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The song ends and they jump to their feet, shaking their pom-poms over their heads and shouting, “Go team!”
Honestly? They suck.
The group breaks up. Donna LaDonna uses the white headband she’s been wearing around her forehead to wipe her face. She and another cheerleader, a girl named Naomi, head to the bleachers and, without acknowledging my presence, sit two rows ahead.
Donna shakes out her hair. “Becky needs to do something about that B.O.,” she says, referring to one of the younger cheerleaders.
“Maybe we should give her a box of deodorant,” Naomi says.
“Deodorant’s no good. Not for that kind of odor. I’m thinking more along the lines of feminine hygiene.” Donna titters, while Naomi cackles at this witty remark. Raising her voice, Donna abruptly changes the subject. “Can you believe Sebastian Kydd is still dating Lali Kandesie?”
“I heard he likes virgins,” Naomi says. “Until they’re not virgins anymore. Then he dumps them.”
“It’s like he’s providing a service.” Donna LaDonna’s voice rises even higher, as if she can’t contain her amusement. “I wonder who’s next? It can’t be a pretty girl—all the pretty girls have already had sex. It has to be someone ugly. Like that Ramona girl. The one who tried to be a cheerleader three years in a row? Some people never get the message. It’s sad.”
Suddenly, she turns around and, with a patently surprised expression, exclaims, “Carrie Bradshaw!” Widening her eyes, she stretches her lips into an exuberant smile. “We were just talking about you. Tell me, how is Sebastian? I mean in bed, of course. Is he really as good a fuck as Lali says he is?”
I am expecting this. I’ve been expecting it all along.
“Gosh, Donna,” I say innocently. “Don’t you know? Didn’t you do it with him an hour after you met? Or was it more like fifteen minutes?”
“Really, Carrie.” She narrows her eyes. “I thought you knew me better than that. Sebastian is far too inexperienced for me. I don’t do boys.”
I lean forward and lock my eyes onto hers. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be you.” I look around the gym and sigh. “It must be so…exhausting.”
I gather my things and hop off the bleacher. As I walk toward the door, I hear her shout, “You wish, Carrie Bradshaw. You should be so lucky.”
And so should you. You’re dead.
Why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep putting myself into these terrible situations where I know I can’t win? But I can’t seem to help myself. It’s like having been burned once, I got used to the feeling, and now I have to keep burning myself again and again. Just to prove to myself that I’m still alive. To remind myself that I can still feel.
Dorrit’s shrink said it was better to feel something rather than nothing. And Dorrit had stopped feeling. She was afraid to feel, and then she was afraid of the numbness. So she started acting out.
All very neat and tidy. Tie up your problems with a big bow and maybe you can pretend they’re a present.
Outside, near the door that leads directly to the pool, I spot Sebastian Kydd parking his car.
I start running.
Not away from him, like a reasonable person, but toward him.
He’s blissfully unaware of what’s about to happen, checking his stubble in the rearview mirror.
I grab my heaviest book—calculus—and heave it at his car. The book barely grazes the trunk as it splits open and lands facedown on the pavement, pages akimbo like the legs of a cheerleader. The thud is just loud enough to jar Sebastian out of his self-loving reverie, and he jerks his head around, wondering what—if anything—is happening. I run closer and throw another book at his car. It’s a paperback—The Sun Also Rises—and it slams the front window. In the next second, he’s out of the car, crouched for battle. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” I yell, trying to fling my biology book at his head. I nearly lose my grip on the slick paper cover, so I raise the book over my head and charge at him instead.
r /> He stretches his arms protectively across the car. “Don’t do it, Carrie,” he says warningly. “Don’t touch my car. Nobody scratches my baby and gets away with it.”
I’m picturing his car shattering into a million pieces of plastic and glass, scattered across the parking lot like the detritus of an explosion, when the ridiculousness of his statement stops me in my tracks. But only momentarily. A roar of blood fills my head as I rush him again. “I don’t care about your car. I’m trying to hurt you.”
I swing my biology book, but he snatches it out of my hands before I can make contact. But somehow I keep going, past him, past his car, stumbling across the macadam until I trip over the curb and come to rest in a heap on the frozen grass. I’m followed by my biology book, which lands with a thump a few feet away.
I am not proud of my behavior. But I’ve gone too far now and there’s no turning back.
“How dare you?” I cry, scrambling to my feet.
“Stop it! Stop it,” he shouts, grabbing my wrists. “You’re insane.”
