l
ooking stringy.”
“It’s probably the yogurt,” she snorts. “Or my conditioner. You need to stop buying yours at Walgreens.”
“I don’t! I buy it at Ulta! You know that.”
“Oh yeah. Then you need to let me pick it out for you,” she winks. “We should probably head back to school. We’re way past late for fifth period.”
I grimace. “I was planning on cutting the rest of the day.”
“Okay,” she grins. “What are we gonna do?”
I can’t decide if she’s trying to be extra friendly to make up for the last month or not. I sigh heavily. I’ve been avoiding the elephant in the room since the mall just like she has. “Rox, Dante left.” Okay, now it’s out. Either she’s gonna be pissed all over again, or we’re gonna get past this thing.
She purses her lips and her brows knit, then she takes a deep breath and her face softens. “Does it hurt?”
That wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. “Yeah,” I mutter.
“What happened?”
“He got in a fight with my dad.”
“I knew that would happen sooner or later. Your dad is like that. Was it a fight fight with fists and stuff?”
“Sort of. Not really. Dante pushed Dad and Dad tripped and knocked himself out on a vase.”
“Oh. Is he okay?” Her concern is genuine.
“Yeah, he’s fine. But Dante got all pissed afterward and he left.” Now I’m crying. Tears drip onto the bathroom floor.
Rox wraps her arms around me and hugs me hard. The flood gates open and I sob against her chest. She rubs my back and hugs me and holds on like she never let go in the first place.
I hug back limply because all the strength left my body the moment I let out my pain. “I loved him, Rox,” I sob.
“I know,” she whispers.
“He was so mean,” I wail. “He said all he wanted was a three way with the two of us, but you were only 17. So he went after me.”
“What an asshole!” she hisses. “I should’ve known he was a total prick. I’m so sorry, Skye. I can’t begin to apologize for how mean I’ve been to you.
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