SUSAN AND THE MOST POPULAR GIRL IN SCHOOL
Susan slips into the restroom on the first floor. She should be in class, but sometimes she likes to hide out here, and sometimes—if she’s lucky—the teachers don’t notice. There is still another year of high school remaining, and she plans to ghost through it, as invisible as possible. She imagines her yearbook picture being out-of-focus, indistinct, fading year by year until it was like she was never there at all.
The far right cubicle is her preferred hiding spot—furthest from the door—but she stops short as she approaches it. The door is open, but someone is already there. The most popular girl in school is on her knees, retching into the bowl, shoulders heaving.
At first, Susan thinks the girl is probably purging, keeping off the weight, all the better to squeeze into those cheerleader outfits. But then the girl’s back arches sharply. The noises change, becoming stranger, almost animalistic. The body shudders, and Susan sees what looks like black vomit pouring from the mouth, into the bowl below. She steps back, horrified.
In that instant, the most popular girl in school whips her head around, looking straight at Susan. The girl’s eyes are a jaundiced yellow, and there is a smear of black around her lips. She springs to her feet. Susan keeps backing away, stammering an apology. The girl moves towards her, out of the cubicle, across the restroom floor, each step deliberate and precise. Susan backs up against the sink, and there’s nowhere left to go.
The most popular girl stops, right in front of Susan. The girl’s jaw is gently twitching, as if she’s preparing to speak. She stares at Susan an unwelcome stain she’s only just noticed. Susan averts her eyes, towards the tiled floor. She hates being looked at, and has never felt more seen than in this moment.
“I have to go to class,” says Susan. “Please.”
The most popular girl in school leans forward, and Susan flinches. But the girl merely moves Susan out of the way, and runs her mouth under the faucet. She gargles water, spits it out, thin rivulets of blood swirling down the drain. The most popular girl checks her reflection in the mirror, re-touches lip gloss, and then walks out, without ever acknowledging Susan’s presence again.
Susan stands there, awkward and frozen. It takes a minute for her to catch her breath. There are jigsaw thoughts, almost forming in her head, but never quite fitting. Fragments of fear, brushing up against an odd sense of disappointment, now the moment has gone. It is as if she had witnessed something forbidden, and although she doesn’t understand why, she knows she needs to see more.
♦
After classes Susan sneaks up onto the bleachers. She hides up at the back, in the shadows of the gym, and watches the more popular girl run through cheer drills with the others. They’re all beautiful and perfect, a different species. They turn the music up, whooping and shrieking, as they power through their high energy routines. Even though the girls all follow the same steps, there is something primal about the way the most popular girl moves, something fierce and wild, that sets her apart from the rest.
Susan sees the quarterback, Bryce, jog over from the doorway. He whispers something into the ear of the most popular girl. The most popular girl laughs, but she doesn’t smile. The quarterback and the popular girl have been dating for months. They will be crowned King and Queen of the Prom. They carry that easy sense of entitlement, where such things are pre-ordained and expected. They are effortless in their happiness, gliding through life in a way that Susan can’t even begin to imagine.
That weekend there is a party down by the lake. Music, dancing, a keg. All the good-looking kids are there. The popular girl and the quarterback sneak off into the woods sometime before midnight and don’t return. Susan hears about it all on school on Monday morning. People love to gossip about the popular clique. It fills the empty spaces, gives them some form of ownership over what is out of their reach.
Susan is at the water fountain, head down, pretending she hasn’t heard the bell for third period. The corridor has emptied, everyone scattering for class. Susan looks over and sees the quarterback is still there, staring into his locker. He is pale and has dark circles under his eyes. The most popular girl approaches him, and he tries to smile at her, but it’s clearly an effort.
When she reaches over to caress his cheek, he can’t help recoil. That seems to please her, and she strokes the back of his head as he turns away, gazing back into the dark emptiness of the locker. The most popular girl whispers something to him, and then moves off down the corridor. As she reaches the junction, she spots Susan down the hallway, and she winks at her.
It feels like a small bomb going off, and Susan looks away, cheeks burning.
Susan is not used to being noticed. She is one of those people who has slipped through life’s cracks. Never a part of the in-crowd but also didn’t gel with those on the outside either. She wasn’t particularly unpleasant or worthy of ridicule, just blandly inconspicuous, and those that did notice her never saw anything worth investigating further.
She had perfected the art of creating fake friends and events to keep her mother from worrying. Most weekends—if she isn’t taking care of her little brother—she heads out to some fictional social gathering she’s conjured up—I’m going over to Lisa’s house to watch movies, I’m shopping with Lisa and Kara, me and Toni are going to ride our bikes around the lake.
There was no Lisa or Kara or Toni, but Susan could imagine their faces, their personalities, creating a whole inner life for herself as she traipsed aimlessly around malls and outlets, drifting for hours. There were sporadic moments of reflection in which she was acutely aware she was searching for something, even if she couldn’t say exactly what that was.
