Going Under

by S. Walden

  Cal was frustrating. As hard as I worked to come across charming and sweet, he didn’t take the bait. He kept me at a distance, too, surprising me every now and again in the hallway in between classes with a “Hello” or “Nice top, Brooklyn.” I knew he was doing it on purpose, making me think I had a chance so that I would keep working to get close to him. I was convinced he wanted me close to him. I caught him in class a few times staring at me. It was a predator’s stare, and it sought to claim me.

  Whenever you try hard to keep from being involved in something, it finds you out, forces you into the situation, and you’ve no choice but to act out of a sense of moral responsibility because deep down your heart is good, and you want to do good. My desperate desire to do good came more from an overwhelming feeling of guilt for my past than from my moral compass. I knew eventually I would have to say something, do something, that made me uncomfortable because when you’re trying to be good, what choice do you have?

  It was Friday, and I barely made it to the bathroom at the sound of the lunch bell. I held my pee all morning, unable to find breaks in any of my classes to excuse myself. Actually, that’s not true. There was one break between fourth and fifth periods, but Cal happened to approach me at my locker during that time, and I wasn’t forfeiting a chance to talk with him. I’d get a bladder infection before I walked away from Cal.

  He asked if I wanted to shoot pictures with him of the women’s volleyball game this afternoon. Yes, he had decided to take Yearbook after all, and I had been waiting for this opportunity to get to know him better. Discover what made him tick. His likes and dislikes. All the information I would need to store away in my arsenal for future use when the battle really heated up. I agreed to meet him in the gym at four, and he left, giving me just enough time to get to class before the tardy bell.

  I flew into a stall and all but ripped off my shorts, sinking down onto the toilet seat because I couldn’t squat. I had to use the bathroom too badly. Normally I always squatted over toilet seats, and I probably should have done so now because I’m quite sure I felt tiny droplets on the backs of my thighs.

  “Gross,” I muttered. “I’m sitting in someone’s pee.”

  But the relief was a little piece of heaven, and I sat in bliss on the toilet, reveling in the feel of an empty bladder, smiling stupidly as I read the obscenities written on the stall door.

  Jamie H. is a dirty whore.

  I wondered who Jamie H. was.

  Carolyn fucked the football team.

  Wow, I thought. That’s a lot of fucking.

  Lucy blows guys for money.

  Huh?

  I leaned in and reread the sentence. They couldn’t possibly be talking about my Lucy. Yes, just like Ryan, I decided to claim her for my own. It was instant possession because I thought she was sweet and kind, and I wasn’t going to let any bitch talk shit about her. Of course, maybe it was another Lucy, but “Lucy” wasn’t a popular name. The Lucy I met didn’t seem like the kind of girl described in that sentence. Why would someone write that about her?

  I thought back to the few times I saw her outside the classroom. She never walked or talked with anyone. She was always alone, looking morose at worst, empty at best. She didn’t have any friends. But why? I thought about the first day of class when I bumped my head. She addressed me then. Why did she do that? And then I realized it was because I was new. I didn’t know her. It was safe for her to talk to me. Maybe, just maybe, she was trying to make friends with me. At that moment I was filled with a kind of tenderness usually reserved exclusively for my mother and father. It was familial tenderness, but I felt it for this girl. I wanted to adopt her as my sister, protect her, make her smile.

  I froze when I heard the bathroom door swing open. A shuffling of feet, a sniffle, and then a racking sob. I didn’t know what to do. Should I make my presence known by coughing or clearing my throat? It was obvious the girl thought she was alone. Who doesn’t check under stall doors to be certain of it?

  The sobbing continued for a few moments before it stopped abruptly. I was sure she was still in the bathroom. I didn’t hear the door open again. I realized I could be stuck in here forever and thought it was better to just come out. She would be mortified or pissed off, but I had to take that chance.

