Confessions of a High School Supermodel

1

Maddie hung out in the bathroom stall, checking her phone and desperately wishing she could make time move faster. 

Only four more minutes until lunch ends! she thought hopefully. 

Maddie hated it in here.  It was a bathroom, what did she expect?  After hundreds of girls had been in and out all day, the floors were sticky and damp, the stall felt cramped, and the smell of you-know-what made her want to vomit.  But no matter how bad it was inside here, it was still safer than being out there.  She didn't usually spend lunchtime hiding in the girl's bathroom, but lately high school had become particularly unbearable.

Her thoughts drifted to yesterday, when everyone had laughed in her face after she'd sat in a mass of squishy ketchup.  Maddie still wasn't sure if someone had squirted ketchup on that bench on purpose, or if it had all been a simple accident. 

Her throat tightened as she remembered how everyone had chuckled and snickered when she stood up and tried to wipe off the ketchup smeared all over her butt.  "That time of the month again?" some stupid boy had yelled.

Maddie tried to keep the tears from flowing.  I'm a loser, she repeated to herself.  She thought of a couple different ways to say it.  I am the biggest loser in the entire word.  I am the loseriest loser that ever loosed.  I am Lozerilla.  I am such a complete and total----

Suddenly, a girl banged on the door of Maddie's stall, startling her. 

A whiny voice called out, "Hurry up in there, whoever you are!  You've been in that freaking bathroom forever and other people have to use it!  There's a line, you know!" 

Maddie was startled.   "Uh..... I've got diarrhea," she called out.  It was the first thing that had popped into her head. 

She could hear the girl screech "Ewwww!" and back away from the door.

Maddie could feel her face turning crimson even though she knew no one could see her.  She closed her eyes for a second and tried to focus on breathing through her mouth and not her nose.

She glanced at her phone again.  Two more minutes. Maddie started to reread all the graffiti scribbled on the bathroom door directly in front of her. This consisted mainly of a giant "YOLO" someone had scrawled in black permanent marker, as well as a couple of gross poems about pooping.  

But Maddie's eyes were distracted by something written just below "YOLO," in what looked like mechanical pencil.  It was so light she could barely read it. The note said, "They're all just jealous of you."

For a second, Maddie pondered that statement as if it had been written just for her.  Jealous of me?  Jealous of acne and frizzy hair and never having been kissed and being a loser with hardly any real friends?  She dug her own mechanical pencil out of her tote bag.  She carefully sketched a reply below the note.  It was three simple words.

"Don't think so."

Finally, the lunch bell rang and Maddie could feel her muscles relax with relief.  Back to class at last, where no one could be mean to her or exclude her or make her even more aware of what a hopeless loser she was.  These days, Maddie felt like the time she spent in class was a blessing.  This was where she could sit quietly at her desk and no one would bother her.  Where she could throw herself into her schoolwork and shut out the rest of the world.  Because after all, when you weren't one of the pretty girls, you had to become one of the "pretty smart" girls. 

Maddie made it to English class, making sure to take her time and walk slowly so that she wouldn't get there too early and have to sit there awkwardly while everyone else chatted and laughed with their friends.  She stopped to refill her water bottle at the fountain.  She dawdled at her locker.  She retied her shoes. 

When she got to class, everyone was chattering and joking with the typical snap, crackle, pop of the last class on a Friday afternoon.

Maddie slipped into her seat exactly as the second bell rang and not a moment before.  After years of practice, she was a pro at that by now. 

The prattle died down as Mrs. Sternus appeared and barked, "Settle down, you guys!  Everybody get out your books.  We're going to go over Act Two of A Midsummer Night's Dream..."

Notes in the Bathroom Stall

If you sprinkle when you tinkle,

Be a sweetie and wipe the seatie!

Here I sit,

What a caper...

I have to poo,

But I'm out of paper

I stink, therefore I am.

Fart loud if you love Jesus!

They paint these walls,

To stop my pen,

But the shithouse poet,

Strikes again!

Some kids come to sit and think.

Others come to shit and stink.

I just came to make a call,

And read the words upon the wall.

Here I sit, muscles flexin'

Just gave birth to another Texan.