Chapter Two
CHAPTER
TWO
Jae
It’s my first day at Bellwood High, and my body and mind are in two different places. My feet take me from room to room as I match the numbers on my schedule to the numbers on doors, getting lost in the flow of students who know exactly where they’re going.
But my thoughts wander to a small air-conditioned room.
Red plastic chairs. Cold. The serenity prayer on one wall, a glossy horse poster on another.
And flowers. Lots of flowers. For thankyous and sorrys and goodbyes.
Whenever a teacher calls my name, I’m dropped back into my body, my feet on pristine tile, my back pressed against straight wood.
Soon enough, the second lunch bell rings and I find myself planted in the bathroom stall, leaning against the brick wall, listening to voices float through the hallways like smoke.
I survey the stall door where phone numbers, names, and body parts are scribbled in black marker beneath the words junior hos. sharing is caring.
The words, not meant for me, still inject themselves like viruses into marrow. They multiply, until I forget that the words are written on gray metal and not under my skin.
Avoiding the pee spots on the floor, I shuffle my feet to ease the numbness, to feel my body be mine again.
There’s chatter in the hallway. I instinctively hold my breath, put the toilet seat down, and step up, tucking my dress behind my knees.
A woman’s voice calls for the drifters to hurry to the cafeteria, and I’m left facing an imaginary Mom, who kisses her teeth, gives me a sour look, and says I’m just like Dad, hiding when things get too tough.
You need to be pressed if you want to be a diamond, Janelle.
So much for leaving her voice back in Atlanta.
I jump when the bathroom door swings open and slams against the wall. The thud echoes in my chest and sends my heart quick-stepping. Heat surges through my body, fear clenches my lungs. Breathe, Jae, breathe.
The squeaky shuffle of shoes passes the first two stalls and stops when a body slams into the wall closest to me. I flinch, hug my knees closer.
“What the hell were you doing at my house, Tillman?” a voice asks in a sharp whisper. My brain slowly registers that it’s a deep voice.
“Look, dude, I have no idea what the big deal is,” another voice responds, cracking.
“Dude?” Shuffling feet. “Did you just dude me, Tillman?”
“Sorry, sorry. No need to get upset.”
“Nobody knows where I live.”
“I had no idea where you lived. Had I known, I would have said, ‘To hell with it! I’m not delivering pizzas to that house!’” This voice rises like it’s full of helium.
“Are you trying to be smart?”
“Smart? Not me. Dumb as a block.”
The silence is filled with agitated breaths. I tell my heart to settle. Nobody knows I’m here.
“Derek, come on.” Tillman’s voice trembles. “This is a classic case of projection. You assume I’m feeling what you’re feeling, but I’m not, I’m really not!”
“I know what projection means.”
“You really think people will stop liking you if they find out the truth? Any therapist worth their salt—”
“Shut up, Tillman.”
“Did you know salt and salary share a Latin root?”
“Tillman. Shut up!” Thud. “Say a word to anyone, I’ll pluck the braces off your yellow teeth and make you swallow ’em. You know I can do that, right, book freak? You’ll regret the day you met me.”
“Already happening.”
“Then get the hell out of here. Go eat your freaking cheese sandwich.”
I hold my breath for another body slam, but there’s only the sound of retreating feet and the thud of the door. I let out a long sigh of relief.
I think I’m alone until feet move toward the other side of the bathroom.
The tap turns on, running at full blast. Then there’s the sound of water splashing, an agonized “Shit!” and sobs.
They’re almost inaudible, drowned out by the water, and for a moment I wonder if I’m just hearing things.
What kind of bully cries after threatening his victim?
I’m stuck, afraid to move. But still, drawn to the familiar ache of tears. Like the way I cried when I realized Dad wasn’t coming home again. Or the day I signed away the most beautiful gift, not understanding the breadth of forever. The pain is so tangible I can almost hold it in my hands.
Trying to squelch my fear, I slowly step down from my crouched position on the toilet seat and grab my I LOVE LUCILLE canvas bag from the hook. Sometimes sadness is loud and it needs to be heard, I tell myself. I open the stall door, and the boy at the sink looks up into the mirror, startled.
I’m startled too. My feet won’t move. My brain had conjured up an image of a boy on the other side of the door.
A generic, everyday boy. Brown-haired and lanky.
But my expectations have been demolished, completely ground into fine dust. There’s nothing generic, nothing average about him.
Boys like him make you think of dark and beautiful things.
He turns off the water, turns away from the mirror, and stares at me with eyes that remind me of black water and aching lungs and sinking deep.
They’re lined with dark lashes, shadowed by thick eyebrows.
He shifts a white baseball cap over shiny black hair, and I can’t tell if he’s Latino or Indian or Middle Eastern or something else.
As Dad would say, I can’t tell where his parents are from.
He purses full lips. “What are you doing here?” His voice is still sandpaper, his eyebrows knit together.
