Under Her Skin

Chapter 12

Police Officer: What happened to Callie?

Me: Selena kicked her out of the Kitties for good. The next day, she vanished into thin air. Nobody saw her again.

Police Officer: And Cole?

Me: Gone with the wind. Rumor has it that Selena finished both of them off.

***

Sunny bolted to the transgender bathrooms right as the bell rang for lunch, but the Kitties were already there, waiting for her arrival. The three of them sat cross-legged in the handicap stall with their butt cheeks flat on the cold cement floor. The girls, knee-to-knee with each other, formed a semi-circle around the toilet. The stall was sealed by the white brick walls and together with Selena's culpable eyes, the whole room gave a rather odd vibe, as if someone was lying dead on the other side of the wall.

"Sit," Selena said, sipping her coke. Sunny pulled in the door, turned around, and came face-to-face with the flawless-looking group of white girls. No Callie. Just yesterday, Sunny saw her in her usual hooker outfit, clicking her heels as she twisted her body down the halls. Then, gone. Oddly, the group didn't seem too worried about it.

"Ni hao!" Tate said in a black revealing crop top and biker shorts that were clearly too short.

"Ha-ha-ha," laughed Ashley.

"Soooo Sunny, how many hours of sleep did you get last night?" Tate spoke in a voice that was cute on sunny days but pestering on days where the world bites you.

"What?" To Sunny, her entrance seemed excessively awkward, unnatural. She fancied that the girls resented the interruption and I could tell she was thinking about leaving. She had to call up all her strength of mind not to bolt.

"Well, you look very tired. Your eyes can barely keep themselves open!"

"I do?" Sunny's cheeks, rubescent, suddenly displayed an awkward and uneasy self-consciousness. She quickly positioned her palm to her face and started to pat her eyes frantically. Selena turned to Tate and said something like, "No T, I think... I think she's just like Korean or something." Sunny was Chinese, but that didn't seem to matter. The bigoted behavior of the friend group was not always clear from the beginning. Sunny bit into her rice, and she bit hard.

The girls had little private homes of their own which, unintelligible to the outsider, amused them enormously. Though surrounded with chatter and excitement, she was perhaps a little lonely, with a touch of envy of the pleasant life which she had had a glimpse. A little bit offended by such existence without the share of the majority, Sunny's eyes began to wander around the stall.

On the back of the door, a sad stick figure stood in one corning. WHORE someone had in black ink above the lean man. I WANT TO DIE, someone else had written alongside, in letters so small they seemed afraid to draw attention to themselves. Besides that, a drooping penis with thick prickles of hair sticking out the side was drawn in purple ink. In the center of it all were three huge words. CALLIE IS DEAD. Sunny blinked. It was possible.

"Ok time for the rules. Listen up. Rule #1: lunches in the bathrooms. Always. There are no exceptions," said Tyra.

Sunny, in a mire of dysfunction, was amazed that this was happening. Though Ashley and Tate were less attractive than their photographs had suggested, they still were THE KITTIES. The girls who all went to their beach houses and lake cabins for the summer and spring breaks. The girls who cheered on the boys at football games, and when they brought home victory, the girls who'd kiss them with their beautiful shiny red lips. And now they were teaching Sunny how to be like them.