Lucinda

      Lucinda is a great girlfriend. She tells me I’m pretty. Always, darling, you’re so pretty. I go red. No one has ever called me pretty before. I say thank you. I touch my chin to my collarbone and stare at my hands, folded in my lap. She glances over at me from the driver’s seat and laughs. I look up at the way her hair falls on the pale skin of her shoulders. I love looking at Lucinda and Lucinda loves how I look at her.
      Lucinda loves driving. I am just learning how to drive, but Lucinda’s real good at it. Sometimes, I ask her if I can try driving, get some practice, but she shakes her head and smiles. Baby, you’re too pretty to drive. Let me do it, she says. I smile. Okay, Lucinda, I say. I do not know what being pretty has to do with driving, but Lucinda knows more than me so I trust her.
      I properly met Lucinda when I was 14. She was so beautiful, her hair red like a sunrise in the art classroom. I wanted to tell her that, wanted to say, I’m sorry to bother you, but your hair is so pretty and red as a sunrise. I didn’t, though. I was too scared. I was scared, and then I was ashamed of being scared, and then I was ashamed of wanting to tell a girl her hair was pretty, so I bought five glass bottles of Perrier from the QFC down the road during second lunch and smashed them in the parking lot behind the school. Lucinda saw me. She promised me she wouldn’t tell. I had blood on my hands and glass stuck in my palm which was gross so I just looked at her and said thank you. Lucinda clucked her tongue. Darling, you’re hurt, she said. It’s not so bad, I told her, wincing as she plucked piece after piece out of my skin. The wounds oozed blood. Lucinda didn’t have anything to wrap my hand with, so we left it. Blood falling out. 

      My friends found me after school. Let me get you a bandage, Christina said. Thomas winced, said, that looks painful. Wanna come over and play video games? Charlie asked, squeezing my shoulder. Sure, I said. I might just watch today, though. Charlie shrugged. Thomas nodded. Works for me, Christina said. So we went to Charlie’s house—his brother drove us and put on Bruno Mars and everyone sang along except for me, even though I know the words. I don’t like singing in front of people. I smiled at my friends instead. We went to the basement and Christina kicked Thomas’ ass at Grand Theft Auto. I wished they would play Legend of Zelda because the art is so pretty in that one but I just kept quiet and gave Christina a high-five. Thanks, babe, she said, her face shiny with victory and laughter. Charlie started making fun of Thomas, but Thomas is better at making fun of Thomas than any of us ever could be so eventually he stopped talking and just laughed. Want some popcorn? Charlie asked after a while. Hell yeah, Christina said. I texted my mom can you pick me up from Charlie’s? I stood up when she texted me back. I gotta get home, I said. They looked disappointed, genuinely disappointed, and for a moment I wanted to change my mind. But then our car was in Charlie’s driveway.
      I stayed up for hours after eating dinner, alone in my room, painting sunrise after sunrise. The sky looked a little bloody. I thought about adding blue. But I wanted to see red, I wanted it all over the canvas and the paper, I wanted to run my hands into the color and think it was beautiful.

      Lucinda’s driving us to the movies now. She loves watching movies, thinks the women are so pretty and the popcorn is delicious. I don’t always like the movies we see. Lucinda likes to watch rom-coms and I get restless. I keep waiting for something to go badly wrong and it never does. I feel like a terrible person afterwards, disappointed by the happy ending, unsatisfied somehow. I don’t know why I feel like that. I like real life romance. I love Lucinda. It’s just like a movie: me and her and a happy ending. I guess I don’t mind so much if I think about it that way. 
      Lucinda loves to talk about art. She loves, especially, to hear me talk about art. I tell her about every shade of red I know. Alizarin Crimson, Venetian Red, Cadmium, Quinacrodone. Lucinda sighs, tips her head back. You’re so beautiful when you talk about paint, she says. Won’t you paint me, darling? she says. I look down and my knuckles are white. Of course, Lucinda. Of course I’ll paint you. She smiles, beautiful.
      A month ago, Lucinda saw me breaking another bottle. It had been a bad day. I had seen Lucinda in the halls at school and reached to touch her hand as we talked, leaning against the lockers, but she flinched away from me and tucked her hand in her jeans pocket.
      Something boiled in my stomach. It bubbled like burning plastic. I could not meet her eye. I thought I might cry, might yell something sharp and angry, might sink to the floor and wrap my arms around her shins. I turned away. Class starts soon, I mumbled. I did not go to class.
      Instead, I went back to the QFC, bought a bottle of cranberry juice, and smashed it in the parking lot. It stung more, the red juice mixing with the blood into something that dripped easier. The stinging made me cry, only a little, but still. Lucinda saw me through the window and ran out to me, and for a second I thought she might hold me. But Lucinda hates it when I cry. She really hates it. 

