Thursday, July 14, 2011

Jayla

Jayla:  The story spread.
My story!
I found out after I got my lunch of a bagel with nothing on it and a bottle of water.  As I passed the jock table on my way to the theater table, this guy, this jerk-off, he got in front of me and mimed unzipping his you-know-what.  He mimed holding out something huge, when his is probably all shrunken and small, pinky-sized, not zuchinni –sized like he was pretending.
I only noticed because I was trying not to.
Then the cheerleaders, well not all of them, they’re not all evil, but a bunch of them, they started pretending to suck dick.
Swallowing back my tears, I hope they don’t see me gulp, but it’s too late.
“Swallow!  Swallow!”  they chant. 
Turning red, I don’t even have to swallow my own spit, my mouth is so dry.  I hurry past.  When I get to my table, not really my table, but the theater-geek table I’ve adopted… I find a place at the end, across from my friend Lauren.  She looks at me with sad eyes.
So, she knows too.
They all know, I swallow.  I suck dick, and I swallow.  That’s what they’re going to call me for the next four years, right?  Right?  Swallow.
Because it’s not like I’m smart and get all A’s, even in honors math and English, it’s not like I’m the youngest reporter for the school paper, and it’s not like I got this cute haircut that cost me a week of babysitting money, and at home I take care of ‘lissa and Mikey, and I bake fresh cheddar cheese bread which I slather with butter and toast in a pan – making the best Goddamned grilled cheese sandwiches in the whole fucking world.  It’s not like I wasn’t Miss Petite Westie, then L’il Miss Westie, and finally, last year, Miss Westie, riding in my own float in the Memorial Day parade and again this year, in the Labor Day parade.
It’s not like I’m all that, not to them.
To these kids I’m mostly meeting for the first time, I’m only my reputation as a girl who swallows.