by Brian James
My heart races, fast and frightened, as I follow Nurse Abrams with tiny steps. The static is here. Watching me inside the walls of the hospital. Spying through the invisible cracks in the scenery. Listening and recording everything I say. I’ll have to be more careful than ever.
Nurse Abrams opens the door and steps aside to let me pass. —Go on in and take a seat wherever you like— Nurse Abrams says. —Dr. Richards should be by any minute.—
I move into the center of the room and stand there. The door clicks closed behind me, shutting out the noise. I’m thankful for the momentary silence.
* * *
The school receptionist glances up at me as soon as I enter the main office. —Just take a seat over there, Sabrina. Mr. Harris will be with you shortly.— She points to a little waiting room off to the side and I wonder how she knows who I am since I’ve never been in here or spoken to her before in my life.
Through the frosted glass window on the office door, I see two students pass by. Their faces are distorted and they move like creatures underwater. I want to follow them, but I have to stay here. Mrs. Green, my first-period teacher, said the office sent a note requesting me to go down. She didn’t tell me why. I’m sure it said why on the note, but she kept it from me.
—Now, please— the receptionist says when she notices I haven’t gone into the smaller room as she requested. I guess I didn’t move fast enough and her tone is sharp and short-tempered the way school officials’ voices always are with bad kids even though I’ve never been in trouble.
I walk through the open door marked VICE PRINCIPAL. I’m not expecting to see Skylar waiting there too and I freeze up. She is sitting in a chair obscured by the door—a tiger hiding and ready to pounce when I step in. Her eyes narrow at me and her mouth curls into a snarl. —If you say anything, I swear you’ll regret it.—
I bite down on my lip and take a seat in the chair farthest away from the one she is sitting on. I shove my hands under my thighs—my hidden fingers firmly crossed.
Skylar huffs and swears under her breath. She is annoyed to be here and more annoyed that I’m here too. I’m not annoyed, only nervous. My stomach is a net of butterflies—my belly full with them like when I imagine the ocean inside my womb, but it’s making me sickish instead of happy. I stare at the blue and green checkered pattern on the rug under my feet, feeling like I might throw up.
—Did you rat me out or something?— Skylar growls. I shake my head but she doesn’t believe me. She knows why we are here. She knew as soon as she saw me, but I still have no idea. —I can’t believe you would tell. God, can’t you take a little joke? Besides, you were the one who got yourself into this mess. Just remember that. You can’t blame me for it.—
I don’t know what she’s talking about, so I say nothing.
When Mr. Harris comes to the door, he calls my name first. Skylar flashes me a warning look. I see the skeleton of a snake under her skin and shiver. I’m as small as a mouse in her stare. If I get too close, her jaws will unhinge.
—Come with me— Mr. Harris says. He is shaped like a pear or a deflated beach ball that is wide only in the center. He takes up most of the space in the doorway and has to step away before I can follow him into his office. He closes the door behind us. Then he gestures for me to sit down in one of the small chairs opposite him.
Mr. Harris turns his computer screen at an angle so that we both can see it. I recognize the photo of me in the corner—the one where I’m blowing a kiss at the camera. This is the profile page Kayliegh set up in the summer, but it looks different than it did. Even though I haven’t touched it, or even looked at it, there are now more than three thousand people who are my friends. Many of these friends have left comments like the ones Kayliegh and I found on the pornography sites in her brother’s computer. They describe in detail all of the sexual acts they want the girl inside the computer to do with them and how much they are willing to pay me for each.
—Is there anything you want to tell me about this?— Mr. Harris asks. His words sound thick and slimy as if his mouth is full of paste. It makes his cheeks puffy and his skin red and the rolls on his neck fill with sweat.
—I don’t know— I say because I don’t know what else to say.
Mr. Harris stares at me with insect eyes that want nothing more than to spin a cocoon around me and swallow me inch by inch in the thick saliva caught behind his teeth. —It would be in your best interest to talk to me— he says, and I can hear his stomach growl when he wipes his chin with sticky fingers.
His eyes are hungry.
They chew away at me until I’m soft and easy to devour.
The entire office is like the inside of a stomach. The scent of digestion is woven into the wallpaper’s pattern. The air is thick and made of grease as thick as jelly. The lights fight through it and cook me from the outside in until the meat will slide slowly from my bones.
—Look, Sabrina— he says. —You’re a good student. You’ve never been in trouble before. Somehow I don’t think you’re the only one involved in all of this. I’ve talked with some of your teachers and they tell me some of the students have been giving you a hard time lately. I’m prone to believe they are involved. But if I’m going to help you, I need you to cooperate with me.—
—That’s not me— I say, pointing at the screen. —I don’t know anything.—
Mr. Harris gives me a hard stare, takes a deep breath, and lets it out. Then he moves his mouse around on the screen and double clicks. The screen changes and a video pops up. He refuses to look as the video plays silently on a loop.
