Free Man V. Nature: Stories by Diane Cook Page B

Clara know a rumor? She’s a corner-sitter. “I didn’t lie. Just do it.”
    I lock myself behind a stall door and crouch on the toilet. I can monitor through the crack. I wait.
    Girls rush in, rake brushes through their hair, apply shiny gloss with wands, blot, spit into sinks. Cheap perfumes mist the air.
    The bell rings; the room clears out. A drip glugs down a drain.
    I text Clara a question mark, but I get no response. She’s probably wandered into some empty classroom to wait for her life to begin.
    The door swings open. I smell Marni before I hear her, the fake coconut of her sunless tan. Hill and Theresa stifle awful snorting haws . They walk the line of stalls, kick in each door. They’re not wondering where I am. They know. I make myself into a small clump on the toilet seat. The whoosh of the door parts my bangs.
    Hill pulls me out. “Nice try,” she mocks.
    From behind the cracked door, Clara peeks. We lock eyes. I wait for a mouthed apology. She scans the scene and, incredibly, smiles before bolting. Have a nice day. I hate her.
    Hill and Theresa each pull an arm behind my back. Marni smiles and knees me in the groin so hard I dry heave. They scoot to avoid my puke, but when it doesn’t come, Marni knees me again.
    â€œOoph,” I say and gasp for air. I’m not big like Marni. I’m misshapen, weak. My legs are logs, but my middle is bird bones, doughy, and her knee reaches the center of me.
    I’m bent. Hill and Theresa try to pull me up but I pull down, not out of preservation or show of strength but out of defeat. I want to hug the ground. My legs tremble. Marni’s hands reach for my face and I let them guide me gently up because they’re her hands. I know their gentleness from when she taught me things, placed my fingers on guitar strings to press as she strummed, held me up on a bike. When she soothed me after my dad left. I look into her eyes and at her sweet, pink face. She wears more makeup now, and under all the coconut she smells stale, as though she smokes outside so that the smoke will blow away but it gets caught in all that hair. For a moment I think she’s going to smile, rub a smudge from my cheek, kiss me. But then, finally, her fist meets my face. I hear the crack, and now it’s the floor reaching for me. I see their smiles as I go.
    Lying here, what I cry about is that not one of them speaks as they leave. There’s nothing to say about the downfall of unremarkable me. The only sounds are their different shoes on the tile: the click of too-grown-up heels, scuff of sneakers, clomp of daunting boots. They strut out the whining door and down the hallway, uncaringly late for fifth.
    The tile is cool. Dirt shames my cheek. I have a bug’s-eye view of the bathroom floor, littered with snarls of long girl hair and dropped cigarette ash. A glittery popped-off stick-on nail lies almost close enough to touch.
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    I wake up in bed. My head hurts. I can’t breathe right. A rigid thing covers my nose. I tenderly pick. Crusty blood clogs my nostrils. I try to drink from a glass of water but the nose won’t let me.
    The door creaks. Mom’s tentative head appears. Her eyes crinkle above her nervous smile.
    â€œOh good, you’re awake.” She perches at the edge of my bed, smoothes the hair across my forehead, and then I’m aware that I have a bump there.
    â€œWhat happened?” I gurgle.
    Her hand stops in mom alarm. “Don’t you remember?”
    â€œYes.”
    The hand continues across my forehead. “Do you want to tell me who did this?”
    â€œNo.”
    The hand stops, rests heavily on the protruding bump. It hurts. Does she know she’s hurting me? I think she does.
    â€œI mean, I don’t remember. I mean, I don’t know.”
    Mom sighs, disappointed. “Okay for now, Gabrielle. But we’re not done.” Then she brightens like she’s just been handed pages for