i never really knew her. she was just one of my many faceless classmates. all of our conversations were limited to heys and nods, except for that one time when i stayed in school to work on something for design class long after everybody else went home.
she was a member of the volleyball varsity. their practice had just finished and she was still towelling off some sweat from her face when she walked into the classroom. her seat was a couple of rows behind mine. after a few minutes spent in silence, she sat down beside me and started talking.
it wasn’t small talk. she told me about how she had been having problems with schoolwork, particularly for our design classes. no surprise there. i had seen some of her plates and they really did suck. i kept that thought to myself though.
she told me about how when she was fifteen, her mom left her dad for another guy. yeah, you and who knows how many else in this school, i thought. my mind was shouting CLICHE!. it really did play out the way i expected it to. daddy kept drinking, started getting way too detached. started hitting his kids. started hitting her.
i imagined asking her, so, did he ever molest you? i imagined her answering yes, so now i have daddy issues that can only be relieved by you having sex with me right here right now. she was still rambling on about how sometimes she had to stay with friends for a few nights when things got particularly bad at home. hey, maybe i should offer her a place to stay tonight. might get lucky. those nice long legs certainly could use some caressing, and i bet those lips know a thing or two about sucking.
yeah, i wasn’t a good listener.
i just nodded a few times, grunted out a response and a contrived reaction or two at the appropriate moments. she left a few minutes later without even a thank you. ungrateful bitch, i thought. i listen to your bullshit for almost an hour and i don’t even get a blowjob? huh.
two days later i was at home, flipping through channels, when i come across an announcement telling people she was dead. that was how it was in our town. people took out obituaries and death announcements which the cable company showed for a few seconds on their info channel. a few days later i found out she hung herself right after she went home that day she talked to me.
i didn’t know how to feel. i didn’t feel anything, really. she was just a faceless classmate with a nice pair of legs and lips that looked like they could keep sucking on something for hours. i just pretended to feel sufficiently affected by her death, just like everyone else in our class. i even went to her funeral. i ate those nice little biscuits her parents had laid out. i drank some coffee. i checked out her casket. she still had those pouty red lips. redder than usual. shimmering. dry. sharp as razorblades.
i can’t remember her name.