  I flushed the toilet and walked out. The girl whirled around to face me, a horrified look on her face.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She stared at me for a moment. I didn’t recognize her. She looked too young to be a senior, and I never saw her in Hallway D, the senior hall.

  She made a move for the door, but I blocked her.

  “Can I help in any way?” I asked.

  She looked at me, her large green eyes swimming with fresh tears. She was so pretty and frightened. What the hell? This was the second pretty, frightened girl I’d come across in my first week of school. How many were there?

  I knew it would shake her to her core, force her to relive a painful event all over again, but I had to ask. “Did something bad happen to you?”

  She shoved me out of the way and exited the bathroom, but not before answering me. She nodded. It was barely perceptible, but she nodded.

  I left the bathroom after washing my hands, shaken and stunned. Suddenly my eyes were everywhere taking in the scene, scoping out the timid ones hanging in the shadows, wrapped in shameful secrets. I knew they were here.

  I skipped lunch and left the senior hall for another. I strolled the junior hall, looking for anything suspicious or odd. I thought I saw her, hanging around a classroom door, mustering the courage to go in. And another, standing by her locker, furtive eyes darting to and fro, looking for a predator. And another, slinking down the hallway quietly to avoid being seen. And another, disappearing into the bathroom to cry away her pain.

  Oh my God. I was going crazy! I clutched the wall, taking deep breaths. I looked down the hallway. It was distorted, students stretching and twisting in a circular pattern as they passed by me. Like I had taken a hallucinogen and was having a bad reaction. I didn’t know if my feet were still planted on the ground or if I was hanging from the ceiling.

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the field. But I couldn’t summon it. I breathed deeply, feeling pins in my chest that pricked me harder the more I tried to suck down oxygen. I opened my eyes to patches of darkness. I’m going blind! I screamed, but no one heard. My mouth never moved. I heard a distant, “Are you okay?” before the blackness swept me up into a silent oblivion.

  ***

  “Do you suffer from panic attacks?” the school nurse asked. She was old—probably in her mid-fifties—and she hovered over me, looking into one eye and then the other.

  “I have claustrophobia,” I replied. My voice shook. My entire body rattled, and the nurse saw. She grabbed a blanket to wrap around me, but I protested.

  “It’s clean,” she said, and I decided to believe her because I was freezing. And in shock.

  I pulled the blanket tightly around my body, huddling into it protectively.

  “Do you know what triggers your claustrophobia?” the nurse asked.

  And that question told me everything I needed to know about school nurses.

  I looked at her with raised eyebrows. Was she an idiot or purposefully ignoring my sarcastic facial expression?

  “I don’t know,” I said flippantly. “Tight places. That’s usually what triggers claustrophobia.”

  “But you weren’t in a tight place,” she replied. “You were in an open hallway.”

  It came out smug, like she was ready to trap me. Like she knew I thought she was an idiot for asking me such a stupid question only to prove she wasn’t. I wanted to punch her in the face.

  “I guess it felt closed up,” I mumbled. I was angry at the way she made me feel like I had no legitimate excuse for fainting since I was in a large, open hallway. Like it was my fault.

  “I see. Have you ever had an attack in any other open spaces?” she asked.

&nbs
p; I thought for a moment. And then the memory flooded my mind. It had nothing to do with open spaces. It had to do with an old McDonald’s playground, particularly one piece of play equipment: the Officer Big Mac jail. I was seven, and we were on vacation, traveling down to Texas. We stopped for lunch, and I asked to play on the playground because none of the McDonalds back home had a playground like this one. All of ours were plastic and safe. This one was shiny metal—glittering and dangerous in the hot sun—and it beckoned me.

  I saw a few children playing in the Officer Big Mac jail, and I wanted to join them. It was a long metal tube that housed a ladder. The top of the jail was a huge flattened sphere in the shape of a hamburger, the top and bottom buns separated by metal poles to resemble a jail cell.

