Fictober Day 3 “You did this?”
art by @aoifehorse
“You did this?” said a girl sitting behind me. Olive. I’d seen her before. She lived across the street. I had seen her sitting out on her porch at night and making kissy noises and clicking sounds at these raccoons and throwing little crumbs or seeds or something at them. She was quiet but the few times she spoke up in class, it was usually to make an absolutely devastating joke at the teacher’s expense, or else just to correct something they’d said that wasn’t true.
“I was just doodling.” I said, shrugging. I tried to keep myself from looking at her face. I didn’t even know why I had done the drawing. It was a picture of girls kissing. I shouldn’t have brought my sketchbook to school. I shouldn’t have drawn such weird pictures in the first place. I probably seemed like some kind of creep.
“This is amazing!” I’d had a dream once where she’d been about to kill me and I woke up just before I died. I guess I should call it a nightmare, not a dream, but it was only scary once I’d woken up. In the actual dream, i’d been calm, like we were just actors playing characters: murderer and murderee.
It was like I was on a rollercoaster and I’d just been flipped upside down, or maybe rightside up. “Huh?” I couldn’t stop myself from looking up with her, just to see if she was fucking with me. She had long, pale arms and she was moving them around as she talked, too fast for me to keep up with. She didn’t look like she was joking. She looked serious, even half sad, somehow. I decided that she was probably just weird enough to actually like my drawing.
“I’ve already said, I was just doodling.” I repeated.
“If these are your doodles I’d love to see your art!” said Olive.
“You know, I don’t really show people my sketches.” I said, tapping my fingers on the closed sketchbook and watching her in case she made a grab for it. I could dart out ahead of her and she’d just grab my arm instead.
She didn’t grab. She looked a little regretful and turned away. Her ears were small and pink at the tips. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.” She said.
“I guess I should say I’m sorry too.” I said. It came out maybe more snippy than I meant it. I just didn’t like her guilt tripping me. I didn’t want to sink to her level, though. I snapped my jaw closed. My mouth tasted sour.
“For what?” She asked, frowning.
I ground my teeth together. She had me trapped. She’d said her thing, her stupid apology in full. I owed her. “For being, I dunno...frigid.” I said. The word felt like a lump, coming up from my stomach and into my throat and then bumping around in my mouth, before I spit it out like a cat hacking up a hairball. I couldn’t think of anything to replace it with, though.
“You’re not being anything. I asked and you answered.” she said it less like we were arguing and more like I was one of the racoons she liked to feed.
I opened my mouth and closed it. What was I supposed to say to someone who treated me like a pet raccoon? Who even had pet raccoons?