Faulkner440: As enlightening as it’s been, class is about over. GG.
MrD: You haven’t seen what I can do.
Faulkner440: Yeah, this app doesn’t accommodate pics & since I’ve got 0 interest in meeting u…
MrD: You’ll see soon enough. But like I said, you have to do your part. Take advantage of the opportunity I’m giving you. Don’t throw this away, H. You’ll be sorry if you do.
I close out of the browser and log out before shoving the donor laptop back onto the cart. My skin feels all crawly and wrong, and I bolt for the door when the bell rings. I shove my books into my locker without bothering to check if I have homework and take off. I just about run over Blue as we head out the doors toward the ancient, bleached out buses that take us home. The afternoon sun is blazing down on us, the heat rippling off the pavement and rising with the choking exhaust, making the air so thick you could chew on it.
“You okay?” Blue asks, glancing at me from the corner of her eye.
If we were the kind of friends who told each other shit, maybe I’d ask for advice about this online stalker I’ve gained. But we’re not, and there’s nothing she could do about it, so I just shrug. “Just ready to get out of here.”
“Doing anything this weekend?” she asks, shuffling up to the edge of the crowd milling around the buses. Everyone is practically gasping for breath in the smothering heat. The diesel exhaust is so strong it’s no wonder Faulkner High’s student population is low on brain cells. A guy goes bounding past, his shoulder slamming into Blue and sending her reeling to keep her balance.
“What the fuck,” I say, shoving him in the back. “Watch where you’re going, asshole.”
He spins around, already drawing back a fist before he sees it’s me. His eyes widen, and he hurls a curse at me, then bounds onto the bus like it’s somewhere he really wants to be.
Blue brushes her hair out of her eyes, muttering a curse under her breath. “Thanks,” she says. “Sit together?”
“I think I’m actually going to walk,” I say, backing up a step. I didn’t bring my books home for the weekend, so I don’t have much to carry, and even though the temperature is hovering around a hundred degrees, I just can’t take the crowd on the bus right now. Blue doesn’t push for an explanation, which I appreciate. We’re both fatherless, and I get the feeling her mom’s not much better than mine, but we have enough mutual respect to let the other keep her dignity by not getting up in her shit.
I head home to get ready for the one fun part of my week—the Friday night fight at the Slaughter Pen. It’s a good way to blow off steam, not to mention to make a few bucks and stay out of the way on Mom’s date night. I’d like to say that’s all it is to me, that I don’t need it like other people need a drink on the weekends, but I know better. The money’s good, but it’s not about the money, either. I’d do it for free.
Fighting reminds me I’m alive when everything else in this town seems determined to drag me under, to hold me against the grindstone until there’s nothing left of me but my bad name. On Friday nights, I’m somebody. Right there in that moment, I’m more alive than in the rest of the week put together. Nobody cares if I have a future or where I live or what my real name is. There, I’m my moniker, the one given me by the man we call Dynamo, who gives everyone a name. And even if we all have stupid names, I like to be that girl.
A girl who speaks the language of knuckles, of the current moment when nothing else exists but the dirt and sweat and blood, the frenzied cries of few dozen fevered spectators, and the satisfying pain that races up my arm when I land a blow.
When it’s over, I can think about the money. I can get myself a Coke and a bag of chips from the convenience store on the way home for a treat, something completely frivolous I’d never think of spending money on ordinarily. I can wonder if Mom’s done fucking her flavor of the week so that I can go home, because even though I’m too old for her to lock me in the closet when her dates come over, that doesn’t mean I want to meet them.
Men want a girl who’s still tight, so do your mom a favor and stay out of sight. If they see I have a kid, they’ll start imagining I’m loose, and who’s fault is that? It’s yours, Harper. So don’t even think about coming out until I come get you.
I don’t want to wake up to find one of her creepers in my room, or shake their hands and pretend I don’t see the way they’re eyeing my boobs like they want to put a dick there, or turn around from making coffee in the morning and find one of them with his hand down his pants as he watches me. I don’t want Mom to fly off the handle and chase me around smacking me with a spatula and screaming at me that it’s my fault my dad left her, that it’s my fault her dates are pedos, that it’s my fault her life is shit.
The feeling is fucking mutual, Mom.
The weekend passes too fast, and Monday morning, I’m back at FHS, still waiting. I can almost feel the charge in the air. Something’s going to happen. I’m a month into sophomore year now. I almost start to hope. Maybe those boys will leave me alone, not spread the pic around. Anything is possible.
By the end of the week, the wait is killing me, so I decide to do a little digging. At lunch, I turn to the most boy-crazy girl at my table, a girl who might have been my best friend if I’d stayed in the trailer park. I lean in so she can hear me over the roar of voices in the huge, industrial room. Jolene’s always looking for gossip, though she’s never part of it—maybebecauseshe’s never part of it. She’s been dating the same guy since middle school, and she hasn’t gotten pregnant yet. Not much else is going to put a girl in our circle on the social radar.
“So, I saw these guys down by the tracks the other day,” I say. “They don’t go to this school, but they’re definitely in the juvenile delinquent category. Any ideas?”
“Already graduated?” Jolene asks.
“Harper’s looking to slum it with some high school drop-outs,” says Earnhart, her boyfriend, laughing. “Way to go, girl. Get you some STDs.”
“Does Willow Heights have any guys like that?” I ask, remembering their rich car. “Oh, also I heard them talking, and they had some kind of accent.”
“That would be Colin,” Skeeter Bite says, turning his camo hat around backwards and resting his elbows on the table.
“Not Colin,” I assure them. For one, he goes to this school. For two, my “number” is far too low to have forgotten a guy on my list. Not that they need to know about that disaster. “Their accents were more like the Sopranos. And there were three of them.”
“Ohhh,” Jolene says slowly. “Are you talking about the Dolces?”
I shrug, pretending it doesn’t matter, but I save the name in my mind to look up later. “Maybe.”
“Oh, no, you’re not getting away with that,” Jolene says, staring at me with wide eyes. “Hold on. Did you actuallytalkto the Dolces? Oh my god, do you know the Dolce boys?”