I watch out of the corner of my eye. I see an image of myself spinning like a ballerina in the grass with the school behind me. Dressed in only blurry sunshine from the waist up, I turn slowly with my eyes closed. But it’s not me, I can tell. The girl inside the computer is pretending to be me, but she’s different. She sees only white spots where the sun shines through her eyelids. It’s not the same for her as it was for me when I was where she is. The warmth has evaporated and the colors have turned dull and cloudy.
—Are you trying to tell me that isn’t you in the video?— Mr. Harris asks.
—It’s not me … not really— I say, wringing my hands together and bending my fingers back until they sting in pain. —It was brighter that day than it shows. The colors were brighter. It’s all wrong in that video.—
Mr. Harris stares at me as if I’d just entered the room. —So you admit you were there … then it is you. Now what I need to know is if you made this video and posted it by yourself or if other students at this school were involved.—
—I’ve never seen that video before— I tell him honestly.
—But this is your profile?—
—Yes … but none of that is me. I never wrote any of those things.—
—Who did?—
He clicks back to the profile page and I point to the girl in the photo. —Her— I say, and Mr. Harris looks at me the same as the kids in my classes and in the halls. —It’s true.—
—Okay, we’ll assume for now that this isn’t your page. But that’s you in the video. Who made it?—
—But it’s not. It was different— I say. Then I start talking faster and faster, trying to make him understand. —The grass was a darker kind of green. And the afternoon sky too … it shimmered like the gold breath of a dragon.
I want so badly to make him see it all, to make it crystal clear for him, but the noise swirls so heavily around him that I know he’ll never understand. It looks nothing like that in the video. It’s not at all how I saw it and I bet it doesn’t feel the same either. Each blade of grass was a tongue tickling my bare feet. And when I spun around … it rained glitter like flashing sparks from power lines.
—Sabrina, did you let somebody take this video?— Mr. Harris asks again.
I shake my head.
—No— I whisper —I don’t like to have my picture taken.—
Mr. Harris’s mouth wrinkles into a frown. He do
esn’t believe me. I can tell because his expression is the same one my dad makes whenever I try to tell him about good and bad halos hanging over strangers. But it’s true, and it’s true about having my picture taken too. I hate seeing pictures of myself more than anything.
My mom took a picture of me on the first day of seventh grade. I’m wearing a flower barrette. Even though I’d worn one a thousand times before, this time the kids at my bus stop harassed me about it. This kid from down the street ripped it off my head and played catch with another boy, keeping it away from me until they finally tossed it out of the bus window. Every time I see the photo, I feel stupid all over again.
My mom never took the picture down even though I asked her a hundred times. She says I look pretty in it. But I think I just look dumb and I have to see it every time I get something out of the fridge. My mom doesn’t even get the cruel irony that it’s stuck up there with a magnet shaped like a dog that we got in the mail from the ASPCA. Now it’s there forever, mocking me with my own smile. That second of my life is stolen away because that’s what pictures do. They rob from us and keep every moment exactly how they want it to be remembered.
—I never want time to be so dead. I want it to be slow … like swimming underwater. But I don’t ever want it to be frozen. It’s like the Native American thing … like how they say photographs steal part of your soul. That’s how it is for me too.— I explain this to Mr. Harris because if he can understand about the photographs, then maybe he’ll see what I mean about the girl pretending to be me inside the computer.
Mr. Harris rubs his chin. —Listen, all I want to know is who took this video on school grounds. Don’t try to protect them. You should be worrying about yourself. A video like this is a serious issue for whoever took it or uploaded it. So … are you going to tell me or not?—
—You’re not listening to me!— I say louder, trying to be heard over the storm inside his office. —It doesn’t matter because it’s not me. Don’t you understand? That part of me was stolen. It doesn’t belong to me anymore.—
He gives up trying to understand then. He clears his throat and frowns. —I’m going to have to call your parents— he says, already holding the phone to his ear and dialing from a number printed in my school records. —Please wait in the other room again.—
As I walk out, Skylar stands up to go in. Mr. Harris holds up his large hand, signaling for her to stay put and for me to close the door. When I sit down, Skylar looks at me with her mouth hanging open.
—You didn’t tell him I put that video online, did you?— she asks.
I don’t say anything.
I sit perfectly still, waiting for my parents to come and take me home.
* * *
The windows in the examination room are bigger and face the opposite direction than the ones in my room. They are almost too big—too bright. The sunbeams are spotlights with all their attention focused on me. The room gives me the feeling of being the only actress on a stage—an actress without lines or cues.
Dr. Richards still isn’t here and I stand alone in the middle of the room. Somewhere out of sight, there are a million pairs of eyes studying me. I can feel their glare like tiny pin pricks on my skin.
Shadows divide the room, leaving one corner in darkness, and I walk over there to escape the spying lights. I crouch down in front of a bookcase that comes up to my chest—completely hidden then.
The top shelf is lined with dolls. Each of them stares up at me with empty eyes. They fascinate me and scare me at the same time because their bodies are waiting lifelessly for a child to tell them what to say and what to do. They appear almost real, or like they once were real but have had their souls removed. I can’t help but wonder if that’s how I’m going to end up—an empty doll without thoughts of my own.
