Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #20 November 2015 | Page 82

sort myself out, but on the day I had
to go back I felt as if everyone knew
and everyone was staring at me. My
shoulders hunched under the weight
of their imagined stares. I had never
been a timid girl, but in just a few days, I had become
tentative and afraid.

Daniel was in my English class. How would I
face him?
I was fearful when I walked into class, and
I slouched in my chair. I could feel Daniel sitting
behind me, his eyes crawling over me like hungry
insects. Whispers skirled against my ears. My skin
burned. What had Daniel told his friends? The
suspense was heavy on me, so I turned to meet his
eyes. My stomach lurched; I clenched my hands
against their sudden shaking.
One of his friends lifted a hand as if to cover
his cough. “Whore,” he choked out.
ran.

Daniel smirked. I lurched out of my chair and

Hiding in the bathroom stall, crouched next
to the toilet, I opened my phone to call my mother. I
had forty-five messages. The first one was from my
best friend. It said, I thought you had self-respect. UR
nothing but a slut.

Blind with tears, I dashed for the front doors.
Classes had let out while I hid in the bathroom, and I
ricocheted off a boy from my math class and landed
in a pair of wiry arms. I looked up. Jenna glared down
at me, face alive with contempt. She shoved me away.
“Fucking watch it, cum dumpster.” All of her friends
laughed.
I fled.
I scrabble back to reality, desperate as hands
clinging to the edge of a crumbling cliff. It is daylight
again. The kids who pass in wide circles around me
are unfamiliar, but I cannot help hearing the sound of
Daniel’s laughter and Jenna’s scorn in their voices.

Restless, I wander from class to class. When I come
in, teachers pause as if they have forgotten what they
were about to say.
A girl in a cheerleader’s uniform shudders and
says, “Ooh. I think a goose walked over my grave.”
empty.

Polly’s math class is in session but her chair is

I think about her words: I wish I had your
balls. I think about Polly’s mother and her searching
blue eyes.
I promised myself I would not talk to her
again. But Polly is not well, not stable. Her absence
worries me. I could just…look in her window. She
doesn’t even have to see me. If I knew she was okay I
would feel better.
I am not constrained by a walking pace, and I
come to her house with a wish. Her mother is washing
dishes again, and when I move past her she looks
around. I ease up the stairs and hear the sound of
bathwater running. Polly is in there, I know it.
I shove my face through the door but I do not
materialize inside. Polly is in the bath, and her head
lolls onto her shoulder. The tub is full of dark blood.
Her breasts float in it like white balloons. Water runs
over the side of the tub and onto the floor, stained
pink.
glass.
away.”

“Polly!” I shriek, loud enough to rattle the
Her eyes flutter. “-away,” she whispers. “Go

I hurl down the stairs into the kitchen. If I
could breathe, I would be breathless. Her mother
rinses a plate and puts it in the dish rack. The tree
outside their kitchen window is
turning yellow.
“Polly needs you!” I scream.
“Help!” The woman shivers and picks

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