I Don't Really Know...

Chapter 16: El Diablo

I look at the black watch I wear everyday, the bus bumping up and down in the potholes on the road.  Could the roads in this neighborhood be any worse?  

I lean against the bus window, watching blurred landscapes whip by my eyes.  Last night hadn’t been good, with me sneaking back into the house and finishing my homework at about 4 AM.  

My eyes flutter and my head hangs, my body going limp.  I hear a loud honk, myself snapping my head up, banging the glass window.  I grimace and hold my head, moving my hair out of the way so I can feel the possible-forming bump.  

“Are you ok?”  I look over and the question still hangs in the air from a girl with green eyes and thick, dirty blonde hair.  It’s in an enormous french braid, cascading down her neck and ending at her stomach.

“Yeah...just tired.”  I smile, then pointing at her hair.  “I love your hair, by the way.  It’s beautiful.”  She beams.  

“Thanks!  I don’t like yours, though.  It’s too thin.  You barely have any hair.  How can you stand it?  The color of it...I can’t even talk about it.  Wait, I got it!  Did you dip it into a mixture of blood and mud at the campgrounds of your jailroom?”  She cackled loudly.  

I see now.  Just tricks.  No actual sincerity at all.  

I touch my hair, rubbing the fine strands between my fingers, thinking about what she had spit.  I cautiously glanced at a lock of my hair.  Wavy, but some pieces straight.  Small waves, and almost nonexistent body and volume.  

A tear dared to escape my eye, but I quickly pounced on it and wiped it away with the back of my hand.  A voice started laughing again.  It didn’t sound like the girl.  

You think you’ll ever be beautiful?  That girl is right.  Your hair is like a veteran’s through a war.  Burned off, singed, gray, aged, thin.  

I tried to shake it out of my head.  My conciousness wouldn’t stop talking.

Disgusting.  Disgraceful.  Unimportant.  Not wanted.  

The devil in my mind...El Diablo...will the monster ever leave my head after this?  I continue to squeeze my eyes shut and try to stop thinking.

It doesn’t work.  El Diablo and the stupid French-braid girl with amazing hair continues to laugh and chortle, piercing my brain and making it hurt.  

The bus came to a slow stop in front of the school, the doors clicking open.  I grabbed my backpack, distraught, ran down the rubber steps held to the bus with strips of metal.  

Gangs of kids crowded the fairly large sidewalk, opposed to the loner, the detestation, of the school.  I grabbed people’s shoulders and used all of my strength to push them.  

I see Alicia, I’m going toward her from the flow of the crowd, I cannot change direction.  I’m about to run into her.  She is about to be the next person I shove.  She looks up at me, her smile turning into a sneer.  I can’t even do anything back, make any emotion.  I keep my head down, pull my cap toward my face, and continue to hustle throughout the swarm.  

I finally make it to the front door.  I don’t have time to stop.  The throng of kids sweeps me through the entry-way, not letting me escape the claustrophobic crowd.  I spot a bathroom.  I deviate from the crowd and slam the door open with my open palms, expecting to see no one.  

The homeroom bell rings.  You actually think I care?  I threw the door to a stall open wide, only to let out a little scream.  

There, sitting on the toilet lid, with her black sweatshirt, dark-wash jeans, and black converse, was…

My thoughts were interrupted by someone else coming into the bathroom quietly, but I could still hear the soft squeak of shoes.  

I quickly enter another stall, bolting the lock and breathing quietly, hearing the person fuss over her makeup, putting little touch-ups all over her eyes and cheeks.  Mumbles are the only sounds, about her hair and her looks.  

I slowly put my feet up on the lid so the girl won’t be able to see my shadow, and in a couple minutes I hear the heavy door being closed and silence in the entire girl’s bathroom.  El Diablo won’t stop talking in my mind, and I mentally scream at it to shut up.

I cautiously undo the dead-bolt and peak out, seeing no one but the shadow of converse in the next stall.  The girl comes out too, peaking around her stall door.  Her eyes are red and extremely puffy, and I see a pair of scissors in her hand.  

“What are you doing here?  What are those?” My voice becomes more panicky.  I try to reach for them, but she pulls them out of my reach and diverges away from my sight.  I only hear the creaks of the door and a faint, soft voice saying…

“Don’t worry about me.  This is all behind us.”  

She doesn’t look at me, but I go towards the door quickly, only to see dark brown hair vanish around the corner.  I slump to the ground, sitting against the wall, and stare down the hallway, thinking of just one word.  

Mila.