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I catch a glimpse of her face.
My blood is pulsing through my fingertips and my wrists, racing throughout my system in rhythm with my frenzied heartbeat. My palms clammy, I reconsider the hours I spent today coercing myself into making this the moment I muster up the strength to speak to her. Of course, I learned by chance that she makes a pit stop at this exact bathroom every other school day after she finishes track. It’s the best time to make it seem perfectly natural.
It’s natural, I repeat like a mantra. This tiny stall feels like it’s shrinking. I’m peering through the crack between the door and the hinges, watching her brush through her long dark hair and snuff out the tangles. It’s slightly wavy because of the braid she was wearing it in a moment ago. One would think there'd be other people here, but she crosses half the campus on purpose for the sake of solitude.
I’m reconsidering what I’ve set myself up for very hard. The seconds tick on. How many has it been? Thirty? Forty? Has it been a few minutes already? My heart’s beating so hard I want to pull my hair.
She suddenly pauses, a skeptical expression on her face as she stuffs the brush back into her bag. Her eyes dart over her shoulder. She looks directly at me. My heart leaps and crash-lands and I forget how to stand, instinctively reaching for the walls to hold myself up.
Peace, Naomi—Peace. Deep breaths. Act natural.
I know there is absolutely no doubt that I’ve been spotted when Sadie approaches the stall door, tilting her head and staring at me right between the cracks with her sea green eyes, flecked with brown and grey. Oh god, I’ve never seen them this close before. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asks. “Is this a joke?”
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, oh no. I think I pissed her off. Think? Okay, I’m not stupid. I have pissed her off. “No!” I courageously protest. I stumble for my backpack, my hand trembling as I reach for the lock and pull the door open in one fell swoop. I hit my hip on the toilet paper dispenser in the process of trying to escape the stall and narrowly twirl directly past Sadie. It’s probably going to bruise later. “It’s—It’s not what you think.” What does she think? I don’t know what she thinks.
“What I think is that you have some kind of bone to pick with me,” she snaps, stepping closer to me. I do my best to not lean over the sinks and support myself on them, my back still facing her. “So, what is it? You want trouble? You want a piece of me?”
“I don’t want any trouble,” I tell her. I don’t want anyone to hear us, either. “I’m… I’m not out to get you.”
“Did you think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been following me?” Sadie asks. “Okay, Miss Head Cheerleader. Okay! It’s not like I don’t hear your friends whispering about me all the time.”
A disturbing nausea sweeps through my senses. This was an awful idea. “They shouldn’t do that!” My voice comes out louder than I expected to. “I’m sorry about them.”
She comes up next to me. “Were you trying to prove something?” she interrogates. “Trying to declare whether I was normal enough by keeping watch on me?” Sadie leans near my shoulder, staring me directly in the eyes through the mirror in front of us. “Are you trying to waste my time with your clique bullshit?”
I shake my head profusely. This is the closest she’s ever stood to me. My brain is swarming with thoughts of her reaching around me and touching me. For all I care, she could keep making terrible assumptions about why I’m here if she did that.
“If you have something to say… then say it,” Sadie tells me, unimpressed. “You scared, Naomi?”
I want to be your friend. No, wrong, wrong. “I—I just wanted to talk to you!” I blurt out like an idiot. “Normally. Um… quietly…”
“About what?” she asks dubiously.
I spend way longer fishing for words than I would like. “I think you’re… you’re a… very cool person. So…”
Smooth.
“… so I should go!”
Extra smooth.
I’m about to dance around her to the door when she steps in my way. She scrutinizes my face, which I seriously hope is not dripping sweat right now and decimating my complexion. “Are you stalking me, Naomi?” she questions clearly. There’s a small, incredulous laugh that comes with it. I thought I was already maximum nerves, but they just keep going.
“… Uh, am I?” My anxious smile twists.
Sadie howls with laughter. A snide tone fills her voice when she decides to respond. “Oh, I think you’re such a cool person. I just want to talk because god forbid I admit that I’m caught doing something that could come back to bite me,” she sneers. “That’s so fucking cute.”
My veins turn to ice, her words echoing in my head. Call me cute again. Again again again. God, I feel so sick. She’s moving closer to me for some reason and my legs are like jelly as I take one wobbly step backwards out of pure instinct.
