Stephanie Lauter is fifteen years old, full of rage and something her therapist says is “internalized injustice.” Or whatever, it’s not like she cares what that woman has to say. Her and those stupid self–help audiobooks she makes Stephanie listen to. Like something can help her at this point.
A pack of stolen cigarettes and a green lighter in her pocket, phone in the other, earphones’ cord swinging back and forth as she blasts Jack Off Jill, trying to get through the crowds in Hatchetfield High’s hallways. Given, she knows that between the third and fourth period most people try to get to the lunch room and to the next classes, but if people would stop panting in her neck, she would really appreciate it.
The door to the bathroom creaks loudly as she steps through, and creaks even louder when she slams it. The room is empty, as usual. The privilege of knowing all the ins and outs of this goddamn school from sneaking off during detention when the teacher supposed to be supervising her and the other students passes out on the desk.
She slams the door to the first open cabin, kicking it back closed as she fights with her pants to get out her cigarettes and lighter. The lighter flickers and smoke fills the four plastic walls around her. It fills her with some weird kind of a screaming peace.
Then the song ends, and pleasant noise drowning out her internal martyrdom cuts. One glance at the internet icon tells her that there’s no reception.
“Fucking piece of shit.” She mumbles, and attempts to climb onto the toilet, trying to catch any internet. The gray lines seemingly mock her as she bends and twists to pick up any kind of connection to the world outside this disinfectant and weed–smelling bathroom. “I hate this shithole.”
Then she notices.
There’s sobbing. Pitiful and baby–like, bouncing off the dirty walls of the bathroom, reverberating in her eardrums like the buzzing of a mosquito in summer when she's trying to sleep. And it’s not something she expects to hear in her bathroom, the usually deserted one, on third fucking floor and the end of a corridor, where no one dares to look, especially during a lunch break.
“Hello?” She calls out to the bathroom. Her voice bounces back to her, and the sobbing and sniffling does not quieten a bit. If Stephanie could rely on her shitty hearing, she would say it only intensified. “Can you, fucking— Cry a little quieter? I can’t even take a piss in here.”
“Sorry.” The voice sounding out from the cabin next to her vaguely reminds her of something, scratching at the back of Stephanie’s mind. On the other hand, she knows about the entire Hatchetfield from parties, so she probably bumped into them at one of them. She lifts the cigarette up to her mouth again, taking a drag, and suddenly—
“Chasity?”
Another sniffle — Stephanie chokes back a cough from the unfinished drag — and the sound of material shuffling. The silence after it feels like a bullet hanging in the air. “Yes.”
Stephanie stares at the wall ahead of her, tiles giving back a distorted view of her befuddled face and smudged eyeliner. Chasity? Grace Chasity, the crazy Jesus girl who keeps trying to convert everyone who has the misfortune of standing in the hallway for a second too long? Who had a panic attack when she wasn’t chosen to play Mary in the nativity scene in first grade? The weird girl with her kitten backpack and elbow–long PE shirts? Her, of all people, sobbing in the school toilet?
“What the fuck are you doing here?” The words jump out of her mouth faster than her brain can process that they might actually hurt someone.
“Nothing.” Grace snaps back immediately.
Stephanie furrows her brows at another hitch of Grace’ breath that comes after her words and another prolonged, high whine. “That doesn’t sound like nothing.”
Grace doesn’t respond, in fact, her crying seems to kick up a notch, sniffling and coughing wetly like she’s having an asthma attack. Stephanie can practically feel the cheap plastic walls of the stalls shaking. Shoes slide with a dry sound on the floor, over the paper towels abandoned there to be picked up by the janitors.
She licks her lips, feeling the cracked skin sting as her saliva hits it. She’s not trained for this type of situation, she knows how to market herself for potential investors and smile prettily in pictures for the newspapers, she doesn’t know how to deal with someone sobbing their lungs out in the cabin next to her.
One look downwards and her cigarette is dead. The tip has gone from a burning orange–red to pitch black, dropping tiny pieces of dark filter onto the floor. Fucking hell. Or heaven, wherever this second coming of Jesus next door wants to go.
“Want a smoke?”
A small huff comes from the stall. “I don’t smoke, degenerate.” She says smoke as if even the word personally offends her. Steph doesn’t even pay attention to how casually Grace insulted her.
“Alright, fucking hell. More for me.” She takes another drag, relishing in the feeling of smoke hitting her lungs. Until multiple wet cough–sniffle sounds run her personal paradise to the ground. “Do you have toilet paper, at least? You sound like you're about to choke on yourself in there.”
“No.” Grace says with a wet pop as her mouth opens, and Steph’s face crumples in disgust silently. Gross. This is why she's never going to work with kids and their snotty faces.
Wordlessly, Stephanie bunches up toilet paper around her hand and slides it underneath the faux wood wall. Grace’s hand is wet and cold, frog–like, her mind suggests as their hands make the briefest contact before Grace tugs hers back so forcefully some of the toilet paper rips off.
There are more loud, awkward sounds as Grace blows her nose into the paper and inhales sharply, like she can’t properly catch a breath again. And then the stall door creaks and Grace’s white low–tops shuffle in front of Steph’s tall, only ringing of the rosary attached to her backpack accompanying her and she slams the bathroom door shut.
…
Steph: Dude, you won’t guess what just happened
Ping of a message coming through.
Max: Hwat