Mean Girl

You were the meanest girl I ever met. You didn’t go out of your way to mean, but you didn’t try not to be, and when you were, you meant it. You really meant it.

Your nose was even mean and positioned on your long, cruel neck. But the way you held it up there, that nose on that neck, was ethereal.

I was surprised you spoke to me at all, and that you spoke like that. Did you say those things to any one else? Was it because I mattered or because I didn’t matter at all that you told me those things?

You snuck me off, more than once. You smiled at me, when you smiled at me, to acknowledge our conspiracy before I even imagined we had one. You tickled my knee. I won't forget the costumes, you, your sister, or the pirate women. I especially won't forget the pirates.

You floated through the sad girls like an ice queen. They knelt and you didn’t care, they spoke and you only lengthened your neck. I wondered if you even had a heart and how you could know so much, think so well, and be so empty. I still don’t know what is in you.

I know that one girl, who may very well be dead today, told me then that she wanted the darkness, and she said I could say nothing worthwhile, and she told me she needed you instead. And I didn’t know why, until one night. It was after they were supposed to be asleep.

Su was the most lost, wasn’t she? The most really, really hurt girl, she dreamed nightmares when she was awake. And visions were not fears, but they were real memories. And she tried to cut them out of her. She was too much for us. We were afraid of her; our training didn’t teach us how to bring her out of that.

She had the cutter in her hand, and every night that started like this before had ended with a struggle, with screaming, withpaper work and sometimes with eight of our hands just to keep that girl alive.

That night, you said you would take a try and then knelt down beside her.

We couldn’t hear what you said with your lips to her ear. I imagined your were speaking Latin, I could only hear your voice buzz. And in a whisper, the tenderest voice I have heard in my life came from you and you chanted “not tonight, not tonight.”

I listened, transfixed with you, as every one else stood amazed that Su loosened her hand, let the blade slide to the floor still clean, and she fell asleep.

Where have you been? Why did you know how to bring that girl back? You have never told me that. You hid the scars on your own arms from me for so long.

I only heard you speak in that voice once, but I loved you because I knew you had it.