Under Her Skin

Chapter 8

Police Officer: So, there was a viral video?

Me: There were multiple.

***

"Oh my god. Are you alright?" said Lyssa. Sunny woke up with the purple around her eyes starting to harden into a thick black crust. The discoloration caused by broken blood vessels under her skin formed a patch of bruises.

"It's nothing," Sunny said, touching her face all over. "We play dodge ball and sometimes I get hit in the face."

"What about your lips? They're... so cut." That was one of Sunny's bad habits. Biting her lips to cure nervousness.

"The dodge ball hit my braces, and the metal cuts it. It's really fine though."

"What? Are you kidding? This is really—"

"We're going to be late!" Sunny rushed out the door, and Lyssa followed out of obligation. The meat of their day began, driven by frustration.

***

Sunny stayed out by the front yard until Selena arrived, aspiring that she'd come over. Either she never noticed, or she noticed but chose not to care. Sunny stood staring at Selena, who was being greeted on the way to school each morning, circulated by her guffawing friends. She broke out into a group and very quickly became absorbed in her own affairs.

Sunny studied just enough to get the grades her mother expected of her, and spent the rest of her free time daydreaming about Selena.

You can't just become friends with somebody and then leave.

***

After school, Sunny arrived perusal to her locker. The rusty lock stuck a bit but eventually, the door swung open.

And surprise.

Yellow. Yellow sticky notes everywhere. They covered all four walls and were arranged messily, remiss-fully in all directions. They were so bright of neon that you couldn't look at them for more than a few seconds without getting neuralgia. 

Sunny shifted her head around like a moth, scanning the few notes that faced upwards: a few bolded swear words, then some more, and then...she gulped. Somebody had put these here to make her look stupid. She peered over her left shoulder, and then her right for the groups of evil kids pointing at her. Nobody.

Sunny looked menaced.

The textbooks fell from her chest. She was enticed by the notes; her body was in a twitter: perturbed, neurotic, edgy, highly-strung.

Sunny picked up a bright yellow one. Her legs melted into strawberry jello. It read:

Is this neon too yellow for you? Well, that's how much it stings looking at you every day.

She blinked, quaffed her spit. The blood rushed up to her cheeks. She took off another one.

What's the problem with an Asian pet store? There's always a kitchen in the back!!!

The writing was bad, the letters jagged, the sentence dragged out, careless. Bad-ass. Sunny ripped off another note and used all the strength she had to battle the words that cut her like knives. Her heart went insane until it became just one long, unable-pause, rhythmic beat. She looked afraid, mostly because she was being spat on like a hairball, stepped on like dirt. It was starting to make her uncomfortable, starting to make Sunny resent living in her own skin.