  I had my first panic attack from claustrophobia that day as I climbed the ladder to the hamburger. The inside was just large enough to crawl comfortably, but I couldn’t stand. And I couldn’t lift my head all the way up to see in front of me. I crawled once around the whole thing, and decided I didn’t feel right. I wanted out. But the ladder was blocked. More kids were climbing in, so I had no choice but to shrink back, wait for them to get in before making my way down. They kept pouring in, moving to the left and right, trapping me against the metal bars.

  I panicked. I tried to move around a skinny boy, but he yelled at me. I felt hot tears roll down my face as I looked out beyond the bars to my parents sitting at a table below. They were immersed in conversation. They didn’t see me. They didn’t realize I was trapped. I screamed for help, and they finally looked up. They waved at me and smiled, thinking I was playing. No, no! I thought, shaking my head so hard I loosened my barrettes. I’m not playing! Help me!

  I couldn’t breathe. I knew I would have to kill someone to get out. Even at seven years old I thought, Who builds a playground like this?

  I turned to the children smashed inside the jail and screamed at the top of my lungs: “Get me out of here!!”

  Their eyes went wide. I must have looked crazy. My hair was sticking out everywhere. My face streaked with tears. The children pushed each other to one side, creating a bit of space for me to crawl around them for the ladder. Once my foot hit the first rung, I felt the panic subside. I looked down the tube at a girl who had just entered and was grasping the sides of the ladder.

  “Get out of my way!” I screamed at her.

  The girl looked up for a second, bottom lip quivering, then ran off crying.

  I slid down the ladder in my haste to be as far away from the Officer Big Mac jail as possible. I sprinted for my parents, flinging myself on my father who pulled me onto his lap and asked me what was wrong. I cried hard into his chest, so hard that I couldn’t breathe. A store employee saw me and went for a paper bag. She came back and told me to breathe into it. I obeyed because she was an adult, and I automatically trusted her.

  I looked at the adult standing over me now.

  “Are you okay?” the nurse asked softly.

  I had no idea I was crying. “It’s all Officer Big Mac’s fault!” I sobbed.

  One side of the nurse’s mouth quirked up. “I hated that damn jail, too.”

  ***

  I hung around outside the gym waiting for Cal. He was late, and I think he did it on purpose. I’m sure he enjoyed making me wait for him. I checked my watch. Quarter after four. I thought about leaving. I wouldn’t stay and let someone make me feel foolish. I already felt ridiculous enough after my panic attack earlier.

  Thankfully the only witnesses to my attack were juniors and sophomores. The seniors were at lunch. I’m sure the students would gossip about it, but I thought the seniors wouldn’t care. I noticed in my first week that the seniors kept themselves separated from the rest of the student body. Snobs, indeed. Every now and then I saw one chatting up a freshman or sophomore girl. Easy target, I supposed.

  Another few minutes passed, and I decided to leave. Of course, that’s exactly when Cal appeared out of nowhere, sauntering up to me with an easy kind of casualness that made me instantly angry.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Something came up.”

  “You’re lucky,” I replied. “I was just about to leave.”

  “You were?” he asked, as though he didn’t believe a word of it. Like he expected me to hang out in front of the gym all night for him.

  I nodded and turned my face. I didn’t want him to see how irritated I was. I remembered that I was trying to woo him, not push him away.

  “Those are pretty earrings,” he said, observing the diamond stud in my left ear.

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. So this was his game. Act like a jackass and then say something sweet. He could care less about my earrings, and in that moment, my heart constricted, my grin faded. They were my mother’s earrings. They were her wedding earrings. She gave them to me when I turned eighteen. They were special, and he complimented them in a cheap, disinterested sort of way. He made me feel cheap.

  “You ready?” he asked holding up the yearbook camera.

  I nodded and followed him into the gym. He opened the door for me like a gentleman, leading me to the bleachers with his hand on the small of my back. I tried to walk faster to get away from his touch, but he kept up with me, never taking his hand away. In fact, he kept it there once we were settled on the first row.

