Page 31 of The Glass Girl

“Deal.”

Tuesday

My heart is poundingreally fast. I try to take deep breaths to calm down, but it’s not working. I brought the NyQuil with me to school today and swigged some in a bathroom stall between classes, but maybe I didn’t have enough to ease my anxiousness. I’ve never done that before and I was nervous, like what if I spilled it down my shirt and someone was like, “What’s that giant red stain on your chest?”

I hate this. My least favorite part of school is when you have to stand up in front of everyone and present something. I don’t know why humiliation in the form of public speaking is required and then, to add insult to injury,graded.I don’t like people looking at me. I don’t like looking back at all of them, my fellow students, bored and playing with their hair, or scrolling on phones underneath the desk, or the ones who act like they’re interested in what you’re saying, but the way their mouths curl really means they are waiting for you to totally lose it.

The four of us are standing at the front of the room, our PowerPoint presentation on the pull-down screen. Cherie has the clicker. Lemon is supposed to do the first three slides, Dawn the next three, then me, then Cherie.

My palms are starting to sweat. I feel dizzy. Why isn’t this cold medicine kicking in? Cherie is still not talking to me. I canfeel her annoyance pouring off her like a kind of heat. That’s freaking me out, too.

Lemon sayspubicinstead ofpubisand everyone starts to laugh. “Chill out, people,” Lemon says smoothly. “Be adults. This isart.”

“Fart,” someone says from the back of the class. It’s hard to see who, because of the easels.

Dawn starts talking. I can’t really listen to what she’s saying because I’m so nervous. Her words sound cloudy. This is not something I was built for. I wear baggy clothes. I like a lot of eyeliner and powder. I stay quiet, for the most part, out of the way of the usual high school bullshit. Those are supposed to be my protections. Staying at the margins, the edges of things. I’m thinking too much. Why can’t I stop thinking? I need to calm down. Those sips of NyQuil are not doing the trick. Dawn’s voice sounds warped, like she’s talking inside a tube. I’m trembling. I lick my lips. Did I just get lipstick on my teeth? I think I’m going to pass out.

Cherie jabs me, hard, with her elbow. “Bella.Go.”

We’re presenting on Greek statuary. Creamy nudes, ideal figures. The Greek goddess Nike. Hermes. The Venus de Milo with her missing arms. I have notecards in my hands, even though we have the slides. I just needed something to hold, but the cards are warm and damp and half crumpled now, the ink smeared from the moisture on my hands. I look at the first of my three slides, trying to extract the words somehow, make them leap from the slide to my brain, to my mouth, and out into the world.

The words blur. The words laugh and sayscrew you.

Just read the words, Bella. You love these statues. These statues are fixedand strong and you love them. They are like the women in Laurel’s photographs, alive forever, and strong. You can do this, Bella.

My voice is shaking and my mouth is dry. Each individual letter in each word is slippery, sliding across the screen. I can’t catch them, can’t bring them to me.

“Um…,” I say. “So…”

“This is painful,” someone whispers.

My face prickles with heat. My lips feel so dry I’m afraid they might spontaneously crack.

“When we consider…,” I try.

Thumpthump­thumpthump­thumpthump.I press a hand to my chest. It’s like I can feel my heart trying to break out of my body. Now I’ve dropped my notecards. I bend down to pick them up, but my hands are shaking so badly I can’t get a grip on them.

“Shoot me now,” someone else says.

Next to me, Dawn leans over, picks up my cards, presses them into my hands. “It’s okay,” she whispers. We stand up.

Dizzy again.

“The.”

The.That’s all I have, all I can manage. I can’t see anything anymore. Everything is out of focus. I can’t breathe. Kids shift and sigh impatiently on their stools.

Thump­thump­thump­thump­thumpgoes my heart. I just want to disappear.

The familiar heat of warm tears whooshes up in my eyes. Oh no. No. No.Do not cry.

Dawn’s voice takes over, ringing out, reading the rest of my slides. Then Cherie, smooth as silk, reading hers.

After the other group presentations, students clapped, but for us, there’s just silence.

“Thank you,” Ms. Green says finally, clapping lightly. “Very thoughtful work.”

Her voice sounds very far away.

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