The Way I Used to Be

I BARELY SLEEP AT all that night. So I wake up early and get ready. Before Mom and Dad even. Nobody’s at school yet by the time I get there. The burnt stench of cheap coffee wafts out from the teacher’s lounge, but there’s not a person in sight. I go into the girls’ bathroom on the first floor and open the window to sneak a cigarette while no one’s around.

I try to get my head together in here. I’m so terrified about seeing him later today, I can hardly think straight. I consider going home sick. That would be a good excuse. If only I didn’t actually want to see him later.

I hear someone coming. I toss my cigarette and slam the window shut. This time of the morning, it has to be a teacher. I race into one of the stalls and lock it behind me. Stepping up onto the toilet seat, I hold my breath and wait.

The door screeches open and two voices whisper frantically to each other.

“Hurry up, hurry up. Lock it, lock it now.”

“Okay, I got it. Here, here.”

“Hurry! Hurry,” they whisper breathlessly.

Their sheer excitement makes me need to know more. I cautiously position myself to look through the crack between the door and the wall of the stall, careful not to make a sound. That’s when I see her: Amanda. I can’t seem to get away from her lately.

“Okay, here,” she says to this other girl—another freshman I’ve seen around, always with this snarky look on her face—handing her a marker.

“All right, and what are we writing again?” Snarky Girl asks, staring at the wall.

“You know—slut, whore, skank, bitch, whatever. All true, so just take your pick,” Amanda tells her.

Armed with two wide-tipped permanent markers, they approach the bathroom wall. Amanda goes first. She presses the spongy tip of the marker against the grimy, pale pink tiles and it squeaks as I watch her carefully write the words:

EDEN MCCROREY IS A WHORE

I can barely believe it. I can barely breathe.

Then Snarky steps up and draws a little arrow between the words “A” and “WHORE,” and writes in this sickeningly self-assured scrawl:

Totally Slutty Disgusting

“How’s that?” she asks Amanda with a smile.

“Perfect!”

“And why is she a totally slutty disgusting whore, again?” She laughs.

“Trust me, she just is,” Amanda says as they stand back and admire their work. “Besides, she practically screwed some guy out by the tennis courts after school yesterday!” she lies.

I cover my mouth with my hand. I would have killed her, would have pushed her out the window. I would have screamed at the top of my lungs at her. Except I’m paralyzed.

“Oh, gross!” Snarky shouts.

“Yeah, completely,” Amanda agrees. “Okay, come on, we don’t have much time.”

Then they leave. I let them leave. But I still can’t move. I’m frozen, crouched on top of the toilet, my mouth hanging open, my hand still covering it.

I don’t know how much time goes by before I snap out of it. I push open the stall door and walk up to the wall in absolute disbelief. I touch the black, inky, hateful words with my fingers. I hear a voice in the hall. And a locker slams shut. People are getting here. I quickly pull a whole armful of paper towels out of the dispenser and soak them in soap and water. Then I go to the wall and scrub, scrub, scrub against those words, using the strength of my whole body, until I can’t even catch my breath, until I’m crying. I look at the wall. The words still stare back at me. Unchanged. I let the sopping wad of paper towels fall to the floor. I clench my fists, digging my fingernails into my palms, wanting to punch the wall, wanting to punch anything.

Just then these three pretty, popular senior girls push through the door, midconversation. They assemble in front of the mirror. I turn my back to them as I wipe my eyes dry. Then I walk to the sink to wash the wet paper towel crumbs off my hands.

“Oh, ouch!” one of them shouts. My head snaps up to look at her. She points to the wall with her mascara wand, and says, “Someone’s been a bad girl.”

They all laugh. My heart feels like a bird trapped in a cage in my chest. Its wings flapping violently against the bars of bone. I want to smash this girl’s pretty face into the mirror so hard. Then another one of them asks, “Who the hell is Eden McCrorey, anyway?”

“A whore, apparently,” the third girl answers, laughing.

“No,” the first girl corrects, “a totally slutty disgusting whore, you mean.”

