All the Rage

i hide behind a nearby locker row and watch Coach Prewitt chase away the crowd until the bell rings. Stragglers amble by after that, braving her wrath, hoping for a glimpse of the show even though nothing they see will be as good as the retelling.

When the hall is completely empty, Prewitt redresses Jane carefully, shaking her head and muttering to herself. Stupid goddamn kids. My bra and underwear are clutched in her hands. She contemplates them a moment, then, disgusted, shoves them into a nearby garbage can and leaves. I wait until I’m sure I’m alone and then I go to her. Jane.

I hold my hands out next to hers and exhale. This close, I can see a subtle difference in shade. Off by degrees. That’s not my red. It’s some other girl’s. Problem is, far enough away, it’s easy to mistake for mine. I have to make sure no one else does. I bring my fingers to Jane’s mouth. Marker. Permanent. The nails too.

But I can get rid of this.

I pick at the surface of her “skin” until it starts to flake. The circle around Jane’s lips goes slow. The outer layer is weirdly stubborn. I want to talk to her, ask her how she’s doing because it feels like she’s real and I’m not. You okay, Jane? No, nobody saw. But if they did, it doesn’t matter. Whatever, you know? Fuck them.

It takes a bit of elbow grease until the red O is gone except it makes it worse somehow—what’s left behind is a white stain. I work on her right hand, chipping the polish off her fingernails carefully, to preserve my own. Pieces of her get under my thumbnail, make me hiss and wince, but I keep going until there’s no red on her anymore and then—I’m done. I step back and stare at her and I know who she’s not.

I go to the garbage and my hand is almost in it before I realize what I’m doing and it’s that exact moment I feel eyes on me.

Penny’s at the end of the hall. Her face is blank, but there can’t be a single part of her not enjoying this and I wonder how long she’s been there, if she saw it all. I try to think back, try to pick her out of a crowd of blurred faces, but I can’t. It doesn’t matter. She knew it would happen. She let it happen.

I’m not allowed to leave? but they can’t expect me to stay. I walk out of school, scratching at my arms until angry finger marks flare on my skin and slowly disappear. By the time the house is in sight, I remember my bike but I’m not going back to get it.

The front door is locked, even though the New Yorker is in the driveway. I knock, just to test it, and no one’s home but I have a key for the house because it’s my house now.

I have a key for the car too. Emergencies only.

This feels like it could be one.

I stand in the sun porch and the quiet pulls at me, and different parts of me want different things. There’s the part of me that wants to go inside and sleep. There’s the part of me that wants space, distance, because it all feels too close.

The part of me that wants to go is louder.

And then I’m in Todd’s car, I’m in it and it’s on and then I’m outside of Grebe, twisting along back roads so deserted it doesn’t even matter which side I drive on. I forgot how it felt to push foot to pedal, to go fast, fast, faster and break, watching the tires kick up dust in the rearview. I learned to drive when I was fourteen. My mom took me to an abandoned lot out of town and showed me in case there was an emergency and my father was too drunk to get behind the wheel, like we lived in a world where help could never come to us. It wasn’t long after when I discovered my father was the emergency. Mom saw it coming, what I didn’t. She finally got a steady cleaning job and started working nights and he’d get so wasted, just drink the house dry and still be thirsty after and what do you do when you’re thirsty? Get more to drink. Couldn’t walk straight but sure he could drive and hell, no he wouldn’t call a taxi and you can’t call the cops on your dad because—you can’t. So you beg him to wait until it’s dark out and the streets are empty and you take him yourself and you never get caught.

He was so glad when I finally got my license because everything didn’t have to be such a production anymore. I could pick him up from the bar, or the houses of any of his friends who would still have him, and it didn’t matter who saw me. My father loved my mother’s work nights. He could fall down guilt-free because the only person he had to answer to was me and as far as my father was concerned, no parent was ever meant to answer to their kid.

I circle the outskirts of Grebe over and over, pretend I’m actually going somewhere but I never really manage to convince myself.

I don’t know how long it’s like that, just driving, before the lights flash behind me.

I don’t even understand what they mean until the short shrill burst of a siren follows.

Oh, Jesus.

I pull onto the shoulder while the unmarked Ford Explorer behind me does the same. I squeeze the steering wheel as I mentally catalogue all the things that are wrong, like my license isn’t on me. Oh, and this isn’t my car. Was I speeding? I think I was. Shit. Shit. I turn the car off and roll the window down, listening to the footsteps crunch across the ground until they reach my door.

“Romy Grey. Shouldn’t you be in school right now?”

The voice is familiar in the terrible way most recurring nightmares are.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks.

“Why don’t you tell me?”

He’s good at that, telling me.

“Step out of the car, please.”

All the Turner boys look the same. I guess that means they all look like their father but when I see the father, I see the sons. Sheriff Turner exhales impatiently through his nose because it takes me too long to step out, but I couldn’t do it before my legs felt sure enough to stand.

“This your car?” he asks.

I hate you.

Such an easy thought, I’m lucky it doesn’t come out of my mouth.

“What?”

“I asked you if this”—he points to the New Yorker—“is your car.”

“It’s Todd’s.” He knows it’s Todd’s.

“He know you’re driving it?”