Page 24 of On My Side
Ren
i. am. so. sorry. a parent of a student walked in and she’s highkey my sleep paralysis demon. she told meduring parent/teacher conferences she wishes i was her husband and father of her kid
i think it was a joke but i still had to talk about it in therapy. if you want to order to go breakfast is on me
Audrey
it’s okay, we can reschedule if you want
Ren
i was excited for our breakfast honestly
Audrey
wecan take it back to my place if you want to hide from any more feral mom sneak attacks
Ren
i’ll send you the money, can you order me the gyro burrito with home fries?
He proceeds to send me fifty dollars, which we both know is way more than a diner breakfast costs.
But I can’t think about the fact I’m pretty sure I currently have less than one hundred dollars in my bank account, and while I have a safety net in savings, I shouldn’t use it for breakfast. I’ll ask him if he wants the change later, but it was generous of him to treat me to breakfast.
He seems to be a genuinely generous and thoughtful person.
It’s throwing me off.
When our food arrives in to-go containers, I go to the front counter to pay. “Are you in line?” someone behind me asks, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes. I’m waiting directly behind thecustomer who’s currently paying… what else would I be doing here?
“Mmhmm.” I’m proud of myself for holding myself back and not answering sarcastically the way I’d wanted to. I spin my debit card between my fingers, and unfortunately, I do not have the same dexterity as my daughter, because I drop it. I curse and bend down to pick it up, knocking heads with the owner of the voice behind me.
“Ow!” the no longer disembodied voice complains.
We didn’t hit headsthathard, but I’ll let them have their dramatics. I grab my card and we both stand.
That’s when I make one of the biggest mistakes of my life. My eyes lock with none other than Celia Bryan, one of the people who made my senior year at Port Haven High an actual living hell.
I quickly turn back around, praying in my head she doesn’t recognize me as memories of the rumors she spread play in my head. According to her, I ran out of boys in our class to have sex with and resorted to seducing teachers, which was blatantly untrue. But the adults in the situation seemed to buy it. They started to hate me, instead of the person spreading rumors. No matter what I did, I was the seductress, I was the one that was wrong, I never got a chance to defend myself. I was always the one they chose to hate.
“No. Way. Audrey Price?”
Fuck.
Changing my last name allowed me to stay relatively anonymous in this ridiculously chatty small town. Add me dying my hair to the mix, and I’m pretty much a completely different person.
“It is you, isn’t it?” Celia continues, a hint of amusement in her voice. I turn to face her and she slowly scrutinizes my body with her eyes. “Didn’t think we’d see your pretty face around hereagain.” Her tight smile tells me what she’s really saying:“Ballsy of you to show your face again, slut.”
“Hi, Celia.”
She ignores my greeting, eyes continuing to roam my body. I cross my arms in front of my chest, shame spreading in my chest like a black hole. “Almost didn’t recognize you,” she finally says after her perusal of my body. “You look… older.”
“Well, people’s appearances tend to change as they age,” I respond, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot.
“And you know, babies ruin your figure, though I didn’t find it too hard to lose the weight,” she continues, once again ignoring my contribution. She meets my eyes and smirks, “But not everyone has the discipline. I heard it was a girl?”
I hate how much it still can hurt. How this woman can find each scar and reopen the wound so the shame I’ve tried to contain floods out.