“You know what the difference is between us? I’m not a wuss. I’m not, okay? I honestly don’t think things could get worse,” Sadie tells me. “So you’ll be my guinea pig. I’ll let you run back and see what happens.”
“Wh…What do you mean?” I ask her. There’s something wrong in her eyes. She’s gritting her teeth when she reaches up and grabs my hair, her fingers tightening around my ponytail. A yelp of pain escapes me when she starts to drag me back towards the sink, fiery with malicious intent. I’ve pictured Sadie pulling my hair, but this just hurts like hell. It’s not right. “Ow, ow—what are you doing? Let me go!”
“Shut up,” Sadie bites back. She seizes me by the neck and pushes me down, bending my back at an incredibly uncomfortable angle. I drop my bag and frantically grapple for her hands. Sadie shoves my head under the sensor-activated faucet and cold running water soaks my face and hair and invades my vision, pouring over the side of my head before reaching the drain. Sadie’s fingers slot into my bangs while I flail to get away, holding me in place with her whole lower body and other arm.
“Fuck! Stop it!” My nerves are on fire. I’m protesting the best I can, but something holds me back from screaming full voice. My conscience is telling me no, no, don’t scream. Don’t do that to her. Is that the consequence of some defective heart of gold, or something else? I don’t know what’s wrong with me. “Sadie!”
“What? It’s not like I’m drowning you,” Sadie taunts. She releases me swiftly, backing away, and I’m hyper aware of the second her touch disappears. I almost hit my head on the faucet trying to distance myself from the water, my hair and face dripping, soaked fabric around my neck. If my makeup wasn’t ruined before, it definitely is now. I can’t bring myself to look at her yet. Even if there wasn’t water invading my lungs, my senses are in knots. I’m shaking and I finally gaze up at her. She’s panting with adrenaline, her lips slightly parted and eyes wide. “What’s with that look? Go on and tell your stupid friends what I did.” She takes hold of my wet top, wrenching me away from the sink and pushing me in the direction of the door. “This is what you get for following me around. You fuckin’ want some more?”
The hammering in my chest is noisy, caught somewhere between shock, anger and something entirely indiscernible. Water drips down my cheeks alongside salty tears that spill on their own without interruption. My vision is so goddamn blurry. I don’t know what’s wrong. What’s wrong? I know it was stupid to follow her around and track her schedule, but why did this happen? What is her problem?
Why can’t I stop staring at the way her cheeks glow and her eyes stay transfixed on me like an animal waiting to tear into my skin?
I want to make a mess. I want to make one more badly than I want to run back to the safety net of my volatile, whispering friends, who would definitely hear about this incident from me and wreck everything beyond recognition. I could be angry and do that. I could show Sadie that there are consequences for her actions the disgustingly old fashioned way.
But… I don’t want to. I feel sick just entertaining the thought.
Impulsively, I settle with giving into the turbulent quivering in my fingers and slapping her across the face. The noise reverberates and the feeling of it stings on my hand. Her head is turned to the side, cheek visibly red, and on second thought, I cannot fucking believe I did that.
Everything about this was already bad, actually.
The way she looks back at me with her same-side eye twitching half shut is impossible to tear my eyes away from. She doesn’t look shocked—just like she might burst into flames any second now. It’s like she’s warning me to run now, probably for good reason. What will she expect if I do that, though? Is there anything even salvageable about this?
Is this pretty much all my fault for chasing the thrill of poking my nose around rather than just… talking to her? Talking to her felt so out of the question, kind of for this exact reason, but some twisted part of me is thriving under every ounce of attention, skewing the picture and suggesting how the context could be different. It’s so distracting.
If I leave, I will never be able to speak to her again.
“You’re right,” my voice croaks out. “I was following you around.”
Sadie lifts up a hand, staring straight at me while she rubs at her swollen cheek. She moves her hand away, pointing at her face, and she laughs. I wait a few seconds for her to say something and she doesn’t. Sadie simply laughs like getting slapped for assault is the most hilarious thing in the world. Jesus, I think she’s unhinged.
Her laughing stops quickly and she moves closer, abruptly slotting her hand beneath my chin and gripping it. “Fuck you,” she hisses.
On the edge of my vision, the water droplets on the sink are shuddering. They’re moving. I try to turn my head and confirm that I’m hallucinating, but Sadie won’t let me.
“Choose your next words wisely.”
