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Sleeping with a boy doesn’t make them love you more. It makes them stop talking to you, at least at school where other people can see. At night though…at night, those same boys want to be friends again. At night you’re good enough. At night no one else is around to say otherwise.
Sleeping with Jack was the worst decision she’d ever made. At fifteen, it was barely a decision at all. It was the desire to be loved, but no one tells you love and sex aren’t the same thing. Or if they do, Sally forgot to listen. Fifteen-year-old girls tend to think grownups are stupid anyway, and since Sally’s world consisted of an alcoholic father who tolerated her most days and schoolteachers who rarely did, they usually were.
What she wouldn’t give to go back and listen. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so lost and alone, so used and discarded. She’d spent the better part of the morning trying to get Jack’s attention—a hair flip, a loud whisper, a passed note that he never read—to no avail. Now she sat alone in the girl’s bathroom, hiding in a stall and pretending to pee. There was nowhere else to go. Being the school outcast came with a lot of responsibility, namely spending the better part of the day running from rejection’s constant call. A little-known fact: rejection shouts in your face when you slow down to a stroll. Sally sped up, trying to break free from its grasp.
When the bell rang, she walked out of the bathroom and smacked into someone who always found her because he was always looking.
“Ow!” she said, bouncing into the painted cinderblock wall. She nearly face-planted into the water fountain but caught herself just in time. Strange how inanimate objects could pack a punch. She rubbed her left shoulder, her knee still smarting from when she tripped over her papa’s passed-out body in the middle of the night and landed on the empty beer bottle. The man rarely made it to his bed these days. It was a long walk from the front door when your blood was already sloshed with poison.
Paul reached under her elbow to steady her. “I’m so sorry, Sally. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just clumsy.” Self-effacing remarks were her best defense.
“You’re not clumsy. I ran straight into you like an idiot.” He looked both chagrined and nervous, though Sally couldn’t fathom why. She didn’t normally elicit either emotion from anyone. “Hey, do you want to walk home with me after school? I meant to ask you this morning in homeroom but forgot. If not, it’s okay. I just thought I would ask.”
He was stammering, and his cheeks flushed pink, a reaction both flattering and odd. It was just a walk. They did it all the time, maybe not all the way from school to home, but they lived next door to each other. Walking with Paul was nothing new. So why did she feel so nervous?
Instinct had her looking over her shoulder and down the hallway. It was an odd sensation having anyone openly talk to her at school. Most people reserved their interactions with her for later, but occasionally Paul broke that rule. Lately, it happened a lot, leaving her caught off guard like one might be if their dress strap broke onstage. She was blinded by a spotlight, mentally clinging to herself with sudden embarrassment even though Paul didn’t seem self-conscious in the least. He looked right at her—not through her, not around her, not over her head, hoping no one would see. She wore overalls and muddy sneakers, for heaven’s sake. Nothing about her was attractive unless you counted her smile, which no one did even though Sally herself knew it was nice. No gaps or stains. Even Laura Kennedy had a gray eye tooth.
“Sure, I’ll walk with you,” she said.
Paul smiled like he was relieved. “Okay, I’ll meet you on the front steps after the bell rings.”
Sally nodded and watched him walk away, a strange warmth spreading across her middle. Paul cared about her in that rare way that most people didn’t, and she’d been stupid and slept with Jack like a kicked puppy that kept running to the one person who treated them badly, hoping for a change of heart. Paul was theonlygood thing she had in her life. His friendship was steady.
Her gaze found Jack like a mangled paperclip to a magnetic wall, too weak and powerless to do anything besides stick to him. His arm was propped against the locker, Laura’s head between it and his face. He whispered something in her ear, and she laughed. Then as though by force or bad luck, they both looked at her. Gossip. The worst six-letter word in existence besides stupid, both of which she felt in her bones. Stupid for standing there. Stupid for staring. Stupid for thinking Jack was her friend. Stupid for sleeping with him.
“Get out of the middle of the hallway, Dirty Sally.” Some boy practically spat as he passed on the way to the next class.