That evening Susan tells her mother that she is off to the movies with the non-existent Kara. She cycles her bike through the twilight suburban streets, seeing how the quality of housing improves with every block. The lawns become crisper, the drives longer. It is only a few streets, but it might as well be a journey to a different world.
She stops outside 105 Ridgewood Avenue, and ditches her bike on the sidewalk. She hurries, keeping low, around the side of the house, skirting the fence that keeps the yard in. She’s been here once before, a few years ago, when there was a pool party for the popular girl’s birthday. Susan had ‘accidentally’ walked past a few times. At the time she still held some mistaken hope that one of her classmates would spot her, call her over, invite her into their world. But nobody noticed, and nobody called.
She doesn’t know why she’s here, just that there is some unknown force pulling her into place. She gazes up to the most popular girl’s room. The shades are down, but the light is on. A silhouette flits by. Susan pictures the most popular girl, crossing the room, texting her friends, oblivious to the fact she’s being watched. It feels like a strange sort of victory.
And then the silhouette freezes, dead center of the frame.
Susan holds her breath as if she’s been spotted, even though she knows that is impossible. Then the dark outline raises both its arms and starts to move. It is like a dance, but the motion is jerky and flickered, like an old film clattering through the projector. Susan can’t take her eyes off it. Even though she’s hidden by the fence, separated by the yard, the glass, the shades, it is like they are in same the room, face to face, only now Susan is brave enough to meet the most popular girl’s eye.
The arms twist and turn in impossible shapes, faster and faster. Susan can hear her heart beating in her ears. It is the crack of the snare drum, the thud of the bass, a primitive rhythm, a soundtrack to this dance, and it joins them together, faster and faster, about to burst into a crescendo when the room suddenly cuts to black.
Susan crouches there, muscles aching. A thin sliver of sweat trickles down her spine. She stares up at the black window for a long time, but the light doesn’t come back on.
The show is over, if it ever was a show.
♦
The next morning at school, the loud-speaker summons the seniors to the assembly hall. The principal approaches the microphone, and in a hesitant and cracking voice, he informs them that yesterday evening Bryce, the quarterback, took his own life.
Ripples of shock spread across the room. Susan sees people starting to cry, a spontaneous reaction that sweeps down the rows. The most popular girl crumples, sobbing into the shoulder of a friend, shoulders heaving. It reminds Susan of the restroom, the retching over the toilet. Susan finds herself pushing through the lines, towards the most popular girl.
She is drawn to her. Metal to magnet. Moth to flame. She jostles her way past mourners until she reaches the most popular girl.
“I’m sorry,” says Susan. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The most popular girl doesn’t turn around. She is still crying, wrapped in the arms of a friend who is simultaneously comforting her while motioning for Susan to go away. Susan doesn’t want to go away. She wants some sort of acknowledgment. She is owed that much. She grabs the most popular girl by the shoulder, forcibly turning her.
“I said I’m sorry for your loss.” Susan is aware she’s almost shouting the words, but she knows the girl will understand.
Yet the most popular girl shows no sign of understanding, only tear-stained incomprehension. There is no flicker of recognition at all. Her friend pulls her back inwards, like a precious doll.
“What the fuck is your problem?” says the friend. “Leave her alone, freak.”
People are staring at Susan. Even in the grief of the room, the opportunity for gossip, some minor scandal, is too good to pass up. Susan feels a crushing weight of unexpected humiliation. She had convinced herself that there was some secret bond between her and the most popular girl. Without realizing it, it had given her a sense of belonging, of purpose, and now that has been ripped away from her. Head down, she hurries for the exit doors, almost tripping up as she goes, hating every eye that’s upon her.
Classes are canceled for the rest of the day. Susan roams the mall. She sits in the food court and nurses a flat coke. Her fries grow cold. Everything around her feels plastic and fake. She counts the days left of high school. The number seems impossibly high.
♦
Her mother greets her at the door, face sketched with worry. She places her hands on Susan’s shoulders, leading her into the house.
“I heard about Bryce. I am so… so sorry.” She strokes away a strand of hair from Susan’s face.
“It’s okay,” says Susan. “I didn’t really know him.”
“You were at his birthday party last month,” says her mother, more with concern than suspicion.
Susan remembers she had used that as an excuse one night. She told her mother she was heading to the party, but actually rode her bike out to the old quarry, wheels shaking across the gravel and dirt. She cycled around the edge, circuit after circuit, trying to lose herself in the mindless repetition.
She imagines Bryce at his party, surrounded by friends, posing for pictures, his big warm smile. Then in his room, alone, the final moments. A scared teenage boy, hands fashioning a tie into a noose, a storm howling in his head that he cannot hope to understand. She finds herself choking up, on the edge of unexpected tears.
Her mother pulls her close. “I know that it’s not easy sometimes. But if you ever—if you ever feel that way… I’m always here for you, Susie. You’re not alone.”
