treatswords

Seventh Grade

We are embarking on a winter weeklong retreat for school. Our teachers
tucking our permission slips into their pockets as we pile onto the three-hour
long bus ride.

Jeremy.

The boy with the shaggy hair, coffee brown eyes, beetling brows, and black Etnies shoes. We
traded shoes one day in the hall at school. Him in my slip-on pink sandals and
me sloshing around in his loose Etnies, my feet arching like a cat’s back,
desperately trying to keep them on.

Does this mean we’re dating? I wondered. Swapping shoes had to mean
something.

“Whose shoes are those?”

“Jeremy’s.” I said smiling as my heals pounded against the tile.

Jeremy made it on the trip, but we barely spoke the entire week.

I peeked at him from under my red beanie, bangs like straw in my eyelashes.

One day he came and knocked on our cabin door. My hair in blonde braids,
someone tugging at one of them like a cows utter.

“Jeremy is OUTSIDE!”

Heart racing, melting, red slush beneath my boots.

I slipped my lime green jacket on and stepped outside.

He felt short in front of me, his face like a soft turtle emerging from its
shell.

His eyes sticking to my jacket like snow.

My mom wouldn’t buy me a new one, regardless of how often I begged.

“Mom! It’s embarrassing! I’m like a big green booger!” I whined.

And now Jeremy saw it too. The big, crusty booger in front of him.

Red pimples placed like pepperonis on my greasy forehead. Pinching one
between my nails, yellow cheese bursting.

“I just wanted to stop by and say hi.” He said.

What to say, what to say?

How could I be clever? How does one demonstrate wit?

“Hi.” Is what came from my booger mouth. Bending over, my thick
jacket like a book end stopping me from gracefully bending down. Picking up a
wad of snow, forming it into a ball, my hands freezing, tossing it at his arm.

I giggled.

He flinched, confused.

We both watched it splatter, breaking into the tiny flakes it had always
been before it gained the confidence to become a force of momentum.

He stared at my mouth. I wonder if they looked dry, pink flakes smiling back
at him.

“Well, have fun.” He said, dashing back to his cabin.

We never traded shoes again.

Eighth Grade

Biology class.

“Okay everyone, I’m going to pair you off with someone for this next
assignment.” Our teacher said, splitting us off like atoms under her
microscope.

“Cali, you are going to be with Jake.”

Jake.

Blonde long hair, small blue eyes, large teeth.

I pulled my desk next to his, the floor shrieking beneath me.

“Hi Jake!” I said.

Giving him the most extroverted version of me, the one that foamed and bubbled
like a shaken can of soda, leaving his desk sticky.

He never made eye contact with me. He barely acknowledged my existence.

Dry, dry, dry.

I wiped my caffeinated liquid from his desk and pulled away from him at the
end of the day.

The next day, I watched him giggle with the girl behind him. Headband
peeling back her bangs, fluttery eyelashes like butterfly wings. His large
teeth flashing white, out on display. Thick cubes strong enough to bite through
an entire apple in one chomp, teeth piercing its stiff core.

Maybe he was having an off day yesterday. He seemed to be in a better mood.

“Okay, get back in the same pairs as yesterday to finish off the
assignment.”

Our desks slide together. I felt the hairs on his arms stand up. Waiting for
his teeth to emerge, this time in slobbery fangs.

I smoothed myself over this time, ironing myself until ever last wrinkle was
pressed firm. I spoke calmly, politely, asking about his day.

“It’s been fine.” He sneered.

That weekend at my friend Amanda’s house I asked, “Why is Jake so
rude?”

“Rude?” She asked.

“Yeah, he seems angry with me for no reason.”

“Oh, weird. He’s always been nice to me.” She said.

Our friend Delaney chiming in from the kitchen.

“Okay, don’t be upset, but I heard from Chris that Jake just doesn’t
like you.” She said, coming in with a shiny red apple.

“He doesn’t like me? But why? He doesn’t even know me?”

I asked.

“I don’t know, that’s just what Chris said. He just doesn’t like
you.”

She said, her teeth sinking into shiny red skin.

Ninth Grade

Chelsea.

Blonde hair, big boobs, mole on her lower left cheek.

“She is the modern day, Marilyn Monroe.” Her group of friends
said.