Stupid for thinking she’d ever be anything besides dirty.
“Wantme to hold your books for you?” Paul said as she walked out the front door of the school. Sally was late to leave because she had started her period. She was so relieved that she sat on the toilet and cried through a private panic attack, deciding from then on to never have sex again. Too much extra emotion came with it—anxiety, fear, rejection. Not to mention intense loneliness from pining for the boy who deserted her. For the loss of her old self. She missed her innocence and wanted some of it back.
“Okay.” She handed her books over to Paul, thinking he might help
her find it again. Without anything to occupy her hands, she wrapped her arms in front of her and focused on the swish-swish of her pants legs scraping against the pavement.
“Want to go fishing after school?” Paul asked. “I thought we could maybe—”
“Sally, you ready?” Her papa stood in front of them on the sidewalk, interrupting Paul and surprising them both. He hadn’t met her after school in years, too busy with work to find the time. Sally gave up wishing long ago and resigned herself to a solo walk home, something she hated as she watched fellow students leave in groups. Today was the first day she hadn’t been forced to walk alone. Paul’s invitation to escort her meant more than he would ever know.
“What are you doing here?” she asked her dad, walking up to greet him and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. A few kids snickered in the background. Her father’s clothes are rumpled and streaked with dirt. He smelled like whiskey and three-day-old sweat, a side effect of constant drinking and lack of available clean water. Their house grew more run down by the day. It was almost impossible to keep clean when the only cloth they had was dipped in creek water and rung out over the grass. Every Saturday, she wiped down their meager furniture as best she could but barely managed to get the dust up, let alone eliminate the dirt altogether. Sometimes she missed the scent of soap and bleach. Other times she wondered if she was manufacturing a memory that wasn’t actually hers.
“I came to walk my daughter home from school. That against the law?”
His voice sounded raspy and bloated, like trying to talk through a nasty bout of heartburn. She shook her head and quickly grabbed her books from Paul. If there was trouble ahead, she didn’t want it involving him. “No, sir, not against the law. I’m just surprised, is all. You haven’t come to the school in a long time.” She led her papa down the sidewalk, putting a safe distance between him and her friend. Sally felt split between two teams—the one walking with her because of obligation and the other here by choice. It was nice to be wanted. It was nice to have a father, too. She just wished their team wasn’t so small. When only two players show up, it’s usually a cause to forfeit the game.
“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” her papa said. She nodded silently in response, not wanting to stir his temper. “Now give me your books, and let me carry them.” She obediently handed him the stack. One fell to the sidewalk when his fingers didn’t close around them as they should.
“You okay?” she asked. He ignored her and reached for the remaining book, a successful handoff if you didn’t count the mutters ofGarbage ManandDirty Sallyfrom the few kids around them. She was both touched and embarrassed by Paul’s defensive “Shut up” in the background, a sweet effort but a waste of words. Like trying to fill a cracked bucket with warm water. You can keep making attempts, but you’ll never be successful. People would call her Dirty Sally at their thirty-year class reunion. A nickname made in middle school stays with you forever in the minds of the kids who gave it to you.
All thoughts of Paul vanished when her papa tripped and fell.
“Papa! Are you hurt?” This is what drinking did to a person, it made them clumsy and out of control. She hated being embarrassed, and people were starting to stare.
“Papa, get up,” Sally said, exasperated, thinking it was bad enough that this had been her private life for too many years to remember, but laying it on display for the town was another thing entirely. Kids made fun of her only slightly less than they made fun of her father, but the difference was enough for her to want to hide. Guilt by association. Or, more accurately, outcast by association. She grew angry. “Papa, stop.”
But he didn’t stop. Nor did he get up or respond. He just relaxed into the sidewalk, going limp as he rolled to his back. “Papa? This isn’t funny. Get up.” Panic stabbed at Sally’s subconscious as she looked up at Paul. She hated what she saw reflecting back at her. Concern. Worry. Panic. All the things she should have felt two minutes ago when all she could muster was shame.
