The next morning was no different when I arrived at school. Thankfully, Isabelle was waiting for me in the parking lot to walk down to the locker hall with me. As we walked in the door, everyone stopped and stared again, and Isabelle came to my rescue.
“What!” she shouted as I entered the corridor, and although people turned away and kept talking, I couldn’t help but notice that they kept glancing at me.
“What now?” I said only soft enough for her to hear me.
“I’ll go find out,” she said, then she set off to find someone with reliable information.
I waited by my locker, eager for her to return, as I watched her chatting with a girl at the end of the hall. Isabelle turned to look at me a few times during their conversation. Oh no. She walked back towards me slower than she had left.
“It’s bad, isn’t it. I just know it,” I said as soon as she returned. She pulled both lips tightly into her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment. I knew it.
“Tell me, Is!” She opened her eyes again and blurted it out.
“Someone wrote something on the bathroom stall in the boys’ locker room.”
“What? What are you talking about?” My stomach was now doing backflips. “The boy’s locker room? What does it say?”
“It’s just… there’s something written in there that I don’t think you should hear. It would be upsetting, and it’s been reported to the Headmaster, but please, don’t go in there, Allie.”
As if my feet were rockets, I took off running towards the gym.
“No! Allie! Wait!” she called after me.
As I dashed past hoards of snickering people in the courtyard, heads turned to follow my direction, and I just knew I was in for something awful. I slowed my steps as I got to the outside of the boys’ locker room, bracing myself for what I was about to find. The door whined as I pushed it open. I didn’t even care if there were boys inside. I had to see it for myself.
“Where is it, Is?” I demanded, my hands balled into tight fists.
“Third stall, but I warned you. You don’t want to see this.”
I ignored her and stepped into the stall, scanning until my eyes landed on the graffiti that Isabelle had warned me about. I was speechless as my heart hit the beige tile floor. There, carved in big letters right into the back of the green stall door, it read, ‘ALLIE IS A SLUT AND FAKES ORGASMS.’
OH MY GOD. Why was this here? Why, why, why? Had Chris written this? I sat down on the toilet and began to sob. I guess Chris wanted to tell everyone we had sex and could tell I had faked it. Now I knew that this was how mad he was. Great. Now everyone knew. How would I ever recover from this? First, the cheating, and now this rumor is floating around the whole school. This was social suicide. After what felt like years, but was only a few minutes, Isabelle knocked on the stall.
“Allie?” she said softly. “Can I come in?”
“Just leave me alone, Is,” I replied. I was too ashamed to face anyone. I just needed to absorb the horror of this moment and process what this meant. How would I or could I move forward?
I could hear footsteps fade as Isabelle left the locker room, and I was finally alone. I wasn’t even bothered by the grotesque smell of body odor that surrounded me. Eventually, I got to my feet and ran my fingers over the etched words, then left the stall and headed back up to the locker hall. Isabelle was waiting by my locker with a hopeful look on her face.
“I’m here for you, Allie. I wish we had classes together,” she said. “Things might be rough for a while, I think. How’s French going to be?” she said, with a nervous expression.
Oh my God, French. I had forgotten all about the one class that I shared with Chris, and it was first period today. Not only that, but I was already twenty minutes late for class. Great.
“I guess we’ll find out. I’ll keep you posted,” I said, and she blew me a dramatic kiss as I headed to my locker to get my books for the day. I appreciated her light-hearted attempt to cheer me up, but my emotional tank was on empty.
I made my way slowly to French class and took a deep breath before entering the room, as class had already begun. There he was, but he was sitting in the front row by the windows, and he didn’t even look at me when I walked through the door. I was going to do my best not to let this get to me as I headed straight to the back of the room to take my normal seat. Hopefully, I could roll the clock back to the time before I met him. Back to the time before he abandoned me and broke my heart.
As I passed him and caught the smell of his Axe, it sent me over the edge, and I rushed back out of the room. I wasn’t expecting that type of reaction, but after yesterday, I hadn’t fully processed what he had done. He had asked me to trust him. He had promised me that he was different and wasn’t going to abandon me like other people in my life. He said he wasn’t going to break my heart, but he lied. Once again, I had misjudged someone whom I had chosen to trust. A week ago, we had sex, and now he was ignoring me like I never mattered. How was I supposed to move past it? I was a mess.
Once I was out in the hall, I leaned my back up against the lockers, breathing fast, heart pounding as Madame Holly followed me out of the room.
“Allie! My Dear! Please, are you alright? Please go get some water and join us again when you are able,” she said, then she patted my shoulder and proceeded to shut the door and return to the lesson. At least she had noticed that I was suffering.
I was unable to return to the room; I just couldn’t face him in my current fragile state. My wounds were too raw, and I needed space to breathe, if that was even possible. Right now, it feels like I would feel like this forever. It felt like Chris had slit my wrists and I was slowly losing consciousness as the life inside me was slipping away. I was relieved when Isabelle found me in the hall after class ended.
“Allie, what are you doing?” she asked when she saw me sitting on the floor.
“I don’t know,” I said, with my face buried into my knees.