“I don’t have any friends,” says Susan, relieved to finally say it out loud, to admit it to someone other than herself. “Nobody likes me. I just—I just can’t fit in.”
“That’s not true,” says her mother.
Susan looks up at her, nods, wiping away tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Susan, you have friends. Really, you do.”
Susan thinks she can hear a strident level of hope in her mother’s voice as if by repeating it enough times, it will make it true. But her mother continues. “Like Lisa. She called around for you earlier. She’s upstairs, still waiting in your room.”
Susan turns and looks towards the staircase that rises into the dark. There is no ‘Lisa’.
And Susan does not have any friends.
♦
The most popular girl is sitting on Susan’s bed. As Susan opens the door, she has an inappropriate twang of shame over her room; the patterned Goodwill bedcovers, the poster of the boyish singer who is no longer in fashion, that pink stuffed unicorn on the shelf.
But mostly she feels a cold, quiet, fear.
The most popular girl rises from the bed, and then extends her arms and starts to twist them back. Susan can hear bones straining beneath the skin. She wants to shout for her mother, for help, but she can only stand there and watch.
“What are you?” she manages to whisper.
The most popular girl looks like some unknowable statue, an ancient carving, dug from a forgotten tomb. Arms bent and angled. Head raised, staring up towards an indescribable sky. Susan hears the crack of cartilage.
Then the girl jerks and twists back into shape. She steps towards Susan, all focus on her, and Susan feels the room shrink and contract around them.
“Stop watching me,” says the girl, and she places her hand on Susan’s wrist, as if to restrain her. “And stop following me around.”
“No,” says Susan, although she doesn’t understand why she’s refusing. She wants to ask what happened to the most popular girl, but she can’t find the words. It doesn’t seem to matter, as her unasked question gets an answer anyway.
“She’s sitting by the lake, watching the shadows grow. Above her the black stars blink into existence. Every moment lasts an hour, and every hour lasts a life time.” The girl’s voice is a low hiss, like steam escaping a rattling pipe. “Would you like to join her? Do you wish to see the nameless places, to kneel before the tattered hem?”
Susan shakes her head. The girl has gripped her wrist, a vice of iron. Her touch is far colder than Susan could have imagined. Her face is so close to Susan that it blocks out everything else in the room. “I’ll eat your soul. And the soul of your little brother. Then your mother. Then your father.”
“Good luck with that then,” says Susan. “My father walked out years ago. Nobody knows where he is.”
Susan isn’t trying to be funny, but the most popular girl seems to smile at that, head tilted, maybe even amused by the response. Except the smile keeps growing, the mouth gapes open, and the jaw starts to unhinge and click, and Susan desperately tries to push the girl away, which only seems to galvanize her even more. Susan stumbles back against her bedroom wall, closing her eyes, turning away as the girl moves closer. She imagines the jaw extending, the darkness inside spilling out and swarming over her, jagged teeth tearing at her flesh. She reaches out a hand to stop the imagined attack, but it swats at the empty air. She opens her eyes. The girl has gone, and she is alone again.
Outside the neighbor’s dog starts barking, and doesn’t stop all night.
A few years ago Susan found a large envelope of letters, ripped and torn up, hidden in the back of her mother’s closet. She recognized her father’s handwriting. She managed to piece the scraps together, a painstaking task, hour upon hour. She expected to read words of sorrow and regret, pleas to see his children. But there was only a stream of bile, aimed towards her mother, saying how much he despised her, how she’d ruined his life. Susan and her brother never even got so much as a cursory mention. The hole her father had left transformed into an echoing void.
♦
The next day at school Susan eats alone.
Out the corner of her eye, she sees the most popular girl putting food on her tray, ignoring the line. Susan will not look at her. She has made a decision. There is still a year to go, and she must be invisible again.
The most popular girl approaches her and stands for a moment, before placing the tray on the table. She sits down in the empty seat opposite from Susan.
The rest of the school looks on, unsure what to make of this unprecedented social juxtaposition.
The most popular girl takes her juice box off the tray, punctures it with a straw.
“Do you want to know my real name?” she asks.
“Not really,” says Susan, eyes down, focusing on her food.
“We were there at the start. When man crawled from the slime, and gazed up into the cosmos, it was our unblinking eye that stared back down.”
The girl is trying to sound triumphant, but to Susan she just sounds tired, as if she’s going through the motions.
“I don’t know why you’re still here,” says Susan. “It’s like you’re stuck and can’t go home or something.”
The girl says nothing for a moment, then she leans forward, pushing her tray to the side. Her voice is low, a purring growl.
“I meant what I said last night. I could eat your soul.”
Susan shrugs. “Yeah. I heard you.”
The most popular girl shakes her head. “You must be really desperate for friends.”
Susan looks up at her. “You’re the one that sat down with me.”
The most popular girl in school appears to consider this. Then she nods, as if it makes as much sense as anything.
The two of them sit there, eating in silence, as the rest of the world carries on around them. §
