TW - sexual assault
I am at an elementary school reunion.
It’s as boring as you think it is, and I have expelled nearly a dozen long-suffering sighs already. It’s been an hour and a half. We got here on time—Landon’s decision—and since then, only ten people have shown up. Half of them (that’s five) are sitting in a corner, reminiscing on old sleepovers and birthday parties that the other half of us (the other five) have no recollection of. Likely, it’s because we weren’t invited. I didn’t get invited to a lot of things in elementary school. I don’t know why I’ve been invited now.
Two of these people first avoid Landon and I, perhaps out of shame for how their ten and eleven -year old selves behaved back then. Forty-five minutes into the party, they both make a beeline for Landon, apologizing for every “faggot” and “sissy boy” they called him back on the playground six years ago. He accepts because he has always been gracious, and when they turn and nod to me, I just barely resist throwing up the finger and telling them to shove it up their asses.
I don’t know why I’ve been invited. I don’t know why I came.
(I know why I came, and it has everything to do with a sandy-skinned, moss-eyed boy begging me to come just because he wanted to see what would happen. I did put up a fight—truly, I did. But then, he pulled out the only child allowance money, and I had to cave. I just had to. And so all this is just for the 10-piece nugget meal he’ll buy me after, but I’ll happily eat my nuggets if I manage to get out of here without getting into a fist-fight.)
I’m sitting on Tara’s (the host’s) couch with my feet tucked under me, watching the few people in the room. Landon sits beside me with his feet planted firmly on the ground and his hands on his knees, tense and uncomfortable. I reach a hand out and smack him dead across his back. He’s so stiff that he doesn’t move, save to turn his head and glare at me.
“My bad,” I offer him, and he glowers harder. “I thought it would un-ruler your back.”
“I should shove a ruler up your—” He cuts himself off as the door opens. In an instant, the vibe shifts.
In walks the Peanut Gallery of Lincoln Elementary: Jade Edwards, Saday Simmons, Jahmir King, Tony Roger Jr., and Kayla Crawford. Tara runs up to Jade like they’re best friends, squealing and grabbing her hands, and they jump up and down in a circle exclaiming, “I can’t believe it’s you!” and “I missed you so much!” and “Oh my Goddddddddd!” until they feel like they’ve received enough attention from the rest of us. Only then do they pull away, allowing the rest of the group to begin making their rounds.
I’ve never really understood the Peanut Gallery. They don’t make a lot of sense together; they don’t even get along. The only thing they even remotely have in common is that they're all conventionally attractive and they all went to the same high school, yet, even then, they stuck together. Now, we’re all high school graduates in the limbo between our teenage years and adulthood, but they haven’t seemed to pick up on that fact. Instead, they choose to live in their perceived glory amongst the lower class (read: their elementary school classmates) and pretend like nothing has changed.
For them, maybe nothing has.
From that moment on, Tara hangs off of Jade like a designer handbag, empty, her head full of air for Jade to put on. I suspect she’s still salty about not ever truly making it into the Peanut Gallery, but she pretends to be very well. She is suddenly Jade’s best friend who she was woefully separated from during high school, but now they’re going to college in the same city, and she’s sure they’ll be close again soon. Jade simply nods, a half smirk on her lips, a dead stare in her eyes—she wants the dead weight off her arm, but Tara’s attached herself like a thumb tack, digging into Jade’s meat and staying put.
Tony is the first person to come up to me. He just stands there for a moment, then another. I think he expects me to address him first. I turn to Landon. “Do you have any more Skittles?”
He reaches into his bag, wordlessly tossing me the half-eaten pack, the bag twisted up like a red burlap sack of fruity goodness. I eat one at a time, looking everywhere but Tony as I chew. I hear Landon snicker, “petty” whispered under his breath, and finally, Tony opens his mouth to speak.
“What's up, Avaaa?” He sing-songs my name like he’s unsure about it.
“Nothing. Hi.” I don’t give him the pleasure of an interested response. I don’t think I’ve had a full conversation with this dude. Ever. I don’t even know why he’s talking to me.
He shifts, and I hear him inhale deeply through his nose. “How have you been? I heard about the shit with Dami.”
“I didn’t ask if you did,” I cut him off, because the last thing I want to talk about with Tony is Dami. Tony didn’t even go to the same school as us.
Tony shrugs. “I’m just saying,” he pulls a vape out of his pocket. When he catches my look of disgust and Landon’s raised eyebrow, he clarifies, “It’s not nicotine, it’s weed,” as if that somehow makes it better. Then, he takes a deep inhale and walks away, and I know that I’ve definitely earned my 10-piece nugget meal.
