Free Shh! by Stacey Nash

knees and drawing them into me while I shook all over. I closed my eyes, and all I could see were visions of me in compromising positions: on my bed, on my desk, on the floor. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, but the visions wouldn’t stop. It was like a waking nightmare that I couldn’t escape.
    A violent shiver raked through me. I had to get out of the bathroom and get dressed. I couldn’t face those girls, though, not after Ella had seen me like that. True or not, I was more embarrassed than if I actually had been caught in the act.
    I hadn’t heard a thing since I realised the girl they were talking about was me. All I heard was the thrashing of my pulse in my ears and my ragged breaths.
    Sitting here would only make me catch pneumonia. I pulled the towel around me and stood up. I dried off and tugged on my yoga pants and t-shirt. Drawing the door back a slither, I peeked out into the bathroom and thank small mercies, it was empty. I gathered up my toiletries and checked again before stepping into the hallway.
    It was clear too.
    Then I high-tailed it down the corridor, not stopping to see if anyone heard me, and my heart didn’t slow until I was in the safety of my room with the door firmly closed. Good lord, what had I done?
    ****
    Another Sunday spent in my room with music playing loud enough to drown out the noise from outside. It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t game to venture out, but more that my mind wouldn’t stop. It was on a continual loop: Christian’s claim that I kept him up at night, all the embarrassing moments of the past few weeks, and finally Ella’s announcement that I’d been … doing that thing.
    When the knock came on my door, I rolled over and pulled my pillow onto my head. But it didn’t muffle the hissed, “It’s just me, open up.”
    Groaning, I rolled off the bed and dragged myself to the door to find Molly standing behind it. She strode in and I yanked it closed before anyone could see me.
    “You’re not eating again.” She dropped a tray of what looked to be tacos on my desk.
    “Didn’t feel like it.”
    “Bullshit.” Molly flopped onto my bed.
    “Excuse me?”
    “I said, bullshit you didn’t feel like eating.”
    I slumped in my chair, my back to her, and started shovelling meat into the hard shell. Truth be told, I was starving.
    “I’ve heard the talk, and you better not be letting it get to you.”
    I spun around so fast the taco lost its stuffing all over my yoga pants. The ones I hadn’t changed out of since yesterday.
    “How am I supposed to show my face down there when they’re all talking about how I put on a free porn show for the whole of block K?”
    “Watch it; you’re making a taco shower.” She bugged out her eyes like she thought this was some kind of joke.
    “This isn’t funny. You just don’t get it, Molly, do you? How humiliating it is to walk through that dining room knowing that every single person is laughing at me?”
    She huffed. “I don’t get it? Me? Are you forgetting who you’re talking to, Miss Perfect? I’m the girl they’ve spent two years laughing at because I don’t conform to their social norms.” She waved her hands down her matching pink tracksuit that looked like it came from Kmart. “You take the hand you have, and you work it. Who gives a crap what anyone else thinks?”
    “I do,” I all but shouted. “I care, because if I don’t then nothing works out.”
    She shook her head. “Olivia, their dumbass gossip won’t change a single thing.”
    I spun around to hide the tears that threatened to fall. It would change everything. And my humiliation level would be the least affected. Masturbating in front of the entire floor wasn’t a rumour that would be soon forgotten.
    “Why would they … ” I couldn’t finish the rest of my sentence. “Do you think I really did what they said?”
    “Of course not. I think what that dirt-bag ex of yours said was enough to start this and people are running