The St. Ambrose School for Girls(71)

As I step up to my mailbox, eyes begin to rise around me and there’s a collective shuffling of pages of which I am only dimly aware. Reaching out my hand, I take the stapled sheaf of papers out of my designated slot, and expect to see the familiar masthead of—

It’s not the newsletter.

At first, I do not know what it is. I’m confused. My name is at the top: Sarah M. Taylor.

There’s a title above my name, and I read it only once. By the second word, I know what this is, although my confusion is not cleared up.

What is “How I Spent My Summer” by Sarah M. Taylor doing in my mailbox?

I look back at the lineup of boxes, and it’s then that the horror begins to manifest in my gut. Two-thirds, perhaps three-quarters, of the cubes are emptied, and my brain connects what’s in my hand with what everyone in the dorm seems to be reading so intently.

I snatch another set of the pages from a random box. “How I Spent My Summer” by Sarah M. Taylor. And another. “How I Spent My Summer” by Sarah M. Taylor.

They’re all reading about me. They’ve all received in their mailboxes the essay I wrote just over a year ago, the essay that detailed my two suicide attempts, my stays in the mental hospital, my psychiatrist, my drugs, the orderlies—God, the orderlies, who I devoted an entire page and a half to.

My first inclination is to vomit, and I lurch toward the trash bin to do that. But then someone comes in through the dorm door and I realize there’s no time to waste. Frantically, I begin to pull the remaining copies from the boxes that have yet to be emptied. I must save what’s left of my privacy, rescue it, shade it, from the blinding heat and light of all the eyes that are upon me. My shaking hands do not work right, however, and copies of the essay fall to the floor like snow, covering my boots. And still I try to clean out, take back, safeguard—

Somebody captures my arms.

It’s Strots.

She’s just come in. She’s the one who came in.

She is speaking to me, but I cannot hear her. I cannot hear even my pounding heart or my wheezing breath, and then I cannot see my roommate, either. Tears have formed and are falling down my face. The fact that I do not know how the essay was found is secondary to my terror that it has been, and now my secret is exposed in the worst way, not just as words whispered into a cupped ear, but with a bullhorn of my own creation: These girls, none of whom care about me, none of whom like me, have all my facts, my details, my entire timeline.

Strots’s attention is suddenly diverted to something over my shoulder, and even through the chaos inside of me, the change in her expression registers.

In slow motion, I turn and look to the staircase.

Greta is coming down the steps, the Brunettes behind her. The three are dressed in all white, from their shirts to their kicky skirts. White. Like the orderlies I wrote about. Just like the orderlies who tortured me when I was at my sickest. Who wore all white.

Of course it was her. Who else could have done this?

Sealing the deal that she’s the perpetrator are the affects of the two behind her. Though Greta is smiling widely, the two Brunettes are not. Francesca and Stacia have lowered their heads, and they have wrapped their arms around their middles. They’re clearly uncomfortable with this. They don’t feel this is right and know it’s gone too far. But as usual, they’re swept up in the plan, and see no way around their participation in it. They’re as ashamed as I am, just for a totally different reason.

Greta steps off the staircase and puts a hand on her hip. She looks directly at me. “Anything wrong? You look like you’re hallucinating or something.”

I can’t reply. I have no power, no voice, no recourse. She’s won, not by a margin but by an atomic bomb’s ring of devastation. And she knows this. Her eyes are lit up with victory, and her smile is so real that she’s radiantly beautiful. This is the predator with a full belly. This is the competitor who’s got all the trophies. This is the self-satisfaction that comes with the mastery of hurdles and the attainment of a goal.

As I remain silent, Greta shrugs. “Well, let me know if I can help with anything. We’re just off to play a little tennis—”

I’m not exactly sure what happens next.

One moment, I am breaking down… the next, there’s a flash in front of me, and it moves so fast that my addled brain can’t identify it. And then my view of Greta is blocked by something—no, by someone. Immediately after that, Greta is no longer standing triumphantly before me, at the base of the stairs. She’s being thrown into the wall.

Gasps from the other girls. People jumping back. Greta’s blond hair flowing up and out as she is banged into the wall a second time. And the attack doesn’t stop there.

It’s as she’s propelled through the open doorway of the phone room that I realize Strots has her hands around Greta’s throat and, with her much more powerful body, is pushing the girl, shoving her, taking her down. They land on the hard floor, the rug between the tables offering no cushioning at all. Strots is on top, straddling Greta, dominating her. Greta’s legs are extending out from under her crouched attacker, kicking, splaying, losing a white sneaker.

I have a thought that I need to stop this. I stumble into the phone room, but I can’t go any farther. Strots is pounding the back of Greta’s head into the carpet with a look of cold intensity. And Greta is clawing at Strots’s locked hold on her throat as her skull is nailed to the floor over and over again.