; I’ll say the setting is the boathouse; the setting is a washroom; the setting: night and summer; I’ll say raining and raining all week; I’ll say the color of the walls; the color of my hair; the color of her hair; our heights, our weights; say there’s no such thing as fiction; say there’s only substitution; there’s only this standing in for that; and her standing in for another her; and her for another and so on; say there’s nothing to do at night in rain; the guys get drunk and play billiards; the girls get drunk and watch; some nights, we make up games; some nights, the games are drinking; other nights, they’re dares; on this night, the game is piercing our ears through the hardest part of the ear; it’s the girl’s idea to do this; she’s done it before to girls, she says, at her school; and it’ll only hurt, she says, for a flash; I have to wonder about the word flash; like is it a thing now, flash; like are the girls at her school now using that word; the girls at my school are not; I say, Flash, and slow to make her feel dumb; so this is where everything starts; the setting: the edge of the tub; the setting: rain hitting the window; and sitting still so not to fall in; and a girl standing in for me; and a girl standing in for everything else; this girl who is now the girl in charge; this girl who won’t be for long; she holds ice to my ear to numb it; she pinches to see if I can feel it; I tell her I can and what the fuck is she even doing, no warning; we can hear the guys in the billiards room; sometimes she plays the guys; sometimes she even beats them; she thinks it makes her look good; I think it makes her look like a guy; and the guys don’t want us looking like them; they want us looking small and weak; to the guys, I like to seem small and weak; to the girls, I like to seem something else; to the girls, I like to seem terrifying; like a supernova; like the ends of their sad little worlds; but I close my eyes to be alone; I focus on the sound of the ice; it sounds like the dull crush of something coming through snow; winter is just a few months away; and the world of winter, of snow and school and long nights, is hard to think of in summer; I say, It sounds like snow, then wish I hadn’t said it; it sounded sentimental; I can feel regret so immediately; every word we speak, these days, is such a risk; she says, Snow, and slow, and now I feel dumb; so I open my eyes and look at her face; one of her eyes is bigger than the other; I sense it’ll get even bigger as she gets older; I’ll hold this observation like a secret; I can make this observation work, in the future, in my favor; but for now, I close my eyes again; and she pinches my ear again; and before I can tell her I feel it still, she sticks the needle through my ear, straight through to the other side; the pain is like a light; I say, God; I want, now, to destroy her; I want to tell her what she is; so much lesser than me; so much dimmer; but I just sit here taking it; I’ve become so good at faking my way through every painful thing; I say, Your turn; but she’s sliding down the wall now; she says, I’m too fucked up, and slides down to the floor; she says, Your ear; she says, You’re absolutely gushing; her head droops to her shoulder; she has such a look on her face; and I think to get the guys right now; I could show them how sad she looks; but I’m not yet that kind of girl; I still feel things way too much; I mean I can feel the tiles against her back; I can feel the floor against her legs; I can feel the rain hit hard at the window; when I hear something coming through snow, I feel the cold of walking though snow; it doesn’t matter what comes through it: a plow, a dog, a stranger coming up the walk; I can feel the entire world around me like a pulse; like a house I’ve never lived in; inside my ear is pounding; like hundreds of footsteps all at once; like the hallways at school, and school will soon start; and how terrible it always feels at first; how terrible, my uniform; terrible, my double life; to be one girl in the classroom; to be one girl in the washroom; to forget at times which one is which; there will come a night at the end of summer; the setting: the same; the conflict: the same; but this time, the girl will pull a nail from her pocket; this time, the game will be to drag the nail up each other’s arms; I’ll plan, again, that night, just to take it; and not to care about the pain; and not to care about the scar; to wear it inside my uniform that winter like a badge; to show it to the girls at school and say it was more than just a game; say it was more an initiation; more a secret club; that night, I won’t even look at her face as she drags the nail up my arm; I’ll look, instead, at the easy way my arm opens up toward her; it’ll feel cold then hot like any pain; it’ll feel hot then hotter like any thrill; like any shame that replaces a thrill; then the thrill, again, of the shame; I’ll say, Your turn, but she’ll say, I’m bored; she’ll say, I’m done, and look toward the door; so I’ll never drag that nail up her arm; but I’ll now know, watching the dark line spread on mine, that I have to overthrow her; I have to become the one in charge; I hope you can understand this; it’s just a transfer of power; some law of physics; some conservation; there will come nights when I wish to have this power back; when I’m small and weak and some guy says, Your eyes; some guy says, Come on; then tells me where to put my hand; then tells me where to put my mouth; then tells me what will happen if I don’t; but not what will happen if I do; no warning of that feeling of dirt; no warning that feeling of buried alive; and the girl in the classroom is totally dead; that girl pushing up her sleeve like a pro; the scar on her arm she’ll never be able fully to hide; and, Did it hurt, the girls will say; Of course it fucking hurt, I’ll say; And what did you do, the girls will say; What do you think I did, I’ll say; but you know I won’t go after her with the nail; I’ll never be that kind of girl; so I’ll only grab her hair and pull and hard; it’ll be like pulling a string on a talking doll; like pulling a tail on a dog; her head will jerk in a blur before me; she’ll make a sound I’ll be surprised by; I won’t have expected a sound at all; but I’ll terrify her for a second; I’ll look like something she hasn’t, before this, seen; and I’ll see her see it, what I am; a fucking force; a massive star; and she’ll always be a minor star; a proto-star; so everything, then, will start to shift; so everything will, eventually, be mine; let’s call this climactic moment; let’s call this big, my God; but first, you have to be nothing; first, you have to sit on the edge of that tub; first, you have to feel the needle pushing slowly through; and the small explosions in your ear; and the gushing down your neck you think won’t stop; first, you have to consider the weakness of calling for help; I know if I call, the guys will rush in to save me; because they love me at my weakest; so I open my mouth to scream; but then she’s laughing, sitting on the washroom floor; her teeth are fucking perfect; her eyes are absolutely charming; I want to tell her I love her eyes; I want to sit closer to her; I want to rest my head on hers; I want to let her pull my self into her self; because this isn’t the night to overthrow her; this isn’t the night to be in charge; because on this night, I’m still pretending; I’m still insisting what lies beneath every wrecked human body is good;