The music is changed from smooth R&B to shitty modern rap, and then all of the Peanut Gallery and their admirers get up to start dancing. Except that only the girls are dancing, and the guys are just watching. Some people are in the corner mixing Vodka with cranberry juice and topping the drinks with lime slices, and, well, you can tell it’s not a good mixer when they still wince as they drink it.
Still, the party seems to have picked up, now, and I almost feel at ease. Almost, until “Or Nah” begins playing on the speakers, and Kayla starts twerking in a split, and someone (I can’t make out who) shouts, “I bet Ava can do that bendy shit too!” and the whole crowd starts looking at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Landon scratch the back of his head and look away. Spineless, I think. Shitty ass best friend.
I sink further into Tara’s couch. At this point, Kayla is giving me a serious stink eye. “Go fuck yourself,” I say to no one in particular, and that’s when chaos ensues.
When I’m explaining all of this to my mother, I start with this: I was provoked.
One: “Come on, Ava, we tryna see what that gymnastics do!”
Two: “Yeah, cause you only fuck Dami!”
At this point, I’ve begun getting off of the couch and gathering my things. It’s been two hours and fifteen minutes—more than enough time to warrant me still getting my chicken nugget compensation from Landon.
I’m not arguing with a bunch of overgrown 12-year-olds. That’s what I keep telling myself as I put my shoes on, grab my jacket (a light one, because it gets into the low 70s at night), and stalk towards the door.
I’m not arguing with a bunch of overgrown 12-year-olds. I’m not arguing with a bunch of overgrown 12-year-olds. I’m not arguing with a bunch of overgrown 12-year-olds. I’m not–
Three: “Oh, I forgot she went from being a delinquent to a slut.”
I was provoked. I stand by it.
When the back of my hand connects with Kayla’s face, I’m barely keeping it together. Landon does not jump up to grab me because he knows she deserved it, and when she swings back and I start whooping her ass in earnest, he still doesn’t grab me because he knows she deserves it.
Eventually, someone pulls me off of the girl, but by the time they manage it (gymnastics isn’t just about flexibility, it’s also about strength), I have one of her braids in my hand and she’s probably going to have a bruised torso and a slightly swollen cheek. Personally, I have an itch on my left eyelid that tells me she scratched it good, and I’m pretty sure my ankle is sprained from when she got leverage on my tackle and fell on it. Still, I’m satisfied.
Tara’s mom is not. Tara’s mom is here. Why the fuck is Tara’s mom here?
So when Landon and I are in the car with my mom and I’m explaining this all to her, she’s stony-faced. Both of her hands grip the top of the steering wheel—not at ten-two, more like eleven-one—and she looks like she’s about to rip it off and let us drive off of the road. I know she doesn’t want me fighting, but this time couldn’t be helped. She has to understand this.
“I don’t understand,” okay, maybe not, “why you keep fucking doing this. What is wrong with you? Do you know that girl can press charges?”
“She won’t,” I say, and that’s all I can manage.
“But she can!” My mom’s voice booms throughout the car. It’s heavy and shrill and more than a little pissed off. “What the fuck— should I have sent you to a girl’s home or something? Is that the only way to get you to act like you got some sense?”
“She deserved it.”
My mom slams on the brakes at a red light. I jerk forward, my seatbelt locks, and I jerk back. My head smacks against the headrest. “You don’t have an ounce of common sense. Why can’t you just go a day without making bad choices?”
I’m starting to get irritated. She says the same shit every time I mess up, not even bothering to hear my side of the story. “She called me a slut. A slut for what happened with Dami.”
“Oh, okay, so we’re fighting words with fists now? We’ll see how well that holds up in court.”
And my eyes are starting to fill with tears, and my left eyelid starts to itch more so I rub it hard, and it irritates the wound. “You don’t fucking get it.”
My mom lets out a little “tsh” sound, making a sharp left without using her turn signal. A car honks behind us, but she’s already long past them. “Ava, I’m telling you right now. You can’t keep doing this. You can’t. You will go to jail.”
“You’re not even trying—”
“You’re not trying!” my mom shouts over me, and my lips begin to tremble. She is focused on the road. She doesn’t notice. “What happened with that lil’ boy was an awful, shitty situation. Nobody is denying that. But you can’t keep sitting here acting like every affront warrants a reaction like this out of you.”