  I squirmed.

  “Problem?” he asked.

  I squirmed again, and he pressed his hand into my lower back before taking it away. I know he wanted me to say something about it, but I wouldn’t.

  “I’ll take the first game. You take the second,” he said, readying the camera and taking a few practice shots.

  The girls were already on the court, running through warm-ups. I never paid attention to volleyball at my old school, never went to a game. I thought I’d be bored out of my mind, but once the first game started, I found myself cheering and whooping as hard as anyone else in the stands. It was an exciting game, and I felt a deep-seated respect for the girls who spiked the ball hard over the net. I wish I were that strong.

  I was barely conscious of Cal moving about the sidelines snapping pictures, but at one point, I noticed he was in the line of fire. Well, that was if the player spiked the ball out of bounds. I hoped she would. I hoped it smacked him right in the face.

  But she was too talented, and the spike landed right in the back corner of the court inside the lines. An “ace,” I was later told. And Cal, of course, snapped the perfect picture of the ball heading his way, the player in the background slightly out of focus, still stretched taut in the air with her hand up. He showed me on the camera screen during a timeout. It was a beautiful shot, I had to admit.

  “Maybe you should just take all the pictures,” I said. “I’m not good with a camera.”

  “Why’d you join yearbook then?” he asked.

  “Well, I’m a decent writer,” I replied. “I just figured I’d write all the captions and page summaries and stuff.”

  He nodded.

  I thought it was time to start with the questions. I had to make sure I didn’t overwhelm him, though, or make him suspicious. I wanted him thinking I was genuinely interested in his seedy life.

  “So what things are you involved in at school?” I asked.

  “Well, Yearbook for one,” he replied.

  I smiled sweetly.

  “And I’m on the swim team,” he said.

  “Oh, so that accounts for your arms,” I said.

  He liked that comment. I knew he would. His body swelled with flattery.

  “Yeah, I swim a lot. I swim when I don’t have to.”

  Whatever that means.

  “Is it, like, a therapeutic thing?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I never really thought about it. Speaking of therapy, what happened to you in the hallway today? I heard someone say you fainted.”

  I flushed a deep crimson and averted my eyes. “Nothing,” I mumbled.

  “Fainting isn’t ‘nothing�
�,” he pressed. “You have a medical condition or something?”

  I was beyond embarrassed. The question came out sounding harsh and accusatory. There was zero concern in his tone, but then I looked at his face. It was full of concern, or maybe he was just really good at faking.

  I didn’t know if I should admit it to him. It would make me come across weak. And then I thought that could work to my advantage. In a sick, twisted sort of way, he might like to hear all about it, feign concern while drawing me into his confidence. I couldn’t know now how he would use that information in the future.

  “I have panic attacks every now and then,” I admitted.

  He was silent for a moment, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

  “From what?” he asked.

  “I have a bad case of claustrophobia,” I explained. “And yes, I know I was in a hallway. Not exactly a closet or anything. But I had an attack anyway. I don’t really know what triggered it.”

  That was a lie. I freaked out about all the pretty, frightened girls I saw. Or imagined. I couldn’t remember. I just knew that something silent and wicked was happening at this school, and my body went into shutdown mode because of it.

  Cal drew in his breath. “So I guess you don’t do the whole making-out-in-the-back-seats-of-cars thing.”

  I stared at him, shocked.

  “Oh God, I was only joking,” he said quickly. “It was supposed to be a joke.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just replied, “I’m gonna get a drink.”

  He caught my arm as I stood up. “Brooke, I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”

  I ignored his apology in favor of focusing on the fact that he called me “Brooke.” For the first time. He’d addressed me dozens of times in the hallway. Always “Brooklyn.” Now I was “Brooke.” He knew he messed up and had to fast-track his plans. For a brief moment, I thought there’d be no more games. No more making me work to get into his little club. He didn’t want to miss the opportunity to claim me, especially if he could witness a panic attack as a result.