The muscles around his sharp jaw pulse. He turns quickly to the sink, holds his cap in one hand, and splashes water on his face with the other.
He turns around, pulls up the bottom of his shirt to dry himself, muscled torso on display.
My insides swim, and I forget why I left the stall in the first place.
“I thought this was the girls’ bathroom,” I finally answer, feeling my face warm. “I mean, it might be. I probably shouldn’t assume …” My voice trails off at the squinty, just-drank-spoiled-milk expression on his face.
“Chill. Our school’s not that progressive.” He points over his shoulder to urinals against the wall, right before the first stall.
“Wow,” I whisper. How did I not see them? My face is burning up. I pray for a sinkhole to swallow me. I read they were all over Florida, and yet none has come to take me.
When I finally get the nerve to look at him again, his expression has shifted to one of curiosity.
“You’re new?” he asks.
I nod. “Jae. With an e.”
“You’re scared of the cafeteria or something?”
It’s not the cafeteria; it’s all the kids in it. But I respond, “Something.”
“So you’re spending lunch in the bathroom.” He’s squinting at me again.
Embarrassment holds my tongue. Nothing comes out.
He lets out a dry laugh. “You’re … different.
” He pauses. “And I mean that in a good way.” He crosses his arms over his chest and examines my face, like he’s trying to memorize it.
Then his gaze drops lower, sweeps slowly over the neckline of my dress, my waist-length locs, my meticulously moisturized legs.
I watch every flicker of his eyes, how easily they move over me, like the world could be ending and he would still take his time.
I shift from foot to foot under his gaze.
“Different? Why do you say that?” It’s not like I’m the only Black girl in school.
There was a group of them standing at the lockers, straight hair, curly hair, and Afro meeting in a huddled circle.
And there was one in my Advanced Placement Biology class, though she avoided eye contact.
Maybe she thought talking to me would make her Black too.
“I dunno,” he says. “Just a feeling. Like, everyone here basically looks the same, talks the same. They wouldn’t be caught dead in that, for sure.”
“A little rude,” I say. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I look down at my white cheesecloth dress tied with a braided belt. My cocoa-colored legs end in sandals. My white canvas bag hangs over my shoulder.
“Besides the fact that you’ll need something more substantial than a tote bag for all your books?
Nothing. I like your look, actually, it just doesn’t scream Hey!
I’m desperate for your attention. And your hair.
I like it. It’s nice.” He pauses. “Hey. Gotta go. But … good luck.” He gives me a tight-lipped smile and turns to the door.
“Wait!” I blurt out, because he’s about to leave and the fog has finally lifted. “Are you okay?”
He stops and faces me again. “What do you mean?”
I bite my lip. “I heard you—”
“You didn’t hear anything.” The edge is back in his voice.
“No, I heard you,” I insist. “I’m not judging you, I just … I heard you crying. You sounded extremely sad and I just … I wanna know if you’re okay.”
He inhales and exhales, nostrils flared, slow and deliberate like he’s trying to stay calm. But his eyes are piercing, as if by staring at me hard enough, he can make me disappear.
I shake my head, turn to leave, right as the bathroom door flies open and a tall boy with a tilted yellow hat strolls in. “Derek, come on, man. We’re …” His voice trails off when his eyes fall on me. “What the fuuuu …?”
I’m waiting for Derek to say something, but he looks down, takes off his hat, and runs his hand through his hair. A frivolous waste of time when he could have been explaining things.
His friend stands between us and crosses his arms. His eyes flick back and forth from Derek to me, and he laughs. “Valeria’s not gonna like this.”
“Not gonna like what?” Derek huffs. “We’re not dating anymore. If you could finally get that through your sister’s head, I’d be grateful.” He starts walking to the door. “Miguel, let’s go. Nothing happened here.”
His friend grunts. “Be for real, man.” Then slowly, a thin smile inches across his lips. He looks at me with an eyebrow raised, a shiny silver hoop pierced through it. “What are you doing in the bathroom? You just wait around for guys or something? Who’s next?”
His voice is far away and tinny, like I’m falling, like I’m looking at the bathroom through a tunnel. This is the sinkhole. And Derek’s not going to pull me out. He’s like stone, his jaw locked shut.
“I thought this was the girls’ bathroom,” I say, my voice finally resurfacing.
Miguel laughs. “Yeah. Okay.” He points to the urinals.
Derek shakes his head. “Come on,” he says, and opens the door. “I told you, nothing happened.”
His friend follows, glancing back at me one last time, his eyes dancing. “Ho,” he says, the word like a sharpened dart that meets its target.
The door closes behind his laughter and I’m left standing alone, screaming at myself for stepping down, for leaving the stall, for trying to help. I press my lips together to keep them from shaking, tell myself to breathe.
My fresh start is gone. I’m right back where I used to be. The bathroom stall. The names and numbers.
This is how a blank slate gets covered with words that can never be erased.
genesis. again.
i am:
whoever you say
i am
the creation
of lesser gods