Trapped in Forever

25 ~ Let's Go, Amanda

Droplets of rain were slithering down the transparent window panes of his station wagon, leaving a broken and dissipating trail of liquid in its wake as it fell, rolling down the glass that reflected my countenance back at me—dull, brown eyes boring into the mirrored features, with an almost vacant and contrite look to them, sunken cheeks beneath her cheekbones, greasy, dark hair falling around her face and slipping out from behind the back of her ear, and lips were weak, thin, and loose, as if any moment something were about to slip out of them; maybe an apology, maybe more affronts, maybe just an inaudible cry—and streaked the features of the girl I couldn’t imagine was me. She looked older, distraught maybe, and like a broken, lonely doll, cast aside in a box in the attic to collect dust until someone decided to give her to a charity shop or something, even though the twinkle in her plastic, painted eyes had seemed to vanish from the last time they saw her. 

That girl staring back at me couldn’t be eighteen; she couldn’t be the girl who recently signed a modeling contract with Henry Wallis, against her mother’s somewhat silent wishes, or the girl who used to spend her Saturday nights, convincing her best friend to stop stalking her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook profile, and then heading out to the mall, like normal girls did, even though we usually ignored the normal girls that last autumn—the girls that used to be her friends, that is. When we would go shopping together, spending our parents’ money because we were too lazy to get a job ourselves, citing school as the reason to our parents, girls in layered tank tops and numerous, golden bracelets dangling on their wrists, with either pin straight hair or seamlessly curled tresses, would come up to us, glossed lips forming large smiles in her direction, generally ignoring me, and asked about things like prom or guys or something.

But after she saw that message scrawled out in the bathroom stall, written in artless letters with a hot pink Sharpie over the grayish yellow stall door, and then those words began to spread, radiating into classrooms on passed notes in glitter pen when the teacher had turned, ironically using the same chalk they were inaudibly giggling about, and in the cafeteria, those girls in layered tank tops and various bracelets only came up to torment her, holding up pieces of dusty, faded chalk they swiped from school, asking if she wanted a nibble, and then laughing when her eyes would begin to water and her teeth gnaw on her lip.  I think the part they laughed most about, though, was that she actually contemplated taking it from them, noshing on it as she walked away down the gleaming halls of the mall.

“I’m actually, uh, seeing someone about it,” she said once, one of the first times they did this, a six pack box of pastel, Crayola chalk in their polished hands, as if somehow saying this would salvage their friendship—that their malicious features would turn, softening, and then they would drop the box of Crayola in the trash can, envelope her in a hug, and apologize for the banes and the lipstick messages written in the mirrors in the girls’ bathroom on the second floor, or “accidentally” dropping a thin, stick of chalk into her salad during lunch, giggling as they scurried away, heels clicking against the aluminum and hair flying around their shoulders. But instead, it only made things worse. They laughed harder, bracelets jingling, and they called her a freak, crazy, and that it would only be a matter of time before she would end up in the Looney bin—gave her six months, tops.

Six months later, though, they were clutching tissues, wore regular mascara so their tears would look more genuine, and adorned their black dresses, saying at her funeral how they couldn’t believe that she would do that, as if their taunts and abuses had nothing to do with her death. As if they didn’t see her the weekend before she died, just two days before she stole her mother’s prescription and stared at Michael’s face one last time before she finally got her escape from them, and as if they didn’t laugh at her the last time she tried to recapture their friendships at that party, actually taking the time to apply her makeup, curl her hair into little, blond coils, and tried to laugh off the pica thing when people brought it up. That’s totally over now, she told them, a cup in hand, totally unaware of what they were going to do within the next few minutes. What would make her drop her plastic cup onto her feet, beer spilling onto her heels, and sent her walking, slowly, out the door, lips trembling, and her soft, broken voice calling, “Let’s go, Amanda.”