I quickly forget about my lunch as I hear a few girls flinging open stall doors that slam shut behind them with the flush of toilets followed by water streaming from faucets. They laugh as they fix their hair and makeup. The smell of perfume and hairspray fills the air as they gossip in hushed tones.
Finally, I hear my name. I half expect them to be discussing my tragic death. I study the sounds of
their voices and their shoes from under the stall to try and discern who the girls might be, but I can’t place them.
My eyelids blink rapidly as they talk, my body closing in and growing still to better hear them as the whirring hand dryers finally quiet down enough for me to make out their words.
“Can you believe it?” One girl chirps with a pop of her gum. “She’s nuts. She was so determined to blow him right then and there that she made him run his car straight into the damn telephone pole.”
Resentment and anger bubble up in my chest. I want to come barreling out and tell them everything that really happened. But once again I find myself stilling to see what else I can hear. Hoping for some hint at what to expect next.
“Tragic,” another girl answers dryly. “So what now? We just ignore her?”
“That’s what Vivian says. We’re supposed to act like she doesn’t exist. Which I’m happy to do. That’ll teach her a lesson. Maybe the bitch will think twice before trying to blow someone else’s boyfriend.”
Jesus. What sort of punishment is that? I would take the relief of being shunned over the torture they had been doling out any day.
I bite my lip to hold back the questions bubbling up inside, nodding and blinking as they continue. That’s why there’s a lull in my torment. The Elites have told everyone to ignore me at all costs. For the rest of the semester. No talking. No looking. I am essentially a ghost.
My lips purse with raised brows, my fingers pinching against my chin. I obsessively check my phone once more, feeling half tempted to text last night’s unknown number back. At least it’d be someone to talk to if nothing else. Still nothing.
The girls shuffle their plastic cosmetic cases back into their bags in a flurry of maniacal cackles as they exit the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind them to leave me in silence.
It couldn’t be so bad, right? So, no one talks to me. Who cares? It’ll be a relief in comparison to what I’ve been experiencing.
The isolation carries on throughout the day. I catch a few glimpses of Emmett, each time renewing my urge to feel his lips again. To hear the breathless groans he makes beneath my kiss. But the surge of hormones always dissipates into knots of anxiety as he effortlessly continues to not see me.
I choke down my desire for him, running through the list of everything he’s done to me so that maybe I will finally come to my senses and be glad that I am exiled.
Walking through the halls, I feel the emptiness in the lack of strange and pitying looks I had grown used to. In their effort to shun me, even the whispers of my name have vanished. I’m not even a topic of gossip anymore.
Under doctor’s orders, I still can’t run for a few days. So, I’m relieved when it’s time for gym. I need something to do to work off this anxiety. Some physical activity might calm my nerves.
I walk past the cinder block walls of the gym, scoffing at the school’s name painted along the shiny wood floor. I hate that my name is somehow wrapped up in the legacy of this hellhole with the new knowledge of my father’s attendance and former Elite title.
But his involvement disturbs me much less than my mom’s. She is supposed to be a cornerstone in my life. One person I can fall back on when I have no one else. But now even she is tainted by the WJ Prep sickness. Not knowing to what extent only makes it worse, somehow.
My back aches from the lack of support on the bleachers retracting into the walls as I anxiously wait for the teacher to announce what we’re doing today. I slump my shoulders at the revelation of dodgeball, the basket of balls quickly rolling in behind the words.
Great, that will be heavenly for my already sore and aching muscles. But honestly, I’ll take it. The thrash of balls into my painful joints might be soothing somehow. Something to jolt me out of this haze of nonexistence. A reminder that I am alive.
With the blow of the teacher’s whistle, the gym quickly fills with the sounds of sneakers squeaking across the floor and students calling out to one another. But my state of exile worsens. Every ball I try to snatch up is quickly taken right out from under me. Not a single one is thrown in my direction.
I stand with my hands on my hips, watching as the entire game races by without me. A comedic image of the bullied kid being a target and getting pounded with everyone’s balls at once flashes through my mind. A scenario that I would almost welcome at this point. Somehow being ignored is worse.
Realizing my participation is null and void, I retreat to the water fountains to lap up as much as I can take in, partly to soothe my sudden unquenchable thirst, but mostly to avoid the awkwardness of being invisible.
The locker room is another place most girls would gladly accept a shroud of invisibility, but once again I am surprised at how much it bothers me. I sit on the long wooden bench in the middle of the lockers and stare down to the faint mildew spots staining the grout between the plain beige tiled floor, wishing I could find relief in all of this.
Surely being ignored is better than being tortured. I wanted an end to it, and now here it is. Served up to me on a silver platter. But it doesn’t feel like a break at all. It’s like the silent ghost town in a movie with crows cawing ominously in the distance, tumbleweeds blowing past. Quiet should be good, but you know it’s just making space for whatever bad thing happens next.
Suddenly, I see a familiar pair of shoes in the corner of my eye. My heart leaps as I look up to see Lily huddled in the corner, drying sweat from her hair.
“Lily!” I rush over like an excited puppy, my voice cracking under the hours of not speaking out loud. “There you are!”
She doesn’t respond at first, looking to her phone instead before finishing her preparations to head back out into the hall.
“Oh, come on,” I huff with a laugh, assuming she’s just messing with me .“Not you too.”