Holes in her jeans, tan skin peeking through, Abercrombie 8 on her wrists,
she was the ultimate cool girl. Picking at her lunch with her fork, never
taking more than three bites. Her shoulder blades protruding from her
basket-ball jersey, sharp enough to cut someone if she turned quickly.

I caught her glaring at herself in the girl’s locker room mirror. Red, painted
nails carefully counting each rib bone, her mouth forming the numbers as she
went.

“Twelve.” She ended with on each side.

We made eye contact, her eyes darkening like a cloud filled with heavy rain.

Catching her vulnerability in my eyes, forever imprinted in my brain.

And she was right, every time I saw her, she was a walking ribcage. Her
limbs bent firmly across her chest, dead spider legs.

She had holey jeans that were bleached almost white with glittering gemstones
on the back pockets.

So cool. I thought.

Telling my mom about the cool pants, coming home one day to find she had
purchased secondhand Lucky jeans, rhinestones, and a bottle of bleach.

“Let’s make you some cool jeans.” She said.

Cycling them through the wash with bleach, gluing stones on the pockets,
cutting holes in them with my dad’s knife, shredding the fabric in between like
pulled pork.

They were almost perfect, besides the red bandana fabric she stitched
beneath the right pocket. Vibrant red, black Paisley print beneath my sit bone.

“But why mom? They were almost perfect.”

“No, they were almost identical to her jeans. That doesn’t
make them perfect. This is a little added touch of you, a unique and unexpected
charm.”

I hated them.

I wore them one day to please my mom.

“Why won’t you wear those jeans I made you?” She said, her eyes
aching like a joint before the rain.

I wore them all day. Eyes glancing at them, my face turning red.

Trying to cover the red patch with my folder.

Look at the rest of the jeans everyone, the bleached holey parts, oh and
don’t miss the diamond pockets!

I let my guard down while getting lunch. Folder on the table, hands on both
sides of the tray.

Chelsea’s eyes following my legs.

I could feel the limbs of her ribcage digging into me, a spider on my back.

I walked by their table and heard her say,” Look at her, like what, is
she on her period?”

Laughing, roaring laughter, like lions in a cage.

All eyes on the red cloth, amused by the girl that had a stitching of
herself displayed for everyone to see.

Chelsea was lucky it had been only me that had seen her jarring ribcage that
day, understanding how she had starved herself to get to that point. Where
gauntly became beauty. Where she counted ribs for fun.

But she made sure this day, when my red vulnerability was on display, that
everyone was going to see.

Coming home from school, tossing the jeans in our blue dumpster
outside, letting them turn brown like a wet banana peel.

My mom pulling them out on Wednesday morning, before the trash was picked
up.

Smelling of rubber, coffee grounds and rotting pork chops. Brown stains like
tiny fingerprints in the white bleach.

“Sit down.” She said, hands resting on the jeans.

I pulled myself close to the table, the wood cutting into my bellybutton.
Fingers tracing green crayon marks, back before the world was cruel and I could
color in the threaded wood, doodling my green insides without judgement. Lines
as long as I wanted them to be, gleaming and bright like a comets tail. Before
Jeremy realized I was a slimy booger, before Jake snarled at me with his
colossal teeth, before Chelsea made a red fool out of me, lump of spaghetti
on my tray, steaming into my wet eyes as I ran back to my lunch table.

“Why did you throw these out?” She asked.

“Because everyone made fun of me.”

“Huh. Why did they make fun of you?”

How could I look into her smooth green eyes, warm as stones on a sunny beach
and tell her that I was a fool. Stupid. A worm beneath everyone’s feet.

“They don’t like me.” I said.

“Well, throughout life you’ll find a lot of people who won’t like
you.”

“But why?” I ask.

“You won’t know why, not really. There will never be a reason. Just a
reflection of themselves projecting onto you.”

I imagine them all, projecting onto me like a movie on white cloth.

I left nail prints in the table that day, the wood easily manipulated from
years spent under warm plates.

Clawing out my frustration from not understanding my mom.

It’s taken me 28 years to finally get it.

I smile at them now. Leaving my green scribbles everywhere I go.

I understand I become a mirror in front of them, I watch as they look
themselves up and down. Their brows arch, nose wrinkles, mouth foaming in
anger, elbows viscously scrubbing at green crayon.

I don’t try and pour myself into their cups anymore, understanding that not
everyone likes green tea.