Page 30 of The Glass Girl

As I’m walking away, Kristen says, “What’s withher?”

I sit in a bathroom stall, backpack at my feet, breathing hard. How could I have forgotten to check the project submission before bed? What’s so bad about being a few hours late for an assignment? It was a mistake, that’s all. I try to calm my breathing. I scan the walls of the stall to distract myself. It’s like some sort of graffiti den in here. Stick figures fucking, phone numbers, swear words, song lyrics, stuff likeHelp meandMake it stopandNo it’s not okay to be not okay because no one really cares life is not a sloganscrawled in permanent marker. That stupid permanent sign on the stall door that reminds usSit Wash Scramso wedon’t spend more than two minutes in the bathroom because god forbid we have a place to chill and get away from everyone. It’s bad enough we only have four and a half minutes between each class; they can’t even let us go to thebathroomwithout a stupid sign reminding us to hurry up? Why is Dylan waving at me like nothing is wrong? Why can’t he just ignore me? Why can’t he justleavemealone? Why can’t everyone just leave me alone?

I can’t calm down. I’m crying. I wish, wish, wish I hadn’t knocked all my vodka down the drain.

Someone says my name.

I freeze.

“Bella, is that you?” Whispered.

I look around the stall, then bend down, peeking under theseparator. Black Doc Martens, the frayed hems of blue overalls.

“Dawn?” I dab under my eyes with some toilet paper.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“It’s okay about the project.”

“Dawn, what the hell are you doing in here?”

Silence. Then, “Hiding, just like you. Usually I eat in the library, but I crunched an apple and got kicked out for being noisy.”

That makes me laugh, but it sounds like a snort, because I’m still kind of crying.

“I know, it’s funny,” she says. “But I never know where to sit in the cafeteria. It’s so crowded and just…overwhelming, sometimes. And I don’t know where to sit in the courtyard, like who to sit by ornotto sit by. This school is really big, notlike my last one. I thought that would make it better somehow, but it didn’t.”

She’s right. There are like three thousand kids here. Sometimes it’s like trying to swim through thousands of mean hormonal fish.

That’s true, too, about the cafeteria and courtyard. If you don’t already have people to sit with, you’re screwed. Everybody has their own group. Loners get weird looks and sometimes nasty comments if they sit at certain places. And we only get twenty-five minutes for lunch, so if you go through the line, you have maybe fifteen minutes left to find a seat and cram food into your mouth. A lot of kids just decide to eat outside in the yard, but even that’s hard to find a spot. Kids get territorial overtrees.

“I get it,” I say quietly.

It’s kind of comforting, talking to Dawn through the stall wall without having to look at her. It’s just our voices echoing quietly in the bathroom.

“I wish I could have one whole day, one, where I didn’t have to feel anxious and worried all the time,” she says. “Do you ever feel like that?”

“Yes,” I say, standing up. “But I’m afraid those days don’t exist. At least, I’ve never had one.”

I hoist my backpack onto my shoulders and squeeze out of the stall. I wash my hands and check my makeup. Slowly, the door to Dawn’s stall opens. Her eyes meet mine in the scratched mirror over the sink.

She steps closer, turns on the water, and starts washing her hands. “I really like your eye makeup. It’s so cool and smoky. Every time I try to do that, I mess up somehow.”

“I could teach you sometime, if you want.”

“Really?”

“Dawn,” I say, turning to her. “Honestly, you don’t want to spend the next two and a half years eating lunch on a toilet in a bathroom stall. You know? Just…sit with us tomorrow, okay?”

She doesn’t smile, just regards me with a careful look.

“Are you sure?” she finally asks.

I dry my hands with a paper towel. “I’m sure.”

“Deal.”

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