12 Chapter XI

At school, Sunny waved to imaginary friends down the hall but got squished as she tried to meet them. At home, there was something cheerless and stiff about her bedroom which had always been so friendly.

Hopelessness brought many tears. It pained me to see such a bright kid be given the anxious labor of a burdened lifetime, to be treated as the most singular spectacle in the human comedy.

I wished to dispel all her negative emotions by being there for her with a level of intimacy and vulnerability as would a friend. I felt so close to her, but it was as if she couldn't hear me, as if there was an invisible blue glass that allowed the light of image to flow, but divided the exchange of voice from permitting.

It was fate that I sat in the seat beside her in every single one of her classes. I observed with a stinging agony her once bubbly expression fade into a permanent state of stillness. Sunny was short and small, without being skinny; she had the prettiest look of innocence on her butter-smooth skin. Her dark hair was never elaborately dressed, and though she was the only girl in the room free of make-up she looked beautifully simple.

She had a real passion for drawing, and she invented a world of imagination in which she lived with the freedom she couldn't acquire under the eyes of Lyssa and Hiram. It was through her drawings where she had a blistering tongue, that in the enthusiasm of her youth, dared to say anything. Now, though, she rarely spoke and when she did, it was with a shrewd glance and soft voice. Her eyes looked forward at the formula-covered whiteboard, but I could tell she wasn't truly seeing.

Occasionally, Sunny would take a sip from a metal thermos. She squirmed a little when the hot water burned the roof of her mouth. and remembered how miserable it was without Devon. Sunny needed her to geek around her like a moth, be there just to be there. Sunny was an incalculable person with a fever in her blood that desired to live more dangerously. She raised her hand.

"Go quickly," said Mrs. Lennie. Sunny wiped her eyes on her sleeves, then tucked into a bathroom stall. I followed. This had become her only safe haven. She turned around, shut the door. Selena on the toilet seat. The air was filled with the smell of strawberries and a cloud of thick smoke.

"S..sorry I didn't mean to intrude... the door was open so," Sunny said in a prudent voice. She was getting tied in knots trying to explain.

"Woah chill out."

"I'll go. Um, bye. Sorry about—"

"No, Sunny wait." It was the first time Selena had spoken her name in so long. Sunny turned around obediently, clearly wanting to stay; the door shut. "Lock it." Sunny did silently, not knowing how to feel about being in the same stall with the person who caused her so much misery.

"What do you know about Callie and Cole?"

"That's what I wanted to tell you last week--"

"Spill it." Sunny was stunned, unable to think or act. She had a look on her face that reminded me of a sort of violent and desperate SOS. But she also had a look of duty scattered between her features, the duty to maintain the seed of trust to which this friendship once formed upon.

"They kissed," she said. Immediately, anger boiled inside Selena. She took the pot off the heat and opened the lid by kicking the wall as hard as she knew how to. The steam released into the air. Selena was so intoxicated with emotion that the acidity of her stomach was ready to be spat out of her mouth in foul and vulgar words. "That fucking whore!" she screamed. "I'm going to kill her." Sunny was taken back by the seriousness in her voice.

Selena banged her head against the white cement, clearly not able to control her biology. Her waves of fury were the only tickets to freedom. But the fire died fast. After such a wicked inferno, Selena settled on the toilet seat. She calmed her brain, breathed deeply, and placed herself in a state of zen empathy. Then, she turned to Sunny, who had been shocked to the core, and said, "I'm kicking her out."

"What?"

"That's it. She's not a kitty anymore," Selena said, clearly not thinking. In the heat of the moment, she forgot about Callie's reputation and celebrity, and just how much it helped the group. In the heat of the moment, she almost didn't dislike Sunny.

Selena drugged herself by taking a sip from her shiny water bottle. She winced, half-coughed, and then squinted her eyes.

"Did it go down the wrong tube or something?" Sunny asked.

'Oh. This isn't water. It's three parts cola and one-part vodka. Want some?"

"I... I think I'll pass," Sunny said. The word vodka got her legs feeling like noodles.