A colony of ants crawls its way up my arms, picking at my skin, trying to find stress to feed on. It feels like an ice cube is stuck inside of my throat, like I accidentally swallowed it and am choking, water– I need water, and I can’t help it. A sob rips its way out of my chest. It’s a sound like I’m gasping for air but keep coming up with nothing, and the car jerks. My vision blurs with wet, salty tears, and I suddenly can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t see, can’t hear anything over the sound of my own gasping breaths, and can’t feel anything but the ants digging a trench into the palms of my hands. I grip the dashboard, sweaty fingers slipping and sliding, leaving damp fingerprints in their wake. I don’t realize that the car has stopped until Landon is opening the passenger side door and unbuckling my seatbelt, grabbing my shoulders, and speaking to me in a level voice.
“Hey, hey. Hey, now,” he chants, a litany of greetings, trying to get my attention onto himself. It does not work. “Ava–”
“I’m sorry,” I cry out, and I let out a shout so hoarse that Landon flinches. I can feel it in the way his hands jerk my shoulders back.
I can vaguely hear my mom calling out, “baby girl, baby girl,” but I can’t respond. I can’t seem to make myself do anything essential. Can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t shut the hell up with this crying.
The hands remove themselves, and I feel myself being pulled into a soft, familiar embrace. My mom smells like cooking oil and Chanel perfume, and I bury my face into her chest and sob some more. I don’t know why I’m crying. I just am.
My mom does nothing but shush me, now. Shush me and hold me, and tell me to breathe. It almost works. Almost. Then I picture dark hands pushing me down, pretty lips telling me I’ll like it, what he’s about to do, and me trusting him. Trusting him to take care of me, but then he just takes, he takes takes takes, and I tell him it’s enough, and he tells me it’s not over until he says it’s over, thinking I was playing along, but I wasn’t, and I lied there, paralyzed, unable to move, think, blink, look away, say no no no no no no no--
My mouth opens in a silent scream. Then, I am eerily calm. I slump against my mother, limp as a ragdoll.
It’s as boring as you think it is, and I have expelled nearly a dozen long-suffering sighs already. It’s been an hour and a half. We got here on time—Landon’s decision—and since then, only ten people have shown up. Half of them (that’s five) are sitting in a corner, reminiscing on old sleepovers and birthday parties that the other half of us (the other five) have no recollection of. Likely, it’s because we weren’t invited. I didn’t get invited to a lot of things in elementary school. I don’t know why I’ve been invited now.
Two of these people first avoid Landon and I, perhaps out of shame for how their ten and eleven -year old selves behaved back then. Forty-five minutes into the party, they both make a beeline for Landon, apologizing for every “faggot” and “sissy boy” they called him back on the playground six years ago. He accepts because he has always been gracious, and when they turn and nod to me, I just barely resist throwing up the finger and telling them to shove it up their asses.
I don’t know why I’ve been invited. I don’t know why I came.
(I know why I came, and it has everything to do with a sandy-skinned, moss-eyed boy begging me to come just because he wanted to see what would happen. I did put up a fight—truly, I did. But then, he pulled out the only child allowance money, and I had to cave. I just had to. And so all this is just for the 10-piece nugget meal he’ll buy me after, but I’ll happily eat my nuggets if I manage to get out of here without getting into a fist-fight.)
I’m sitting on Tara’s (the host’s) couch with my feet tucked under me, watching the few people in the room. Landon sits beside me with his feet planted firmly on the ground and his hands on his knees, tense and uncomfortable. I reach a hand out and smack him dead across his back. He’s so stiff that he doesn’t move, save to turn his head and glare at me.
“My bad,” I offer him, and he glowers harder. “I thought it would un-ruler your back.”
“I should shove a ruler up your—” He cuts himself off as the door opens. In an instant, the vibe shifts.
In walks the Peanut Gallery of Lincoln Elementary: Jade Edwards, Saday Simmons, Jahmir King, Tony Roger Jr., and Kayla Crawford. Tara runs up to Jade like they’re best friends, squealing and grabbing her hands, and they jump up and down in a circle exclaiming, “I can’t believe it’s you!” and “I missed you so much!” and “Oh my Goddddddddd!” until they feel like they’ve received enough attention from the rest of us. Only then do they pull away, allowing the rest of the group to begin making their rounds.
I’ve never really understood the Peanut Gallery. They don’t make a lot of sense together; they don’t even get along. The only thing they even remotely have in common is that they're all conventionally attractive and they all went to the same high school, yet, even then, they stuck together. Now, we’re all high school graduates in the limbo between our teenage years and adulthood, but they haven’t seemed to pick up on that fact. Instead, they choose to live in their perceived glory amongst the lower class (read: their elementary school classmates) and pretend like nothing has changed.