And they cackle like little witches, following one after the other back out into the hallway. I just stand there and let them get away with talking about me like that.

I race out into the hall, my head in a fog, determined to find those girls and tell them they can’t treat me like that. To tell them it’s all lies. To go find Amanda and pound her into the ground. But I stop after only a few steps. The halls are beginning to fill with people and noise. And those girls have dispersed already.

I go to my locker instead. I try to act like nothing’s different. Try to just get through the day as if I don’t know, as if there’s nothing to know. I manage to avoid every single person who knows me. But Mara finds me in the library during lunch.

“Hey,” she whispers, coming up behind me as I’m shelving books. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

It was inevitable. I let her pull me by the arm deeper into the aisle.

“So, Edy,” she begins, “I have to tell you something. It’s bad. But before I do, remember, it will be okay. I just—I think you should know.”

“I know,” I tell her.

“You do?” she asks, her face in a grimace.

I nod—try to smile, shrug like I don’t even care.

“It’s insane! I don’t know who would start rumors like that. About you of all people!”

“I don’t know,” I lie.

“Well, Cameron and I went through all the bathrooms and tried to scribble them out. We’ve been doing that all morning, so it’s okay. I hoped you wouldn’t have to see it, though,” she admits.

“Cameron went into the girls’ bathroom?”

“No, the boys’ bathrooms.”

I hadn’t even considered they would have gone into the boys’ bathrooms too. “Thank you for doing that, Mara. I mean it. I think everyone’s seen it already, though,” I tell her. “Can’t undo that.” I laugh bitterly.

“Well, fuck everyone!” she says too loudly, and a bunch of heads turn toward us. “I’m really sorry, Edy,” she whispers. “I don’t understand this at all.” She’s so sad it’s almost like it’s happening to her and not me. “Want to come over tonight? We can eat all kinds of junk food and just veg out?” she tries.

“I can’t. I actually have plans.”

“You do? With who?” she asks, shocked.

I look around to make sure no one can hear, and lower my voice so that I’m barely speaking. “Josh. Joshua Miller.”

“Oh my God! Are you serious?” she whispers, her smile stretching wide. “How did this happen?”

“I don’t know, it just . . . happened. He asked me out.”

“Edy?” Mara’s smile suddenly contracts. “You don’t think it was him, do you? Because if it was, then you definitely don’t want to go out with him, right?”

“It wasn’t him.”

“Yeah, but how can you be sure?” she asks, rightfully suspicious.

“I’m positive,” I assure her, but she doesn’t look convinced.

“Edy, I’m worried now. You’re gonna be really careful, right?” she asks, her voice trembling faintly. “Because he’s kind of from this whole different world. He’s older. I mean, what if he’s expecting something, you know?”

“So what if he is?” I answer immediately. “I don’t know, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

“Really?” she asks in disbelief. “But—but aren’t you afraid?”

“No,” I lie. I am afraid. But in this other way, I’m also more afraid of being afraid. Afraid of not doing it too. Afraid that maybe I would be too afraid to ever do it. That Kevin would continue to control me in these ways I had never even dreamed of. And suddenly the thought of having someone else there in place of him is something I required-wanted-needed, in the most severe of ways. And I don’t really care who, anyone else at all will do. This guy, Josh, he’s good enough. He did, after all, pick me a weed.

“Maybe the rumors aren’t such a lie after all,” I muse.

“Shut up, Edy,” Mara says, her face completely straight. “Don’t you ever say that again. That’s not true and you know it!”

“Sorry,” I tell her. She stares at me for a second too long, like she wants to keep arguing the point, but she doesn’t. “I’m sorry,” I repeat.

“Edy, you have to be sure,” she says firmly. “If you’re going to do it—like really, really sure. It’s not like you get to take it back if you—”

But I have to stop her. “Don’t worry, okay? Who knows if anything will even happen?” I lie, trying to make her feel better.

“Oh God,” she moans, both horrified and delighted at even the possibility. “Joshua Miller—that’s big. Like. Huge.”

I grin in spite of my fear, at the thought of things being different—the thought of me being different. “Yeah, I guess it is.”