***

      Later, she kissed me over and over and kept saying she was sorry. I said it was fine because it was. My face stung but I barely noticed it. I’m so sorry baby, I love you, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, you must hate me, you must think I’m a monster. But I could never think Lucinda was a monster. She just hates it when I cry because it makes her feel like she’s a bad girlfriend, like she isn’t good enough to make me happy. Don’t you love me, sweetheart? Aren’t I enough for you? I bite my lip. Of course you’re enough, I tell her. Lucinda loves me. No one has ever loved me like Lucinda loves me. I know because she told me so.
      My parents don’t know about Lucinda. It’s not the gay thing— I don’t think they’d care about that. Mom’s brother is gay and his husband comes with him to Thanksgiving. I talk to him every year: I ask him about his job, I ask about their yellow lab, I ask if he’s watching anything good on television. Dad doesn’t really understand why I like talking to him so much, says as much as he dries the dishes. Dad thinks he’s boring, thinks there’s not a lot an art gallery curator could have to say. Mom whacks him lightly on the shoulder when he says these things, says, maybe your daughter just has better manners than you. Dad laughs. I think about the tubes and tubes of paint in my room. I think about how hard I scrub my hands, even though my parents have never been neat freaks, even though they’ve never minded a little bit of red. I look at the sink and wonder who I do it for.
      I’m afraid they wouldn’t like Lucinda. Maybe they would. They want me to be happy— I know that’s what they want because they love me. And Lucinda makes me happy. She teaches me to paint roses, she touches me like I’m worth touching. She talks for hours about how pigment moves on canvas and I don’t think that’s something my parents would understand. Mom drives me to school every morning and we listen to the radio show about people going on blind dates and we laugh and laugh and laugh. She tells me I’m the best kid ever and I say you don’t have a very big data pool. She laughs even harder at that. I love making my mom laugh. I think Lucinda would make my mom laugh. Maybe she’d learn to like Lucinda. 
      But Lucinda doesn’t want me to tell my parents because they might tell someone else, so it doesn’t matter anyhow. I’m 15 now. I got my learner’s permit 4 months ago, but Lucinda still won’t let me drive her even though I’m a very safe driver and I’ve been practicing driving on the freeway. Please?  I ask her but she says no. No, baby, I’m driving. Maybe next time, okay?  I nod and she lifts up my chin. Aw now, don’t sulk, baby. It doesn’t look pretty on you. We can’t have that, now can we?  I nod. I’m not sure what she means but I nod anyway because she’s smiling in a way that makes me afraid. I clutch one hand in the other so I won’t punch her side mirror. 
      I want to punch things a lot. Or smash them, or light them on fire. I told my parents about it a couple years ago and Mom’s eyebrows pulled together tight with worry while Dad started rubbing at his beard and they asked me if I wanted to talk to a therapist. I said okay because I didn’t want them to be scared, and then I went to the appointment and I sat in the clean white chair. The woman asked me questions. She asked why I like to break things. She asked what I’m afraid of. She asked if I was ashamed of something. I couldn’t answer. No. Lucinda says that’s not true. I didn’t answer. I can do anything I want to do, she tells me. I didn’t answer the woman’s questions even though I was supposed to. That wasn’t good. Lucinda sometimes tells me I’m not good. I know she’s right but it still makes me sad. Oh, baby, don’t be sad. I’ll fix you right up, she says. I think I’m supposed to smile at that, so I do. I trust Lucinda and she loves me even though she’s a good person.
      Lucinda rarely yells at me but sometimes she talks real low and that’s worse. When I’m upset, mostly. Or when I tell her I don’t want to do something. She doesn’t like that much. She tells me that I don’t know what I want, that I’m bad, that I want to break things and burn things so my desire is all wrong. I can’t argue with that because she’s right. And she knows so much more than me. She tells me about school sometimes, all the school she’s been to. Lucinda has a PhD, so she knows what she’s talking about. She tells me that she’s too qualified for her job. She tells me that teaching high school students makes all that education feel like a waste, like she’s a waste, like one day all this boredom and frustration might overwhelm her. She tells me I’m special. You’re so mature for your age, sweetheart. Baby, you love how I paint roses and I love how you love to watch my hands. I love you, darling. I love how you paint me so carefully in all those shades of red.

