Only the Good Die Young

Chapter 10.1

I leave the music room and walk into the hallway. Standing a few feet away from me are Alex and J.J. It's the vintage high school "boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy impregnates girl" pose: Alex has her back against a steel locker with a textbook held demurely in front of her chest. Her lustrous blonde hair flows over her shoulders. J.J. is leaning into her with an arm outstretched, his palm against the locker. Alex acts like she's trapped, but, really, she could leave any time she wanted. To J.J. her eyes are warm and open, not at all like the daggers that pierced me in English. I have to walk past her to reach my next class.

Maybe if I pretend not to see Alex, she won't notice me. I stare at the laminate floor and watch my brown Aldo pumps and Kyle's black Doc Martens approach Alex's black flip flops and J.J.'s beige sandals. Heel, toe, heel, toe.

I'm two paces down the hall. Now three. Four. Alex hasn't notic–

"Hey, Rebecca," I hear her say, "can I talk to you for a second?"

Damn it.

I look up. A bright smile lights Alex's face. It's warm and inviting. I don't trust it for a second.

"Sure, Alex," I say. I keep my arms at my side to appear casual, but my guard couldn't be higher. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, just girl talk," she says. She indicates a door with a logo displaying a black stick figure wearing a dress.

Alex wants privacy. My stomach clenches.

"Um, I guess."

She slips out from behind J.J., lightly grasps my arm and ushers me towards the washroom door.

"'Sup, Rebecca?" says J.J., hands in his pockets. He even makes leaning against his locker cool. Alex's grip tightens as she flashes Kyle a smile that would melt Antarctica.

The opening refrain to Hector Berlioz's March to the Scaffold sounds in my head and my stomach plummets. This is clearly not going to be "girl talk."

The washroom has horrid brown tiles plastered all over the walls, a long white counter, three steel sinks in front of a large rectangular mirror, and those ugly white paper towel dispensers with the serrated edge on the bottom to help you rip a section off a roll of coarse brown paper. It smells of hairspray and toilet bowl cleaner. There are smears of mascara and rouge on the counter and water flows through pipes behind the tile.

 Alex stands and looks at herself in the mirror. She smoothes out a wrinkle in her blouse that doesn't exist, pulls a tube of lipstick out of her pocket and leans forward to better see her reflection.

"Tell me, Rebecca," she says, as she applies lipstick, "what do you see in the mirror? Not in mine, in yours."

I face my reflection. "I see myself," I say. This isn't what I expected.

"No, silly," she says, slipping the tube back into her pocket, "be more specific."

"My face," I say. "Long curly red hair. Green eyes and freckles."

"What else?" she asks. From the same pocket she produces a white oval compact and touches up her smoky brown eye shadow to bring out the blues of her eyes. "Be honest."

Alex is creeping me out.

I take stock of my small chest under a red sweater and my straight hips in blue denim jeans. There's no way I'm turning around to check out my butt with Alex here.

"I don't know," I say. "I see me."

"Now look at me," says Alex. She slips her compact back in her jeans and her face appears in the mirror next to mine. "What do you see?"