Skipping Gym

Skipping Gym

I skip most of gym class (after the sprint and a whole nasty incident that happened after I arrived in class – which I will describe later).  I am told to take my sick, sophomore self to the nurse’s office, but I detour to the girl’s bathroom instead.

The bathroom stinks.  It smells like someone else asked to be excused from class and they detoured here too.  I rush into a door with a giant black heart that says Pam loves Ron.  My aunt’s face pops in here with me.  I watch her floating head cringe at the avocado green walls.  She starts talking sofas – how Uncle Frank got the best deal on their first real furniture.

“It was a whale of a couch but no one wanted to sit on it, “ she says.  “Must have been the color.”  I shake my head.  She’s still there.  Her mouth keeps moving but no sound comes out.  Then Grizzly’s face pops in next to her sister’s and now her voice echoes in my head too.

“That sofa could work in here, but maybe Emily just needs a barf bag.”  My brain crunches two conversations at one time.  Then all chatter stops.  And when I leave and drag my bones on the bus, I feel twisted and wrung out, fuzzy and used.

I am not expecting the guy that slides next to me, the cool guy that starts in with sweet, sugary talk who asks, “Aren’t you glad you ride?”  I almost ask him if he knows the fairy girls.  I wonder if he is even real.