Free Slide by Jill Hathaway

Narcoleptic Freak; I am the Girl Who Hyperventilated in Bio. I know they won’t be talking about me at lunch today, though. Not when there’s a suicide to discuss.
    In the hallway, I look up one way and down the other. No one. The bathroom is only across the hall, but the walk drains me. I make sure the room is empty and lock myself in the stall farthest from the door. The same one Sophie was in on Friday morning.
    My head throbs. Kneading my temples with my fingers, I stare at the graffiti on the stall door. RIP Sophie . I reach out and touch the words, the cool metal. On Friday, Sophie was here in the flesh, and now she is only words carved into red paint.
    Rest in peace. The sentiment is nice, but when it’s shortened like that—RIP—it reminds me of Sophie’s ivory skin, ripped open like tissue paper. I turn around and retch into the toilet.
    Minutes later, as I rinse my face off in the sink, the intercom crackles. Miss Lamb, the secretary, tearfully announces that Sophie Jacobs will be greatly missed. She says school tomorrow will be let out early for Sophie’s funeral. If any of us need to talk to someone about our loss, the counselor has cleared her schedule. This makes me laugh bitterly. If I wanted to explain my predicament to the counselor, she’d have to clear her schedule for a year.
    At lunchtime, I avoid the bleachers. I don’t want to talk to Rollins, and the memory of Scotch and his buddy peering at the picture of Sophie sickens me. I wander the halls aimlessly.
    I pass by Mr. Golden’s room and see him eating a slice of pizza at his desk. His room seems homey and warm compared to the rest of the school. I find myself lingering in his doorway, wanting to just curl up on one of his couches and go to sleep.
    “Sylvia? Are you all right?”
    I’m shaken by his voice. He’s holding his slice of pizza inches away from his mouth, like he was just about to take a bite when he was interrupted by some emo girl in the hallway.
    “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll just . . .” I gesture at a random point down the hall and start to leave.
    “No, wait.” He puts the pizza down, stands, and takes several steps in my direction. “Come in. Please.”
    I try not to sigh audibly as I take shelter in his room and fall onto one of his couches. I hadn’t realized how tired I am. So. Tired. My fingers move to my pocket, to the Provigil bottle full of my sacred caffeine, but then I realize Mr. Golden might report me if he sees me munching on a bunch of pills. I decide to wait, just a little longer.
    Mr. Golden closes the door and sinks into a nearby recliner. We sit in silence for a few moments. This is what I need right now. Time to think. Space to exist. The tension melts from my shoulders as I become one with the smelly old couch, just another odd relic in Mr. Golden’s collection of weird things.
    “Do you ever feel like life is just too messed up for words?” I finally ask Mr. Golden. The strangeness of the past few days makes them seem unreal, like it was all just a movie. One I can’t escape.
    “All the time,” he says, nodding.
    I stare at my chipped black nail polish. “I just don’t get how one person can completely destroy another person.”
    I’m thinking of the way the knife curved in the killer’s hands, covered in Sophie’s blood, how it seemed like Sophie wasn’t even a person anymore—she was just another inanimate object in the room, robbed of her humanness.
    “Are we talking about Sophie?” Mr. Golden’s question is soft and cautious. He asks it in a way that is the opposite of how the school counselor might ask it. His voice isn’t clinical. There are no ulterior motives. He just sounds curious.
    “Yeah.” I release a deep breath. I can feel the pressure of it all growing within me, a dam about to burst. Maybe there is a way I can talk around what happened, sort of. Not go into details or anything, but just take the edge off a little bit. “She was friends with my sister.”
    He