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Short Story Work had never taken so long. The hours dragged by; the afternoon was an endless stream of customers punctuated by the beep of the scanner at the register. Alisha smudged one eye with the back of her hand, then examined it for traces of mascara. Glancing quickly at the clock, she shifted her weight slowly and rubbed her eyes again. The light was a bright, fluorescent headache, making the bright colors and slogans in the grocery story clash. She drifted backwards into her thoughts, replaying her movements in her mind.
Yesterday she had taken the bus again, though she had hoped to get a ride. She sat down opposite a younger, livelier girl talking on a cell-phone, and she felt envious. Not for her clothes or money, but for her innocence. Her naivete. When it got too much, when she couldn�t look at her anymore, she looked up, away from the noise, and found some sort of anchor. She looked up to her lifeline.
Above the cold metal of the bus hung a notice, one that Alisha had seen a million times on her commute but until now had never had meaning for her. Plastered heads above the younger girl, covered in graffiti, hung an ad for a youth help line. Depressed? It asked.
Help is just a phone call away.
Later that night she said goodnight to her grandmother. Scooping her cat up in her arms, she carefully locked the door, then checked the windows. It took her nearly an hour to get past the dial tone.
After the third try, she let it ring once but slammed down the receiver, causing her cat to fly out of her arms. The fifth time she heard the soft voice of an older woman, and shuddered with relief at the sound.
�Youth help line,� it said. �My name is Grace.�
�Hello,� Alisha whispered.
It was the first step, after all. The first step is always the hardest.
This morning she sat as far as she could from the ad, pressed her face against the window and wondered how she could have revealed herself so intimately to a complete stranger. She thought of her soul, a gray, tired little thing cradled by a voice on the other line, separated by anonymity. �Is this register open?� A voice jarred her from her thoughts.
The fluorescent lights flickered.
Grace passed over the avocadoes and honey dews with complete certainty, picking only the best fruit with a light knock and a keen eyes for bruises. Steadily she made her way through the aisle, brushing back her grey hair; plucked a jar of peanut butter from a sea of glass. Seeing as she lived alone, this would most likely last her the year. Walking slowly, her hands trailed across the rows of curbed plastic bottles, all designed to be immediately consumed by the public. She remembered a phone call. �I just feel like I�ll die if I don�t do something, you know?� the girl asked, quietly sobbing.
�But I don�t know what to do,� she whispered. Silence.
�We�ll figure it out together,� Grace offered.
��I don�t know where to start.�
�Just�Start.� The older woman supplied. �Take a deep breath,� she said. Breathing was medicinal.
She then spent nearly an hour suspended in time, listening to pained gasps and short, spurts of conversation that eventually pieced together the events of one evening.
�I was going to meet my friend.�
�It was my idea. We were going to, you know, sneak out. Go bowling or something. I left out the back door but her dad got back early and she couldn�t leave. I didn�t bring my cell-phone��
She got to the bowling alley at around 11, a dimly lit, rundown place that was only good for meeting people. She sipped a coke and pretended to look busy. Waited. There was a group of boys a few aisles down from her that glanced over once in a while, but she didn�t really pay any attention to them. At midnight, the bowling alley closed, and the few paying customers left. She did, too.
She walked swiftly out of the parking lot, anxious to get back home. Not a minute later the guys from the bowling alley pulled up beside her in a beat up SUV, and offered her a ride.
�I didn�t know them or anything, so I said no.� They insisted. �I didn�t want to sound like a bitch or anything,� she whispered. �They looked like boys in my grad class.� The following events were drawn out slowly, until Grace understood the bare bones of what had happened.
Grabbed tightly by the wrist, yanked into the back of the car; she did not scream. Four boys, three of which raped her (she had difficulty saying the word) but did not kiss her. Took her by force, then said she had asked for it. She tried to get out of the car twice, but was yanked back inside. One boy, the one in the passenger seat, protested once when she started sobbing, but was quickly silence and didn�t say anything more, even when she threw up. The smell filled the darkness and the drive swore, mumbling about the car seats when there was a naked girl in the back. They mopped up the vomit with her shirt, and dropped her off in the parking lot.
�They threw it at me; I put it one so I wouldn�t be topless.� A pause. �They yelled at me. Said it was my fault, that I shouldn�t be out alone at night. That I was a slut.�
Grace felt all the wanted to do was to wrap her arms around this person. Tell her how sorry she was, how unfair it was.
�I sat in the shower until the hot water had run out, and I still felt dirty. I missed school for two days, but nobody understood that I was different. That something had happened to me. Not even my family.�
�How long ago� did this happen?� Grace dared to ask. �Two Friday�s ago.� The girl sniffed on the other end. Sighed. �I should go.�
All previous training flew out the window. �Please,� Grace pleaded. �Please tell someone. What they did to you was a crime, and they have to be reported to the police. Please don�t hand up � what�s your name?�
Click.
�Is this register open?� A middle-aged woman pushed through to the front of the line and started pilling her groceries onto the conveyor belt, without waiting for an answer. She was tired; her son�s friend had soiled the car last night and she was forced to use the little one, which was a standard instead of an automatic. To top it off, her cell phone had broken down halfway through her conference call and she was now late picking up her second son for hockey practice. Frustrated, she rubbed her temple and willed the cashier to go faster. It wasn�t enough.
�Can you please hurry up? I�m late and��
The girls� eyes flicked up towards her, and the woman noticed her bleached blonder hair, her painted nails, her studded nose and her C cup. What a whore, reflected the woman, collecting her change and her grocery bags, never giving it a second thought.
�Have a nice day,� Alisha replied. |