I run my hand over their small faces until I find one that interests me more than the others. I pause to stare at her. Her brown hair and blue eyes are so much like mine. I pick her up in my hands and trace her mouth with my finger. Then I hold her up close so that I can whisper in her ear. —Are you where they’re going to put the parts of me they don’t want anymore? Is that what they do here? Do they make a doll for every patient? I bet they do. I bet they store what’s left of us inside of you and send a sleepwalker with pretend thoughts out in our place.—
Turning the doll over and around, I wonder how much of me will fit inside. I wonder what the world will look like through plastic eyes or how things will feel touching them with plastic fingers. Perhaps I’ll even be adopted by some little child. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to be loved that way. Part of me wonders if it wouldn’t be better than being a real person in such a messed-up world.
I close my eyes and imagine slipping inside a life of hollow eyes and blank expressions. Colors sprout and swirl on my eyelids like stepping into a dream. I can sense my clothes fading away—my feet sinking into sand. It feels nice to drift farther and farther away from this room that tries hard to feel like a home, but where no one ever wants to live.
When the door opens, my eyes snap open at the intrusion. Spinning around on my heels, I drop the doll. My hands return back into skin. I’m alert and nervous all over again.
Dr. Richards strides into the room. Her white coat is buttoned professionally. Her glasses sit high on her nose and there is no trace of a smile on her lips. Everything about her is serious in a way that is different from any other session we’ve had. —Hello, Sabrina. Feeling any better today?—
I turn a shoulder to her, turning my attention back to the bookshelf. —I feel trapped— I answer.
—Trapped? That’s a curious answer— she says. I don’t have to see her to know her eyebrows are raised, or that her head is tilted to the side. Her reactions are always the same. She is mechanical and with machines there are no surprises.
—Not really— I mumble. —Not when I can’t leave my room to do things I like and everything.—
—What is it that you would like to do?—
I shrug as my hand reaches for the doll again. Turning her tiny wrist in my palm, I search her plastic skin for a cat-shaped birthmark. —I don’t know. I don’t really feel like talking about it.—
Dr. Richards leans back, making the chair squeal under her. —Is seeing Alec one of the things you’re looking forward to?— she asks.
My head turns toward her instinctively when she mentions his name.
My eyes flash with sparks of electricity.
—Is he in trouble?— I ask.
—Should he be?— she asks in return.
I shake my head, placing my hand near my mouth. I stop before putting my mouth on my sleeve. I know she waits for me to show habits like that. She uses little things like that as proof to show I’m not well. But I’m fine. Or I’ll be fine as soon as they let me go.
—I want to talk to you about your friendship with Alec— she says. —Specifically, I want to know what happened the other day. Was it like the incident with the boy who lives down the street from you?— She pauses a moment, flipping through the pages of her notebook before finding the name she’s searching for. —Was it similar to what occurred with Thomas Merker?—
—No— I say so forcefully I’m nearly shouting. —Alec is nothing like Thomas. Alec is like me.—
—Are you sure?—
She’s trying to confuse me again—to change my thoughts into hers. I have to stay focused. I have to keep my fingers tightly wound around the stone in my pocket. —I’m positive.—
Dr. Richards folds her notebook closed, but keeps her finger in the middle to mark the page. —Did Alec make you run away? Did he say anything to you that made you feel as though you had to leave?—
—I already told you, we didn’t run away— I say.
—Okay— she says in a voice meant to calm me. —Let’s talk about Thomas then and what happened when he made that video of you at school.—
I narrow my eyes into the shape of a sliver moon.
—Who told you about tha
t?— I demand.
Dr. Richards raises one eye until there are small wrinkles of confusion covering her forehead. She opens her notebook to the page she has saved and shows it to me. —You did— she says. —Twenty-two days ago. Don’t you remember?—
* * *
Thomas keeps touching my hair and I keep jerking my head away. It’s the same dance brothers and sisters do during a long car ride, trying to annoy each other. Only he’s doing it for different reasons. His hands don’t tug or yank, they slide slowly, making sure his fingers brush the skin on my neck with every stroke.
—No way, man. That band’s awful— he says to Scott as his other arm crawls in the grass behind my back. —What’s up with all the garbage that guy’s always singing about anyway?—
His fingers are large insects walking down my spine. I try to wriggle away by arching forward. Thomas’s eyes flash from Scott to my chest and he smiles like a game show host with porcelain teeth. His eyes are recording me as they stare.
I’m aware of the changes that have taken place inside of him. The boy I grew up with and rode bikes with and helped to build forts out of old wood and mud is disappearing. Even as he gets taller, his shoulders broader, Thomas is shrinking and becoming so small under his bones. It is something else that makes him move and makes his tongue speak. The boy I used to know as Thomas Merker has been erased—replaced with a personality programmed by television and commercials to act a certain way. Like most every other kid in school, Thomas is nothing more than a mannequin with breathing flesh.
—Come on, man! You’re being a bit too harsh, don’t you think? They’re not that bad of a band— Scott argues. He doesn’t know that Thomas is only pretending to have a conversation and isn’t really interested in the discussion. Thomas is only interested in me—in the way his palm presses against the bare skin between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my jeans.