slave: Abigail Rivers
Gretchen was at school. She had to be to participate. It used to be that Abby always knew where Gretchen was and vice versa. They had memorized each other’s class schedules; they each knew which bathroom the other preferred, which hidey-holes they’d retreat to when stressed (Abby: behind the chapel; Gretchen: rear carrel at the library). They planned what they were doing the next day on the phone every night. But all that was gone now. Mrs. Lang had insisted that Abby’s class schedule be swapped so that she and Gretchen didn’t share any classes, and Gretchen no longer talked to Abby on the phone. The part of her brain that kept track of Gretchen was broken.
But now she knew. Gretchen was here and all Abby had to do was find her.
“Hey, slave,” Gretchen said.
Abby spun around. Gretchen was standing right behind her wearing the same sweat-stained clothes, her hair all wire bristle, her face a greasy mess, stinking of perfume.
“Where have you been?” Abby asked. “Are you okay?”
Gretchen giggled to herself.
“A slave doesn’t get to ask questions,” she said.
“Screw that,” Abby said. “I’m really worried. No one—”
Gretchen put a filthy finger to Abby’s lips, and Abby was torn between pulling away and being comforted that Gretchen was touching her again.
“Let’s talk in the bathroom,” Gretchen said. “Come on.”
She turned and headed down the breezeway, and Abby followed as fast as she could. Gretchen preferred the bathroom in the fine arts building. Abby figured they had just enough time to get there and back before the first bell. She wasn’t worried about being Gretchen’s slave. They were friends. Gretchen wouldn’t make her do anything bad.
“Wipe off your makeup,” Gretchen said.
Abby kept smiling like an idiot, her back against the bathroom door. Gretchen was standing by the sink, her face so pasty it matched the tile walls behind her. The cold room reeked of United Colors of Benetton.
“It was Wallace Stoney, wasn’t it?” Abby asked. “We have to tell or he’ll do it to someone else.”
Instead of answering, Gretchen opened her bookbag and took out a folded yellow hand towel from her mom’s bathroom and a big tub of Ponds cold cream and set them on the edge of the sink.
“I’m the owner,” she said, “and you’re the slave. And the slave doesn’t get to wear makeup.”
Since seventh grade, only Gretchen had ever seen Abby without her face on, and she knew not to talk about it at school. No one talked about Abby’s makeup.
“I’m not playing around,” Gretchen said.
She unscrewed the lid of the jar.
“Take it off.”
Abby’s spine went weak. Her head was spinning from the perfume. Maybe if she played along for a bit, Gretchen would stop. Like, Abby would be about to put the cold cream on her face and then Gretchen would grab her hand and laugh and say “Just kidding!” and they’d be friends again.
“If you don’t take off your makeup,” Gretchen said, “I’ll do it for you.”
“We have to tell your parents about Wallace,” Abby managed to say. “He attacked me, too.”
Gretchen held out the jar of Ponds, gleaming soft and white in the fluorescents like a big tub of Crisco. Abby walked to the mirror on straw legs and looked at her reflection. Under the ugly bathroom lights her skin looked like poached shrimp, all pink and shiny. At some point in the next few seconds, Gretchen was going to see how ugly she was being.
“Do you really want this?” Abby asked, scooping up cold cream with two fingers.
“Duh,” Gretchen said.
But Abby was physically incapable of bringing her fingers any closer to her face. Her hand was shaking. Gretchen rolled her eyes. The whites were inflamed with burst blood vessels.
“I’ll do it for you,” she said.
“Please,” Abby said, her eyes suddenly aching, her throat closing tight. “It’s my makeup, Gretchen.”
Gretchen grabbed Abby's hand and smeared the cold cream onto Abby’s face. The white goo mushed into her eye, then left a smear across the bridge of her nose. It was cold and greasy on her eyeball.
Abby lost it. She shoved herself away from the sink, knocked into Gretchen (who weighed next to nothing), and sent her reeling backward into the hand dryer. Abby scrabbled at her face and flung the gob of cold cream on the floor with a splat, then shoved her way out of the bathroom. Holding one hand over her right eye, not knowing how bad the damage was, she ran without looking until she got to the bathroom in the back hall behind the library, where the faculty offices were, and locked the door.
She didn’t want to look in the mirror, but she finally forced herself to. She saw that her eye was bloodshot, but otherwise not too bad. She touched up her makeup, then made it to first period just before the second bell. All day she simmered; then after school she waited outside where parents picked up the middle schoolers until she saw Gretchen shuffling out, hugging her books to her chest. Abby went right for her, shoving her backward, not caring who saw.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” Abby snarled, dimly aware of students stopping to watch. “I am your only friend. I am the one person who cared what happened to you. I am the one person who still talks to you, and you just lost me. You know exactly what you did and you know exactly why it matters, so get this through your rich-bitch skull: We are not friends. Not now. Not ever.”
Gretchen didn’t move. She just stood there, taking it.
“You don’t need a ride to school? I’m too dirty for your parents? You want to treat me like dog crap? Then fuck you.”
At TCBY, Abby shoved her arms into the ice machine until they went numb. She couldn’t even feel it when she stuck the pin from her nametag through her skin. She wanted to be cold forever. She wanted to be made of ice. She went home and drank water, then turned on The Equalizer. At 11:06, her phone rang.
“Hi, I’m Mickey!” it shouted. “Hi, I’m Mickey!”
Abby snatched it off the hook.
“Hello?” she said.
A long moment of silence whistled down the wire.
“Please,” Gretchen said, “don’t hate me.”
Out of habit, Abby almost said she didn’t hate Gretchen, but she took a minute and remembered everything and put it all into her voice when she said, “Go away.”
“Don’t be mad at me, Abby. Please,” Gretchen said.
All you really need to know is that I’m going to crack you wide open, Robert McCall said on the TV.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Abby said.
“I don’t understand,” Gretchen said, totally bereft. “What did I do?”
That’s when Abby knew: Gretchen was crazy. She had gone crazy and she was pulling Abby down with her. The longer they talked, the worse it would get.
“If I have to explain it to you, then we were never friends,” Abby said.
“Don’t leave me alone,” Gretchen begged. “I can’t do this on my own. I can’t fight it by myself. I’m sorry for what I did, but he makes me. He’s always whispering in my ear, telling me what to do, making me hurt people. He wants me to be all alone, with no one left but him. I’m sorry, Abby. I’m so, so, so sorry.”
The whining, wheedling edge in Gretchen’s cracked voice made Abby feel nothing but contempt.
“Goodbye, Gretchen,” she said.
“But we’re friends,” Gretchen cried in a tiny voice inside the receiver, and a fist gripped Abby’s heart and squeezed. “You’re my best friend.”
Abby was far away from her body, and all she had to do was stay out of the way as her hand floated to Mickey’s arm and hung up the phone.
“It’s over,” her mouth said to no one in particular.
The phone rang again, but Abby picked up the receiver and dropped it. She didn’t want to talk to Gretchen. Right now, she wanted to show Gretchen how much this pain hurt. Abby wanted her to feel what she felt. She wanted her to know this wasn’t a game.