"Don't Look At Me"

V

"can you do me a favour?"

she asked.

"don't look at me."

•••••

A boy comes up to me in class. The teacher is too busy trying to confiscate a baggie filled with white powder from someone else, so I can't rely on her to tell him to go away.

I mutter two words in the most controlling tone I can, but I don't look at him, or let him look at me.

"Go away."

He takes my words as an invitation to plunk his butt down on my desk and steal my idle pencil.

I slide my hands under the desk and try to refrain from picking at my scabs.

"You never listen, do ya? We have to work on some stupid project together. Miss Priss decided to make up with the photography teacher, and now we have to some messed thing about like, opposites or something. I dunno, but I think that we should just cover you in Wite-Out and snap a couple of nude pics or something."

I bang my knee against the bottom of the desk because I'm bouncing it up and down too hard.

"Go away."

He just doodles a picture on the top of my desk, right next to the engraving of "Suzi the Slutz fone #," and a crude drawing of a man's genitals.

"OK, so it's settled, I'll come over to your house at 5 tonight. Ciao."

He makes one more scribble, then signs his name with a flourish, and dances back to his seat.

help.