Another knot ties in my stomach because there’s an infinite amount of those that I can have. I hear a weird creaking sound near the floor and the sound of water hitting the tile with more frequency. The dripping turns to pouring and it echoes. All the faucets are spilling over because the water isn’t running the right direction. I weakly lift a finger. “Uh, Sadie? The water’s floating.”
She looks very disappointed. “What part of wisely do you not understand?”
I point down really frantically as the water converges together and weaves itself into a snake behind her and hovers closer. Best case scenario, it turns out this is a dream. Maybe I didn’t actually fuck all this up. Maybe none of this happened. Or, uh, maybe she knocked me unconscious a couple minutes ago and I don’t remember. Sadie’s grip tightens. She’s not having it. “Can we… Can we talk about this…” I squeak kind of pathetically. She’s not obstructing my windpipe, but she could be. “I wasn’t going to tell my friends. I… I try to tell them, and they just blow me off, so…”
Sadie’s eyes flicker to the floor for a second and mine follow her. There’s water puddling around our feet, and it’s like Sadie just noticed the sudden major plumbing problem that is now plaguing the bathroom. The freaky water snake swivels to the front of her body where she can see it. She jolts backwards, letting go of me immediately. “What the fuck?” she exclaims. It quickly hovers around her arm, picking up more water from the floor and growing longer. Sadie’s breathing quickens and her back hits the stalls, the water following her there. There’s a concerning rattling coming from below the tile floor and the sinks and I back into the wall, trying to distance myself. “Get away! Get away!”
Sadie swings her arm and the water gathering around her flies, cracking the mirror on impact and breaking one of the ceiling lights. She blocks her face while the glass rains down and I crouch down with a surprised scream, covering my head. I tentatively peek out and she’s staring. She extends her hand. The water draws towards her once more, circling around her forearm.
Her expression visibly shifts. Her shoulders are tense when she points with her finger, slowly reaching above her head and guiding the water through the air. She splays her fingers and the water steadily separates into multiple strings. She looks over at me silently before opening her mouth. “Are you seeing this?” she asks. I can’t speak, so she comes closer and crouches down. Her gaze remains startlingly intense. “Answer me, Naomi.”
I nod weakly. “Mm-hmm,” is the only sound I can muster. With a tilt of her head, Sadie draws her fingers together—sort of like a shadow puppet mouth—and flicks them all open at once. The water splatters in my face and I wince, coughing at an angle as a little of it gets inside my nose.
Sadie picks up more water from the ground and watches it float above her palm. “Do you think anyone’s going to believe you if you tell them about this?” I shake my head. “Didn’t think so. I guess that makes it our secret, doesn’t it?” She doesn’t hide the threat lacing her voice.
My brain really knows how to pick them.
I try to wipe my face off, trapped in an episode of absolute shock. “… I… I guess it does,” I croak. I hear the faucets go quiet and Sadie peers over at them to watch them slow. Her face is still twisted, but she drops both hands and all of the water falls lifelessly to the ground. I can see it in her eyes as she rises to her feet and turns her body. She’s trying to be collected about this, but she’s practically shaking where she stands. “You…” I start to speak before I can stop myself. “You don’t wanna hear what I was gonna say, do you?”
Sadie narrows her eyes. “Is there anything you could possibly say that would improve the situation right now?” she asks.
I shakily try to wring out my ponytail. “I didn’t know how to talk to you. I guess I did this wrong, but this…”
Her nostrils flare before she turns on her heel to retrieve her bag from the corner of the room. The water parts to the side below her feet. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“Why won’t you let me talk?” I ask while she crosses in front of me again.
Sadie shoots me a contemptuous glance. “Oh, Naomi… because you’re you, my face fucking hurts and reality is collapsing. It’s not complicated.” She takes a couple more steps towards the door.
I impulsively pull myself to my feet and open my mouth before she can leave. “Tell me why you think I was… stalking you. My reason. Tell me.”
She stops with her fingers on the door handle, facing away from me. Slowly, she turns her head, her gaze unfocused, resting near my shoes, before they gradually train upwards until our eyes meet. She doesn’t say anything. In an instant, she pulls the door open and she’s gone.
I lose my center of gravity and stumble into the wall beside me, feverishly gripping my hair. I’m utterly breathless, a thousand or so overwhelming feelings coursing through my whole body at a dizzying rate.
What the hell?