      My mom calls me every day which is weird because I live with her. She’s worried about all the time I spend out of the house. She thinks something is wrong and that I won’t tell her what’s going on. I hate lying to her but I do it anyway. I tell her I’m hanging out with my friends but my friends don’t know where I am either. I haven’t told any of them. Christina’s in Lucinda’s class with me and she thinks she’s condescending. I think Thomas would worry a lot and I don’t want to worry him. Charlie always agrees with Christina, so he wouldn’t like Lucinda either, and Charlie might tell my mom because he loves talking to my mom and doing stupid things. So I can’t tell any of them, because Lucinda loves me and if they don’t like her then they don’t think I’m really worth loving. I keep my mouth shut and just spend time with Lucinda. Besides, my friends don’t know how messed up I am. They know some things but not all of it, not the number of bottles, not how I cover my hands with red and imagine it’s blood, not the small fires I set and end up always guiltily putting out. So they can’t love me anyways, not the way that she does, not the way someone loves you when they know how bad you are and love you anyways. If I told them, they might think I was too weird or broken, and then I’d really have no one but Lucinda. Where are you?  Mom asks me. Please come home.
      I haven’t slept in my bed in a week. I come home for dinner and climb out the window again because Lucinda gets really sad when I don’t stay the night and then I sneak back in before breakfast. I miss my bed, if I’m honest. I miss my blankets. I miss hearing Mom and Dad’s voices from downstairs before I fall asleep.  
      Mom called me again today. They figured out something was up, which makes sense because they’re not stupid. I left the window open before I left. I didn’t tell Lucinda I’d left the window open. It got cold and Mom came upstairs to see what the hell was going on. She saw my empty bed and called me at 2 in the morning which woke Lucinda up. Lucinda didn’t like that but it didn’t matter because Mom came and got me and drove me away. Shaking. 
      She wasn’t mad. It was 3 in the morning and she had picked me up from my art teacher’s house and she wasn’t mad. I couldn’t figure out why. I had done something wrong. I deserved to be punished.
      Get some sleep, Anneka. We can talk in the morning. We went inside and she took me to my room, pulled out an extra blanket from the closet and put it on the foot of my bed. She stood in my doorway for a moment. And then she said goodnight, honey and went downstairs.

      I’ve been awake for a while since. I can’t seem to calm myself down enough to sleep. I keep thinking about Lucinda. I keep wondering why I left that window open.
      Mom and Dad are talking downstairs. She’s speaking real fast, her sentences are all running into each other so that I can’t make out most of the words. We can’t send her back to that school, I hear, the words clear because she’s almost yelling. Dad’s trying to calm her down. I can tell because his voice is soft and slow and the more he talks, the more she seems to breathe. I listen to their voices and at some point I fall asleep.