"Try it." Her voice was persistent, and not knowing what to do, Sunny forced down a sip. She coughed. Gauged. Squinted her eyebrows. And just by doing such a simple act, a connection that transcended words was formed between the two. Somehow, no matter the slander or the hate that came Selena's way, she had a sudden willingness to take on Sunny as part of her. The world became bullets, and Sunny was her shield. Sunny told her a secret.

"God, if I get in trouble my parents will kill me," Sunny said.

"Look, if you think that you aren't going to get into trouble, I'm sorry to break it to you but you are... but you know, your parents don't have to know about it."

"But..."

"Jeez, don't be such a pussy. And the principal, don't worry about him, he's probably masturbating for the first time in a month."

"So, you've never been caught?"

"Hell no. I didn't say that. This one time I was caught committing three expellable offenses at once."

"What do you mean?"

"Cole and I. We did it in the locker room while drunk, and as it turns out we were also smoking a joint. God damn. That man was everything to me." Selena put her head in her hands for a moment before looking back up. "Rumor had it that fucking Callie bitch was the one that ratted us out. I went crazy and she was expelled the next day. But that was last year."

"Then how are you guys still here?"

"We were just expelled on paper, but our mothers made one trip to the school and got us back in cuz they didn't want us smoking in the house and all." She blew a ring from the vape.

"Anyway, the point of getting caught is that you learned to be sneakier, more elusive. And next time you don't get caught that's a manifestation of growth and intelligence." She took a ridiculously long drag into the electronic cigarette. Then she went on and on about how plenty of people here make it their habit to hate this kind of person or that kind of person— the preps hated the geeks, the geeks hate the jocks, etc. Sunny stared in a twisted kind of admiration.

"You're getting noticed, you know," said Selena.

"What?" Sunny ripped off a hangnail. The blood drop spread into the crevasses of her grey nail.

"Your name is in a lot of people's mouths," she said almost exasperated. "They talk about you like you're a worthy person to talk about. Sunny this, Sunny that." Her voice was turning mean. Sunny sensed envy. "And you know who got you so famous?"

"Who?"

"Me, Sunny. Me. I posted them for you. All of them."

"Oh." Sunny became soft all over. Betrayal hurt. But she couldn't feel it.

"Yeah. I did it because I always knew that we could be great friends... we are great friends, aren't we? I mean, I wouldn't do such a thing for anyone, would I?" Sunny gulped, realizing just how one-sided Selena was.

"R...right." Silence for a long time. Then, Selena stood up and started murdered to herself.

"There can't be four Kitties. Th-there just can't. There's always been--"

"What are you talking about?" asked Sunny. Selena stopped pacing around the toilet. She smiled, a wicked idea in her head.

"You brought this up. Callie is out and so you are going to replace her." Sunny pictured herself being Selena's bestie, her pal, giggling with her, being featured on her Instagram page, painting her nails. A dream come true. No. good dreams never came true. At least not in this world.

"You wouldn't be a full member or anything because we would need to trust you, but from now on, you'll be talking, walking, eating, dressing, and hanging out with us." Sunny didn't know what to say. It was as if she had just won an Oscar.

People were starting to file into class and the hallways were quieting, meaning that their conversation was no longer private. Selena leaned in towards Sunny and whispered, "Bathrooms at lunch with the Kitties tomorrow. I'll kill you if you're late." Then, with her blonde shiny ponytail swinging back and forth like a pendulum, she walked away.

Sunny gulped. She collapsed on the toilet seat with an eternal sunshine smile. She looked particularly at peace with herself as if she was flowing down a gentle river, seeing the rain and feel its coldness, yet still being capable of finding joy in each earth-quenching drop. For Sunny, this was a moment of strength, of getting up from the floor to face the day, of climbing the psychological ladder and lift herself towards her own victory.

She was unprepared for the jagged rocks and treacherous shoals, only naively excited for the unforeseen. Sunny opened the stall door and stepped out in homely grace, not realizing that she had entered an entirely new reality.