One Page #17

Her hair is longer now. She shaved her head with a rusty razor last summer down to her scalp until it bled in spots. Her pale white skin looked funny with little red droplets that oozed and then fell running in rivulets down her neck and face and into the collar of her shirt. But she let it grow after that until it was several inches long. It stood in clumps that looked like cacti because she had dyed it a brilliant green. The other girls at school looked at her with wide eyes, but said nothing. Then her parents sent her away to boarding school for a year. When she came back the following year her hair was even longer and fell into her eyes. It was no longer green, but was a dull brown again. Her three lip rings had been removed as well, but you could still see the holes if you looked closely. I was the only one who looked closely. She looked like a ferret. When she arrived back at school she said nothing to anyone. There was an invisible barrier between her and everyone else. Rumors flew around the school about her being paddled by nuns on her behind and sent to solitary confinement for a week when she brought a flask of whiskey to math class. The girls no longer looked at her with wide eyes, they didn’t look at her at all anymore. She had faded into the wallpaper that lined the school hallways. Even her shoes matched the brown carpeting and her sweater was the same color as the peeling beige lockers. When her name was called at role call she raised her hand timidly, only as high as her head, and said nothing. One day I looked over at her desk and couldn’t tell whether she was still there or not. I thought I saw her brown shoes sitting square with the edge of her desk, but I wasn’t quite sure. Her hair obscured my view of the poster on the wall behind her, but her shoulders didn’t seem to be in the right place and her brown sweater seemed faded. I saw her pencil moving, but no hand holding it. Her sweater didn’t hold steady but wavered as if it were filled by a ghost rather than solid flesh. I got up to go to the bathroom and passed by her desk on my way to the door. I waved my hand gently through her hair but it was only a mirage. My hand met with nothing solid. I walked on, out the door, feeling a shiver run up my arm and into my chest. When I stood in the bathroom looking in the mirror I thought I saw her behind me. Her hair wasn’t brown anymore, but shaved to the scalp and her sweater was red with black pinstripes. She smiled at me and winked and then walked out the door. No one knows what happened to her. Everyone thought she was sent back to boarding school since they hadn’t seen her for days. Only I still felt the blood on my fingers.