      The next day, Mom wakes me up at 9 in the morning. All my friends have texted me, all of them are worried. I’m late for school! I say. Mom, I’m late for school!  She frowns, says I’m not going to school today. That makes me nervous and confused. Come here, she says and pats the space next to her so I sit up in bed and slide in close.
      She asks me, voice carefully pitched, what’s been going on with Lucinda. I don’t speak for a long time. I look out my window and count the tree branches I can see. I dig my teeth into my lower lip, trying to taste blood. She doesn’t say anything but I can feel her growing frustrated so, slowly, haltingly, I start talking.
      It takes me a long time to get the story out: the first day at school, the drives to the movie theater, the afternoons in the art studio, the broken bottles, her open palm on my face, the way I sometimes felt I couldn’t breathe. How Lucinda would tell me I was wise for my years. How she’d promise to fix me, fix the itch for violence inside my belly. How she would call me beautiful.
      I can’t make myself say certain things. The word gay. That I’m afraid. The shame like burning plastic. I don’t know why I can’t say them. Silence has taken over certain things in my head.
      Mom’s face goes tight and angry before she wraps me in a hug so I can’t see her anymore. That fucking woman, she says. That goddamn motherfucking woman. I want to tell her it was my fault, but my voice falters. She mutters, nothing’s going to happen to her, will it?  I keep my mouth shut because she sounds like she is going to cry. I think I am going to cry. Part of me doesn’t want to stop seeing Lucinda, wants to sleep in her bed again, cannot bear the thought of losing someone who has wanted me so ferociously. The rest of me is all relief. I cry and Mom holds me. I do not swallow down the tears.
      After a while, when my breathing has slowed, Mom squeezes me tight and lets me go. I think I see her make a decision because she nods once and gets up to go downstairs. I follow her. She’s opening the cabinet, pulling out two bottles full of dark wine. Come on, she says. Grabs the keys and walks out the door.
      You want to drive? she asks me and I say sure so Mom tells me where I need to turn. We’re driving for a while before I realize where we’re headed and Mom watches me figure it out in silence. Don’t park in the driveway. We’ll only be here a minute. I look at her. I don’t understand what we’re doing here. Mom. Mom, what are we doing here? I ask her. She looks at me with so much sharp attention I want to hide.
      There are no other high schools in the area, she says. I have no idea what she’s talking about. I know that there are no other high schools in the area. I can’t promise… she breaks off. I can’t promise anything will happen to that— that fucking woman. We’re going to the police and we’ll file a report with the school, but I don’t know. I can’t believe you’re the first one she’s done this to and she’s still working there. I can’t promise she won’t get away with it. I can’t promise that you won’t have to see her. I can’t promise you much. But something should be done, Anneka. Something should be done about what’s happened to you.
      I’m still not sure what she’s talking about but she tells me to grab the two bottles so I do. She takes one, leaves me the other. We step onto Lucinda’s porch and walk to her window, the one next to the door. On three, she says. What? I say. It’s hard to break a bottle of wine, she says. Focus on the window, she says. One, she says. Two, she says. Three.

      Lucinda is a great girlfriend. She tells me I’m pretty. Always, darling, you’re so pretty. I go red. No one has ever called me pretty before. I say thank you. I touch my chin to my collarbone and stare at my hands, folded in my lap. She glances over at me from the driver’s seat and laughs. I look up at the way her hair falls on the pale skin of her shoulders. I love looking at Lucinda and Lucinda loves how I look at her.
      Lucinda loves driving. I am just learning how to drive, but Lucinda’s real good at it. Sometimes, I ask her if I can try driving, get some practice, but she shakes her head and smiles. Baby, you’re too pretty to drive. Let me do it, she says. I smile. Okay, Lucinda, I say. I do not know what being pretty has to do with driving, but Lucinda knows more than me so I trust her.
      I properly met Lucinda when I was 14. She was so beautiful, her hair red like a sunrise in the art classroom. I wanted to tell her that, wanted to say, I’m sorry to bother you, but your hair is so pretty and red as a sunrise. I didn’t, though. I was too scared. I was scared, and then I was ashamed of being scared, and then I was ashamed of wanting to tell a girl her hair was pretty, so I bought five glass bottles of Perrier from the QFC down the road during second lunch and smashed them in the parking lot behind the school. Lucinda saw me. She promised me she wouldn’t tell. I had blood on my hands and glass stuck in my palm which was gross so I just looked at her and said thank you. Lucinda clucked her tongue. Darling, you’re hurt, she said. It’s not so bad, I told her, wincing as she plucked piece after piece out of my skin. The wounds oozed blood. Lucinda didn’t have anything to wrap my hand with, so we left it. Blood falling out. 

      My friends found me after school. Let me get you a bandage, Christina said. Thomas winced, said, that looks painful. Wanna come over and play video games? Charlie asked, squeezing my shoulder. Sure, I said. I might just watch today, though. Charlie shrugged. Thomas nodded. Works for me, Christina said. So we went to Charlie’s house—his brother drove us and put on Bruno Mars and everyone sang along except for me, even though I know the words. I don’t like singing in front of people. I smiled at my friends instead. We went to the basement and Christina kicked Thomas’ ass at Grand Theft Auto. I wished they would play Legend of Zelda because the art is so pretty in that one but I just kept quiet and gave Christina a high-five. Thanks, babe, she said, her face shiny with victory and laughter. Charlie started making fun of Thomas, but Thomas is better at making fun of Thomas than any of us ever could be so eventually he stopped talking and just laughed. Want some popcorn? Charlie asked after a while. Hell yeah, Christina said. I texted my mom can you pick me up from Charlie’s? I stood up when she texted me back. I gotta get home, I said. They looked disappointed, genuinely disappointed, and for a moment I wanted to change my mind. But then our car was in Charlie’s driveway.
      I stayed up for hours after eating dinner, alone in my room, painting sunrise after sunrise. The sky looked a little bloody. I thought about adding blue. But I wanted to see red, I wanted it all over the canvas and the paper, I wanted to run my hands into the color and think it was beautiful.

