Hit by a taxi.
Poor girl.
How terrible.
She probably wasn’t good enough.
What does she do now?
It’s pathetic she hangs around here.
How do you come back from that?
Poor girl.
Poor girl.
Poor girl.
Poor girl.
All the mumbles of the last half of the class play through my mind like a broken record as we make dinner and eat dessert. As we paint our nails and watchBeauty and the Beast, and now as I tell Claudina a bedtime story.
I’m hanging by a thread, but I will not ruin this night for Claud, and the only thing that’s helping me is telling her my favorite story.
My parents’ love story.
Claud yawns big, one that stretches her face. “This is about Inès and your dad?”
“It is. Did you like it?”
“I did. Maybe you could tell me again sometime?”
I kiss her forehead. “I’d like that, Claud. Good night, sugar plum.”
When I get up, I strategically look in the opposite direction of my framed photos in the corner.
Claud calls my name as I shut the door. “I’m sorry that girl was mean to you today,” she mutters, then rolls over and closes her eyes.
I shut her door, then, as if my body knows it’s had enough, it gives out, and I drop to the ground. My head falls forward, and I let the tears flow freely down my face.
Poor girl
Poor girl.
Poor girl.
Covering my ears, I beg the murmurs to stop. I knew this day would come when my haunted troubles would come to a head and would bring me down.
I’ve had enough.
Make it stop.
Please…make it stop.
Harrison
Somewhere in the distance, an irritating bird chirps repeatedly over Mr. Abdullah’s voice, dragging on about his new private plane and his fourth wife. It’s driving me up a fucking wall.
