In Riptides

13 | where loyalties lie

L I A

I've forgotten how long you're normally supposed to wash your hands for. My new normal is that I keep going because I never feel clean enough. I go until my fingers are raw and pruney or until someone breaks me out of the trance. Today that someone is Rachel, but she doesn't do it intentionally.

Lately she's been talking more than usual, and I think it's to try and distract me from everyone else talking, but the sharp loss of her voice grabs my attention in the bathroom at school.

I turn to the stall she's in. "What's wrong?"

The toilet flushes and she almost ejects herself out of there, putting on an artificial smile. "Nothing."

She washes her hands in lightening speed, hastily pulling me along before she's even dried them. I pull away and make a start for the stall and whatever was strong enough to take her voice, ignoring her protests, finding the cause in ten seconds.

Lia DeMarco is a dirty cheating SLUT.

I stare at the scrawled words staring back at me, an immediate prickling heat stirring in my chest. Pouring into the open gash of my heart. Somehow the whispers don't feel as real as this. They hover in the air and surround me, but seeing this, knowing someone took the time to pull out a marker and make those whispers tangible – it's like it makes it official. This must be who I am now.

"It doesn't mean anything, okay?" Rachel says, ripping a bunch of toilet paper from a roll. "Just some stupid bored person with nothing better to do than be a bitch."

I watch her rubbing at the words. They don't budge. She wets the toilet paper and tries again. Nothing changes. Then she rummages around in her bag, muttering about a marker, but I stop her.

"Leave it," I snap, swallowing my anger. "I doubt this is the only bathroom with something like this, anyway."

It doesn't even take a full day to prove me right, because by the time school lets out, Rob is sitting in detention after getting caught smashing a tile with the bottom of his crutch in a boys' bathroom. And what was written on that tile was far cruder than simply calling me a slut.

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"What? Please tell me you're joking."

I'm standing across from Mom in her office at the restaurant, having just told her why Rob isn't here. She's swamped in paperwork, and I would have avoided telling her and adding to her stress, but he's meant to be going for a checkup with his doctor today.

"Barely into this semester and he's already in detention. What is wrong with him? Now I have to reschedule that appointment and..." She slips into Italian muttering, rubbing at her temples before she asks what I wish she wouldn't. "So what was it this time?"

Her eyes drop to my hands and I'm suddenly aware of how hard I'm wringing them. I force them to unknot, crossing my arms instead. "Destruction of school property."

"Destruction of—" She gives me a baffled look. "What did he destroy?"

"I don't know. Maybe he was messing around with his friends and it was just an accident or something. Can I work in the kitchen today?"

She blinks, pausing. "Um... sure. I suppose Renato could use more help with prep for dinner—"

"Great. Thanks." I'm already out the door, making a beeline for the kitchen.

It's not like the restaurant is ever flooded with students, but sometimes they come in for coffee or gelato, and the possibility of waiting on even one person I know is a daunting thought that turns my stomach inside out and upside down.