      Lucinda’s driving us to the movies now. She loves watching movies, thinks the women are so pretty and the popcorn is delicious. I don’t always like the movies we see. Lucinda likes to watch rom-coms and I get restless. I keep waiting for something to go badly wrong and it never does. I feel like a terrible person afterwards, disappointed by the happy ending, unsatisfied somehow. I don’t know why I feel like that. I like real life romance. I love Lucinda. It’s just like a movie: me and her and a happy ending. I guess I don’t mind so much if I think about it that way. 
      Lucinda loves to talk about art. She loves, especially, to hear me talk about art. I tell her about every shade of red I know. Alizarin Crimson, Venetian Red, Cadmium, Quinacrodone. Lucinda sighs, tips her head back. You’re so beautiful when you talk about paint, she says. Won’t you paint me, darling? she says. I look down and my knuckles are white. Of course, Lucinda. Of course I’ll paint you. She smiles, beautiful.
      A month ago, Lucinda saw me breaking another bottle. It had been a bad day. I had seen Lucinda in the halls at school and reached to touch her hand as we talked, leaning against the lockers, but she flinched away from me and tucked her hand in her jeans pocket.
      Something boiled in my stomach. It bubbled like burning plastic. I could not meet her eye. I thought I might cry, might yell something sharp and angry, might sink to the floor and wrap my arms around her shins. I turned away. Class starts soon, I mumbled. I did not go to class.
      Instead, I went back to the QFC, bought a bottle of cranberry juice, and smashed it in the parking lot. It stung more, the red juice mixing with the blood into something that dripped easier. The stinging made me cry, only a little, but still. Lucinda saw me through the window and ran out to me, and for a second I thought she might hold me. But Lucinda hates it when I cry. She really hates it. 

***

      Later, she kissed me over and over and kept saying she was sorry. I said it was fine because it was. My face stung but I barely noticed it. I’m so sorry baby, I love you, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, you must hate me, you must think I’m a monster. But I could never think Lucinda was a monster. She just hates it when I cry because it makes her feel like she’s a bad girlfriend, like she isn’t good enough to make me happy. Don’t you love me, sweetheart? Aren’t I enough for you? I bite my lip. Of course you’re enough, I tell her. Lucinda loves me. No one has ever loved me like Lucinda loves me. I know because she told me so.
      My parents don’t know about Lucinda. It’s not the gay thing— I don’t think they’d care about that. Mom’s brother is gay and his husband comes with him to Thanksgiving. I talk to him every year: I ask him about his job, I ask about their yellow lab, I ask if he’s watching anything good on television. Dad doesn’t really understand why I like talking to him so much, says as much as he dries the dishes. Dad thinks he’s boring, thinks there’s not a lot an art gallery curator could have to say. Mom whacks him lightly on the shoulder when he says these things, says, maybe your daughter just has better manners than you. Dad laughs. I think about the tubes and tubes of paint in my room. I think about how hard I scrub my hands, even though my parents have never been neat freaks, even though they’ve never minded a little bit of red. I look at the sink and wonder who I do it for.
      I’m afraid they wouldn’t like Lucinda. Maybe they would. They want me to be happy— I know that’s what they want because they love me. And Lucinda makes me happy. She teaches me to paint roses, she touches me like I’m worth touching. She talks for hours about how pigment moves on canvas and I don’t think that’s something my parents would understand. Mom drives me to school every morning and we listen to the radio show about people going on blind dates and we laugh and laugh and laugh. She tells me I’m the best kid ever and I say you don’t have a very big data pool. She laughs even harder at that. I love making my mom laugh. I think Lucinda would make my mom laugh. Maybe she’d learn to like Lucinda. 
      But Lucinda doesn’t want me to tell my parents because they might tell someone else, so it doesn’t matter anyhow. I’m 15 now. I got my learner’s permit 4 months ago, but Lucinda still won’t let me drive her even though I’m a very safe driver and I’ve been practicing driving on the freeway. Please?  I ask her but she says no. No, baby, I’m driving. Maybe next time, okay?  I nod and she lifts up my chin. Aw now, don’t sulk, baby. It doesn’t look pretty on you. We can’t have that, now can we?  I nod. I’m not sure what she means but I nod anyway because she’s smiling in a way that makes me afraid. I clutch one hand in the other so I won’t punch her side mirror. 
      I want to punch things a lot. Or smash them, or light them on fire. I told my parents about it a couple years ago and Mom’s eyebrows pulled together tight with worry while Dad started rubbing at his beard and they asked me if I wanted to talk to a therapist. I said okay because I didn’t want them to be scared, and then I went to the appointment and I sat in the clean white chair. The woman asked me questions. She asked why I like to break things. She asked what I’m afraid of. She asked if I was ashamed of something. I couldn’t answer. No. Lucinda says that’s not true. I didn’t answer. I can do anything I want to do, she tells me. I didn’t answer the woman’s questions even though I was supposed to. That wasn’t good. Lucinda sometimes tells me I’m not good. I know she’s right but it still makes me sad. Oh, baby, don’t be sad. I’ll fix you right up, she says. I think I’m supposed to smile at that, so I do. I trust Lucinda and she loves me even though she’s a good person.
      Lucinda rarely yells at me but sometimes she talks real low and that’s worse. When I’m upset, mostly. Or when I tell her I don’t want to do something. She doesn’t like that much. She tells me that I don’t know what I want, that I’m bad, that I want to break things and burn things so my desire is all wrong. I can’t argue with that because she’s right. And she knows so much more than me. She tells me about school sometimes, all the school she’s been to. Lucinda has a PhD, so she knows what she’s talking about. She tells me that she’s too qualified for her job. She tells me that teaching high school students makes all that education feel like a waste, like she’s a waste, like one day all this boredom and frustration might overwhelm her. She tells me I’m special. You’re so mature for your age, sweetheart. Baby, you love how I paint roses and I love how you love to watch my hands. I love you, darling. I love how you paint me so carefully in all those shades of red.