For them, maybe nothing has.
From that moment on, Tara hangs off of Jade like a designer handbag, empty, her head full of air for Jade to put on. I suspect she’s still salty about not ever truly making it into the Peanut Gallery, but she pretends to be very well. She is suddenly Jade’s best friend who she was woefully separated from during high school, but now they’re going to college in the same city, and she’s sure they’ll be close again soon. Jade simply nods, a half smirk on her lips, a dead stare in her eyes—she wants the dead weight off her arm, but Tara’s attached herself like a thumb tack, digging into Jade’s meat and staying put.
Tony is the first person to come up to me. He just stands there for a moment, then another. I think he expects me to address him first. I turn to Landon. “Do you have any more Skittles?”
He reaches into his bag, wordlessly tossing me the half-eaten pack, the bag twisted up like a red burlap sack of fruity goodness. I eat one at a time, looking everywhere but Tony as I chew. I hear Landon snicker, “petty” whispered under his breath, and finally, Tony opens his mouth to speak.
“What's up, Avaaa?” He sing-songs my name like he’s unsure about it.
“Nothing. Hi.” I don’t give him the pleasure of an interested response. I don’t think I’ve had a full conversation with this dude. Ever. I don’t even know why he’s talking to me.
He shifts, and I hear him inhale deeply through his nose. “How have you been? I heard about the shit with Dami.”
“I didn’t ask if you did,” I cut him off, because the last thing I want to talk about with Tony is Dami. Tony didn’t even go to the same school as us.
Tony shrugs. “I’m just saying,” he pulls a vape out of his pocket. When he catches my look of disgust and Landon’s raised eyebrow, he clarifies, “It’s not nicotine, it’s weed,” as if that somehow makes it better. Then, he takes a deep inhale and walks away, and I know that I’ve definitely earned my 10-piece nugget meal.
The music is changed from smooth R&B to shitty modern rap, and then all of the Peanut Gallery and their admirers get up to start dancing. Except that only the girls are dancing, and the guys are just watching. Some people are in the corner mixing Vodka with cranberry juice and topping the drinks with lime slices, and, well, you can tell it’s not a good mixer when they still wince as they drink it.
Still, the party seems to have picked up, now, and I almost feel at ease. Almost, until “Or Nah” begins playing on the speakers, and Kayla starts twerking in a split, and someone (I can’t make out who) shouts, “I bet Ava can do that bendy shit too!” and the whole crowd starts looking at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Landon scratch the back of his head and look away. Spineless, I think. Shitty ass best friend.
I sink further into Tara’s couch. At this point, Kayla is giving me a serious stink eye. “Go fuck yourself,” I say to no one in particular, and that’s when chaos ensues.
When I’m explaining all of this to my mother, I start with this: I was provoked.
One: “Come on, Ava, we tryna see what that gymnastics do!”
Two: “Yeah, cause you only fuck Dami!”
At this point, I’ve begun getting off of the couch and gathering my things. It’s been two hours and fifteen minutes—more than enough time to warrant me still getting my chicken nugget compensation from Landon.
I’m not arguing with a bunch of overgrown 12-year-olds. That’s what I keep telling myself as I put my shoes on, grab my jacket (a light one, because it gets into the low 70s at night), and stalk towards the door.
I’m not arguing with a bunch of overgrown 12-year-olds. I’m not arguing with a bunch of overgrown 12-year-olds. I’m not arguing with a bunch of overgrown 12-year-olds. I’m not–
Three: “Oh, I forgot she went from being a delinquent to a slut.”
I was provoked. I stand by it.
When the back of my hand connects with Kayla’s face, I’m barely keeping it together. Landon does not jump up to grab me because he knows she deserved it, and when she swings back and I start whooping her ass in earnest, he still doesn’t grab me because he knows she deserves it.
Eventually, someone pulls me off of the girl, but by the time they manage it (gymnastics isn’t just about flexibility, it’s also about strength), I have one of her braids in my hand and she’s probably going to have a bruised torso and a slightly swollen cheek. Personally, I have an itch on my left eyelid that tells me she scratched it good, and I’m pretty sure my ankle is sprained from when she got leverage on my tackle and fell on it. Still, I’m satisfied.
Tara’s mom is not. Tara’s mom is here. Why the fuck is Tara’s mom here?
So when Landon and I are in the car with my mom and I’m explaining this all to her, she’s stony-faced. Both of her hands grip the top of the steering wheel—not at ten-two, more like eleven-one—and she looks like she’s about to rip it off and let us drive off of the road. I know she doesn’t want me fighting, but this time couldn’t be helped. She has to understand this.
