Page 5 of Ripple Effect: Ep. 1

Dylan

I stare at the whiteboard where Mr. Prescott has scrawled a complex equation across it, marking numbers with the same enthusiasm as a polar bear in the desert heat. The scene blurs, turning dark and disjointed as sleep pulls at my brain. My eyeballs ache with the effort of keeping my lids open and each long blink sends me further away from calculus and into a sort of abstract, conscious state of moving shapes and voices.

I have no interest in school. No goals to go on to anything bigger and better. I take that back, I used to, before the Westpricks took me in, but those days have faded from my horizon like an unreachable mirage. My homework is never completed and the only reason they keep me enrolled is because, despite my lack of focus, despite the drugs, the lack of sleep, the lack of attention, I’ve aced every test I’ve ever taken, including Prescott’s lame-ass calculus, which balances out to a baffling average not even I can explain.

Showing up is nothing but an excuse to keep from having to go home. And to keep from becoming like my mother, who dropped out at my age. Because even if I don’t get a diploma, I’ll at least have gotten further ahead in life than she did.

Every day I slip on my mask of denial and pretend that I’m like every other kid in school. I’m nothing like them, though. I’m different, which makes them nervous. Hell, even my name is different. A boy’s name, they say. In middle school, I hated my name, and I hated my mother for choosing it, certain it was her attempt to make my life hell from day one.

These days, I find it fitting. Along with my tattoos and fuck off expression, it’s another reinforcement to keep them out. Because if they dared to take a peek inside of me and caught even a glimpse of my demons, it’d peel the porcelain right off their pretty little faces.

My pills keep me sane, but the dose is starting to wear from this morning, and I’m traipsing that line of needing to pop another. I don’t usually take them so early, but waking up with the feel of Randy’s hands still touching me was enough to make me wretch. The pills take the ice-cold hell of my life and make it warm and fuzzy. Much more manageable. Instead of crushing them as I usually do to get the full effect, I pop a forty for school, wash it down with Red Bull, and it gets me through my day, until I get home and can lose myself in mind-numbing bliss. They’re made to be a slow release, but I’ve found if I crush them up, the high hits all at once and for a while, I’m floating. Not like weed, where I’m slurring words and looking high. I don’t take a large enough dose for that—just the point where everything around me feels good again.

Unfortunately, that good feeling is giving way to the irritating crack of Prescott’s voice and hard wooden chair that’s pressing against my bruises from the night before.

A cramp hits low in my stomach, and I twist in my seat, catching sight of perfectly perfect Melissa Masterson, ruthless valedictorian in the making, who passes a note to Noah Blake, captain of the football team. How fucking cute. Predominantly black school and somehow the white and privileged find themselves. And who the hell passes notes these days? Most kids sit in class with their faces buried in their phones when the teacher isn’t looking.

I don’t have a phone of my own. Can’t afford it and Randy probably wouldn’t let me have one anyway. His paranoia keeps me prisoner even when I’m not at home, which is why I’m not permitted to hang with anyone from school, either. Probably afraid I’ll tell someone about the pictures.

I don’t belong here. Never did. Blessed—or cursed, as it may be—with more of a woman’s figure, I’ve found myself on the receiving end of scathing comments since I sprouted breasts in seventh grade. I’m mature enough to know it’s jealousy, but that doesn’t take the sting away.

Only the pills do that for me.

The reminder of the night before tightens my thighs as a ripple of disgust crawls down my spine. I threw up twice, thanks to the other drugs Randy likes to slip me, to loosen me up. Always leaves me dehydrated and headachy the next day, but if not for the high, I might actually remember his voice and his clammy hands on my skin, which is far worse than some cramps and a pounding skull.

Two more months.

I catch a flash of white in my periphery and notice where the folded paper has fallen beside my foot. Without glancing back at Melissa or Noah, I subtly snatch it up from the floor, hold it in my lap for a moment, before lifting the corner to unfold it.

In flowery script, I miss the feel of your cock, is written above the chicken-scratched, your pussy’s so tight.

Randy’s breathy voice invades my thoughts. You’re Uncle Randy’s little whore, aren’t you?

His words crimp my lip and a wave of nausea strikes my stomach, the acids quickly tamped down, as the note is ripped from my hands.

My body jerks on reflex to yank the note from Mr. Prescott’s grasp, but his eyes have already begun to move back and forth behind his spectacles, and my stomach turns sour.

“Ms. Westrick, perhaps you can elaborate the integral I’ve written out for the class.”

I trail my gaze back toward the white board and a snicker from behind leaves me biting my tongue to keep from smart mouthing. Pushing out of my seat, I slide between Prescott and the desk, feeling as if I’ve shrunk half the size by the time I’m standing in front of the white board. My hands are trembling, and in spite of the drugs still swimming through my veins, I can feel the eyes of every classmate burning into my back.

The numbers and letters on the board make no sense themselves. In all honesty, I don’t see numbers the way some do. I see shapes. Geometries. Everything in my world is pixelated into curves, lines, and fractals. So when I lift the marker and set it to the board, I draw out a set of axis, a parabola, and lines until I’ve created a trapezoid, filling the numbers as I see them in shapes that spill out onto the board in my hasty scribbling. In minutes, I’ve calculated forty-six and draw it into a perfect square. I don’t even know how I arrived at the number, with my brain still halfway in the clouds, but it feels complete in my head.

A teacher in middle school once called me savant because I didn’t talk much in spite of my smarts. I just think I have a gift for cutting through the bullshit without all the noise.

The satisfaction of the number prompts me to smile, and it’s then that I notice the deafening hush of the class. I set the marker back on the ledge, and turn to face them, feeling less smug as I wait for Prescott’s chiding—something akin to the red-penned comments he leaves on my tests, telling me that I’ve gone about solving the problem incorrectly, but gives me credit anyway for having the right answer.

Instead, he crosses his arms in front of him, the note still dangling from his fingertips and says, “Ms. Westrick please see me after class.”

A snort from behind him grates my spine, and I slice my gaze just enough to catch Melissa ducking below the student in front of her, smiling her bitch-riddled smile. Perfection must be a bore sometimes. Guess that’s why she opted for the note over a text.

* * *

The class clears out with the ringing of the bell, but I remain glued to my seat. The note is my first offense in Prescott’s class, but should he decide to take it up with the principal, it’ll be one more infraction to my long list of behavioral issues.

After closing the door, Prescott moves like a walking stick across the front of the room, before he leans against the desk behind him. “Miss Westrick, I have to say, you’ve proven to be quite a surprise.”

“Look, the note wasn’t mine.”