Page 18 of Twice as Twisted

“But games are so much fun.” His voice drops to a purr that does something funny to a place inside me that’s never been amused before. It’s like a tickle, something playful but horrifying, warm and chilling at once.

“Depends on who’s playing,” I say, wanting to be away from him now, to sit in my seat and work with rational, logical numbers, for the day to go back to being ordinary and orderly, like every other day.

His gaze assesses me, calculating. He won’t mistake me for easy prey again. I’ve made myself clear, and I’m hopeful that he’s smart enough to pick up on it. I keep my head down, stay out of drama, but I’m not a shrinking violet who can be pushed around like his sister. I’m not the weak link in my family, so his hoard of bully brothers should leave me alone, knowing I’m not worth the fuss.

“It certainly does,” he says at last, pushing off the doorframe, his gaze ducking down my boyish body before returning to mine. He wets his lips and steps past me, his fingertips ghosting over my waist, and then he’s gone.

I’m glad he’s not here to see me recoil.

In the classroom, I set myself in my seat and flip open my notebook, where I write down the number of steps it takes me to get to class each day. Today I didn’t count, distracted as I was by that new boy. I stare at the column of previous days’ numbers, trying to soothe myself.

All those steps, leading nowhere.

The teacher walks in. They don’t like to think their class is the nowhere where all those steps lead. I sit up straight, my back stiff, my hands folded on my desk in front of me. I measure each breath. Inhale… One two three four. Exhale… One two three four.

I don’t move a muscle all through class.

Everything is perfect. No one looks at me. They’re all bored.

Who wants to learn about old dead white guys?

That’s what someone asked on the first day of school.

I do. But I didn’t say anything. I only answer when a teacher calls on me. I’m always right. I pay attention. I like learning about all kinds of dead guys, not just old white ones. Mostly I like learning how they died. If the teacher doesn’t tell us, it plays in my head. For the next hour, screaming young men die in battle, writhing in agony as they’re impaled on bayonets and trampled under hooves.

I imagine they’re my family, my town. Those men in war, they’re my cousins, my uncles, my grandfather. What would I do if it was one of them?

Would I cry?

Did the men in this battle beg and sob as they died? Did they gurgle as their lungs filled with blood? Did their wives cry when they found out? Were they smiling behind their black veils, rejoicing at their freedom? Or did they despair, knowing their children would starve to death without a father to feed the family?

Did they eat them?

I smile when the teacher’s eyes meet mine. I tuck my beige hair behind my ear. It’s past my shoulders and straight, as uninteresting as the rest of me. Khaki skirt to my knees, matching loafers, white button shirt, no makeup. I am a blank slate, a cardboard box with no opening, a white sphere. How was it formed so smoothly, with no seams, no edges?

Why doesn’t my baby cry?

That’s what my mother asked the doctor when I was a few months old. My father likes to tell people that. To laugh and say I’m shy, that I was such a good baby that I didn’t even cry. I’msuch a good girl, I never demand a moment of attention from anyone.

Good children are seen and not heard.

Perfect children are neither seen nor heard.

That’s me.

I am the perfect daughter, the perfect female. I wait for men to imprint upon me the image they want to see, project their ideal, then tell the world I’m exactly what they always wanted. Somehow, they don’t see that what they’re witnessing is a product of their imagination, their creation. That they’ve painted a face on a porcelain doll and told themselves it’s me. They never crack open the head, shatter the hard body. If they did, they would see.

But they never do. People like to believe their delusions.

People like me enough, not too much. Just enough to talk without walking away from me first. Mostly, they don’t notice I’m there at all. I’m bland and unremarkable, like plain oatmeal. I do as I’m told, disappear when I’m not needed. I don’t stir pots or rock boats. I sit still while their fingers probe into soft places, maintain poise when they give in to the animalistic urges for rage and lust. My existence is a muffle for tortured screams, a cushion for violent blows, a balm for depraved desires.

I never argue. I don’t protest.

I absorb darkest secrets like an amoeba, surface so serene people think I’m not listening at all, that I never hear a thing, that I didn’t see a thing. Soon, my image fades from the picture in their mind, their memory, until in their reality, I was never there at all.

Best of all, I never tell.

six

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