“I don’t understand,” okay, maybe not, “why you keep fucking doing this. What is wrong with you? Do you know that girl can press charges?”
“She won’t,” I say, and that’s all I can manage.
“But she can!” My mom’s voice booms throughout the car. It’s heavy and shrill and more than a little pissed off. “What the fuck— should I have sent you to a girl’s home or something? Is that the only way to get you to act like you got some sense?”
“She deserved it.”
My mom slams on the brakes at a red light. I jerk forward, my seatbelt locks, and I jerk back. My head smacks against the headrest. “You don’t have an ounce of common sense. Why can’t you just go a day without making bad choices?”
I’m starting to get irritated. She says the same shit every time I mess up, not even bothering to hear my side of the story. “She called me a slut. A slut for what happened with Dami.”
“Oh, okay, so we’re fighting words with fists now? We’ll see how well that holds up in court.”
And my eyes are starting to fill with tears, and my left eyelid starts to itch more so I rub it hard, and it irritates the wound. “You don’t fucking get it.”
My mom lets out a little “tsh” sound, making a sharp left without using her turn signal. A car honks behind us, but she’s already long past them. “Ava, I’m telling you right now. You can’t keep doing this. You can’t. You will go to jail.”
“You’re not even trying—”
“You’re not trying!” my mom shouts over me, and my lips begin to tremble. She is focused on the road. She doesn’t notice. “What happened with that lil’ boy was an awful, shitty situation. Nobody is denying that. But you can’t keep sitting here acting like every affront warrants a reaction like this out of you.”
A colony of ants crawls its way up my arms, picking at my skin, trying to find stress to feed on. It feels like an ice cube is stuck inside of my throat, like I accidentally swallowed it and am choking, water– I need water, and I can’t help it. A sob rips its way out of my chest. It’s a sound like I’m gasping for air but keep coming up with nothing, and the car jerks. My vision blurs with wet, salty tears, and I suddenly can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t see, can’t hear anything over the sound of my own gasping breaths, and can’t feel anything but the ants digging a trench into the palms of my hands. I grip the dashboard, sweaty fingers slipping and sliding, leaving damp fingerprints in their wake. I don’t realize that the car has stopped until Landon is opening the passenger side door and unbuckling my seatbelt, grabbing my shoulders, and speaking to me in a level voice.
“Hey, hey. Hey, now,” he chants, a litany of greetings, trying to get my attention onto himself. It does not work. “Ava–”
“I’m sorry,” I cry out, and I let out a shout so hoarse that Landon flinches. I can feel it in the way his hands jerk my shoulders back.
I can vaguely hear my mom calling out, “baby girl, baby girl,” but I can’t respond. I can’t seem to make myself do anything essential. Can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t shut the hell up with this crying.
The hands remove themselves, and I feel myself being pulled into a soft, familiar embrace. My mom smells like cooking oil and Chanel perfume, and I bury my face into her chest and sob some more. I don’t know why I’m crying. I just am.
My mom does nothing but shush me, now. Shush me and hold me, and tell me to breathe. It almost works. Almost. Then I picture dark hands pushing me down, pretty lips telling me I’ll like it, what he’s about to do, and me trusting him. Trusting him to take care of me, but then he just takes, he takes takes takes, and I tell him it’s enough, and he tells me it’s not over until he says it’s over, thinking I was playing along, but I wasn’t, and I lied there, paralyzed, unable to move, think, blink, look away, say no no no no no no no--
My mouth opens in a silent scream. Then, I am eerily calm. I slump against my mother, limp as a ragdoll.
I come to in my living room. Landon is sitting next to me, reading a book. When my eyes open, he puts his full attention on me.
“How are you?” he asks. He flips his book upside down onto his thigh, still open, saving his page.
I grunt. “Fine, no thanks to you.” My voice is sore and hoarse. I continue speaking anyway. “I can’t believe you made me go there.”
He looks at me for a moment and tilts his head. Man of few words. Then, he places a hand over my eyes and says, “I’ll buy you lunch all week to make up for it.”
I relax into his touch. “Fuck yeah you will. Hmph.”
“How are you?” he asks. He flips his book upside down onto his thigh, still open, saving his page.
I grunt. “Fine, no thanks to you.” My voice is sore and hoarse. I continue speaking anyway. “I can’t believe you made me go there.”
He looks at me for a moment and tilts his head. Man of few words. Then, he places a hand over my eyes and says, “I’ll buy you lunch all week to make up for it.”
I relax into his touch. “Fuck yeah you will. Hmph.”
Trinity Jones