      My mom calls me every day which is weird because I live with her. She’s worried about all the time I spend out of the house. She thinks something is wrong and that I won’t tell her what’s going on. I hate lying to her but I do it anyway. I tell her I’m hanging out with my friends but my friends don’t know where I am either. I haven’t told any of them. Christina’s in Lucinda’s class with me and she thinks she’s condescending. I think Thomas would worry a lot and I don’t want to worry him. Charlie always agrees with Christina, so he wouldn’t like Lucinda either, and Charlie might tell my mom because he loves talking to my mom and doing stupid things. So I can’t tell any of them, because Lucinda loves me and if they don’t like her then they don’t think I’m really worth loving. I keep my mouth shut and just spend time with Lucinda. Besides, my friends don’t know how messed up I am. They know some things but not all of it, not the number of bottles, not how I cover my hands with red and imagine it’s blood, not the small fires I set and end up always guiltily putting out. So they can’t love me anyways, not the way that she does, not the way someone loves you when they know how bad you are and love you anyways. If I told them, they might think I was too weird or broken, and then I’d really have no one but Lucinda. Where are you?  Mom asks me. Please come home.
      I haven’t slept in my bed in a week. I come home for dinner and climb out the window again because Lucinda gets really sad when I don’t stay the night and then I sneak back in before breakfast. I miss my bed, if I’m honest. I miss my blankets. I miss hearing Mom and Dad’s voices from downstairs before I fall asleep.  
      Mom called me again today. They figured out something was up, which makes sense because they’re not stupid. I left the window open before I left. I didn’t tell Lucinda I’d left the window open. It got cold and Mom came upstairs to see what the hell was going on. She saw my empty bed and called me at 2 in the morning which woke Lucinda up. Lucinda didn’t like that but it didn’t matter because Mom came and got me and drove me away. Shaking. 
      She wasn’t mad. It was 3 in the morning and she had picked me up from my art teacher’s house and she wasn’t mad. I couldn’t figure out why. I had done something wrong. I deserved to be punished.
      Get some sleep, Anneka. We can talk in the morning. We went inside and she took me to my room, pulled out an extra blanket from the closet and put it on the foot of my bed. She stood in my doorway for a moment. And then she said goodnight, honey and went downstairs.

      I’ve been awake for a while since. I can’t seem to calm myself down enough to sleep. I keep thinking about Lucinda. I keep wondering why I left that window open.
      Mom and Dad are talking downstairs. She’s speaking real fast, her sentences are all running into each other so that I can’t make out most of the words. We can’t send her back to that school, I hear, the words clear because she’s almost yelling. Dad’s trying to calm her down. I can tell because his voice is soft and slow and the more he talks, the more she seems to breathe. I listen to their voices and at some point I fall asleep.

      The next day, Mom wakes me up at 9 in the morning. All my friends have texted me, all of them are worried. I’m late for school! I say. Mom, I’m late for school!  She frowns, says I’m not going to school today. That makes me nervous and confused. Come here, she says and pats the space next to her so I sit up in bed and slide in close.
      She asks me, voice carefully pitched, what’s been going on with Lucinda. I don’t speak for a long time. I look out my window and count the tree branches I can see. I dig my teeth into my lower lip, trying to taste blood. She doesn’t say anything but I can feel her growing frustrated so, slowly, haltingly, I start talking.
      It takes me a long time to get the story out: the first day at school, the drives to the movie theater, the afternoons in the art studio, the broken bottles, her open palm on my face, the way I sometimes felt I couldn’t breathe. How Lucinda would tell me I was wise for my years. How she’d promise to fix me, fix the itch for violence inside my belly. How she would call me beautiful.
      I can’t make myself say certain things. The word gay. That I’m afraid. The shame like burning plastic. I don’t know why I can’t say them. Silence has taken over certain things in my head.
      Mom’s face goes tight and angry before she wraps me in a hug so I can’t see her anymore. That fucking woman, she says. That goddamn motherfucking woman. I want to tell her it was my fault, but my voice falters. She mutters, nothing’s going to happen to her, will it?  I keep my mouth shut because she sounds like she is going to cry. I think I am going to cry. Part of me doesn’t want to stop seeing Lucinda, wants to sleep in her bed again, cannot bear the thought of losing someone who has wanted me so ferociously. The rest of me is all relief. I cry and Mom holds me. I do not swallow down the tears.
      After a while, when my breathing has slowed, Mom squeezes me tight and lets me go. I think I see her make a decision because she nods once and gets up to go downstairs. I follow her. She’s opening the cabinet, pulling out two bottles full of dark wine. Come on, she says. Grabs the keys and walks out the door.
      You want to drive? she asks me and I say sure so Mom tells me where I need to turn. We’re driving for a while before I realize where we’re headed and Mom watches me figure it out in silence. Don’t park in the driveway. We’ll only be here a minute. I look at her. I don’t understand what we’re doing here. Mom. Mom, what are we doing here? I ask her. She looks at me with so much sharp attention I want to hide.
      There are no other high schools in the area, she says. I have no idea what she’s talking about. I know that there are no other high schools in the area. I can’t promise… she breaks off. I can’t promise anything will happen to that— that fucking woman. We’re going to the police and we’ll file a report with the school, but I don’t know. I can’t believe you’re the first one she’s done this to and she’s still working there. I can’t promise she won’t get away with it. I can’t promise that you won’t have to see her. I can’t promise you much. But something should be done, Anneka. Something should be done about what’s happened to you.
      I’m still not sure what she’s talking about but she tells me to grab the two bottles so I do. She takes one, leaves me the other. We step onto Lucinda’s porch and walk to her window, the one next to the door. On three, she says. What? I say. It’s hard to break a bottle of wine, she says. Focus on the window, she says. One, she says. Two, she says. Three.

Uma Dwivedi is a student at Yale University. Previous and forthcoming publications include Broad Recognition, For Now Magazine, Mouth Dreams: Winter Tangerine, Picaroon Poetry, Astral Projections: The Starstuff Collection, Right Hand Pointing, and Third Wednesday. They are a poetry editor for Persephone’s Daughters and a poetry reader for Winter Tangerine; previously, they participated in The Adroit Journal’s summer mentorship program and were a finalist in Write Bloody Press’s 2017 manuscript competition. Dancing girl press released their first chapbook, They Named Her Goddess (we called her girl), earlier this year.

Uma Dwivedi is a student at Yale University. Previous and forthcoming publications include Broad Recognition, For Now Magazine, Mouth Dreams: Winter Tangerine, Picaroon Poetry, Astral Projections: The Starstuff Collection, Right Hand Pointing, and Third Wednesday. They are a poetry editor for Persephone’s Daughters and a poetry reader for Winter Tangerine; previously, they participated in The Adroit Journal’s summer mentorship program and were a finalist in Write Bloody Press’s 2017 manuscript competition. Dancing girl press released their first chapbook, They Named Her Goddess (we called her girl), earlier this year.