 
Hers and Hers and His [#3]

I Feel Pretty Writer's Collective

Published by Gibson Culbreth and Wyl Villacres

Copyright 2012 I Feel Pretty Writer's Collective

(All Rights Reserved, Individual Authors Retain Ownership)

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

FICTION

1. Lost and Found\- Emily Roth

2. The Choice is Yours\- Shelbie Janocha

3. Death on Addison\- Ben Kramer

4. A 16-Year-Old Know It All\- Samantha Traina

5. Flyover County\- Wyl Villacres

6. Roger\- James Giannelli

Non-Fiction

7. Ben Knox Miller (A Profile) \- Virginia Baker

8. The College of Santa Fe\- Brittany Selters

9. Rejection Story\- Lisa Mrock

Poetry

10. Skirt Interlude\- Liz Baudler

Novel Excerpt

11. Street Fair\- Gibson Culbreth

12. Rule #1\- Sayla Blackwood

Lost and Found

Emily Roth

Jane tried not to think about what she had seen in the field. An hour later her hands were still shaking and her face was still hot as she sat at the counter in the truck stop's diner waiting for the waitress to bring her a cup of coffee. It was barely eight in the morning and the diner was near-empty, save for a red-faced man in a back booth who wore a green John Deere cap pulled low over his eyebrows.

Jane was pretty sure she hated coffee but the twelve dollars and fifty-seven cents she had scraped together from her pants pockets and her suitcase and her backpack was all the cash she had to her name and it needed to last her all the way back to western Nebraska.

"You need anything else, honey? Breakfast?" Jane turned back as the waitress scraped a steaming mug across the red vinyl counter. Jane couldn't remember the last time someone had called her 'honey'. She shook her head 'no' because her throat still felt tight and fluttery and she didn't trust herself to speak. The waitress shrugged heavy shoulders and lumbered off, her long grey ponytail swishing across her back as she went. The waitress was probably near Jane's grandma's age, but Jane thought as she watched the woman lean her weight against the other end of the counter that she seemed much older. It was not just her weight or the thickness of her red hands against the countertop, but something in her eyes as she squinted out the truck stop window, something in the way that the lines in her face pulled her expression downward, that made her seem so tired, as though she was not staring out the window at the parking lot of a long-haul truck stop or the landscape of northern Kentucky but something much bigger.

Jane swiveled in her chair to look out the window too. It spanned two booths and was covered in a layer of filmy plastic that made the parking lot and the mountains beyond look like they had been painted in a layer of Technicolor blue. Jane saw that the space where Charlie's truck had parked the night before was empty. She hadn't realized she had expected to watch him leave. She swiveled back. Her mouth felt dry and her face felt hot.

Jane lifted the hot mug in both hands and let the steam brush across her face for a minute before slowly taking a sip. It tasted like dirty water and scorched a path down her throat. She took another.

In the field, death had smelled like wet rust and gasoline.

"Fuck," Charlie said, still a few feet behind Jane, "fuck goddamnit fucking shit," he sputtered the words at the dry yellow grass rapid-fire.

To Jane, the boy didn't look dead. She thought of him as a boy even though he wasn't, not really, he was probably eighteen like her, almost a man. He didn't look dead, he looked pale and peaceful and sleeping, with long black eyelashes that curled over his cheeks like insect legs.

His face was thin and clean-shaven, with shapely lips and a nose that had never been broken. It was a strangely beautiful face, a face that had been well-cared for.

He didn't look dead, but his head ended just where that smooth baby chin should have extended into neck. It was his head, just his head. The overgrown grass of the field was bent, pillowing him, and blackened with blood in a disjointed circle. The warped, rusted fence served as some kind of great barrier, a symbol of division between body and mind, but there was no body on the other side. The fence didn't really divide much of anything in reality, only field from more field; Jane and Charlie's side spilling out to the parking lot where the semis still nestled around each other like lovers, Charlie's tan cab in the center, and the other side to the grey ribbon of Kentucky highway and the mountains beyond, like folds in a green velvet dress.

Jane still gripped the pillowcase that had been covering the boy's head between her thumb and forefinger.

"Christ Jesus..." Charlie was still swearing. He had turned away from Jane, half bent over, shoulders pushed up to his ears, his back heaving with each word. And then his words were punctuated by vomit, all that Coors he drank last night coming up hot and fast.

Jane didn't feel sick, but her head ached and her face felt too warm and her knees shook. She knelt in the grass to calm them. She folded the pillowcase in a square and tucked it against the fence, next to the boy's ear. In the eerie pre-dawn light, his skin glowed as though it had been painted over with clear nail polish. As though it wasn't real.

It occurred to Jane at that moment that this boy would be in the ground soon. He had just been alive, maybe a day earlier, when Jane and Charlie were in Mississippi, or the day before when they were in Texas, and now his head had been left here just like the soda-pop cans and plastic wrappers, like something abandoned and discarded. She would be one of the last few to see this face, a face she would never see with the eyes open, a face she would never see smile. This was the one time she would see it and then no one would see it ever again. She lightly brushed one finger across the skin of his forehead. It felt like wax.

Behind her, Charlie's vomiting was choking to a stop.

Death smelled like beer-bile and the rising sun.

Jane ran her trembling fingertips through the boy's sun-kissed hair. She expected it to feel dead, to feel waxy like his skin, like the painted-on hair of a plastic Ken doll. Like her Grandma's hair, wispy like strands of pulled apart cotton, or like her own, bleached too many times and sticky with left-over hairspray. Charlie didn't have hair anymore, he had buzzed it off in the badlands of South Dakota and now his skull was prickly and his head looked like a giant potato.

The boy's hair was soft and smooth. It was still clean.

Jane had been traveling with Charlie for a year now, nearly. Maybe that meant they were living together, in a sense, but she didn't know whether to call it that. She had left Nebraska, left Grandma, left her waitressing job, left high school just before her senior year. After their first real fight, when she wanted to stop leaving and realized she couldn't, after Charlie proposed with a cheap ring that turned her finger green, after she said yes, she started taking things of theirs in secret and leaving them in each place they spent a night.

She took old things, small things, worn out things that they didn't need any more but kept anyway. Holey socks, papers, cigarette butts, the pebble that Charlie found in his shoe in Montana, a ribbon off the neck of the stuffed rabbit from the claw game he cheated at in southern Illinois. There were pieces of them everywhere; in fields, in the knots of trees, on the edge of a slimy, pond scummy lake in Michigan, behind a dumpster in Georgia. They were things people didn't look for in places people didn't look. And wasn't that better? If their physical bodies kept moving and little pieces of themselves were scattered everywhere, maybe they could never grow tired of one another.

In western Kentucky, that morning, Jane had slid a dried up tube of mascara of hers and a Coors bottle cap of Charlie's into her shorts pocket. She was half in the cab and half in the cool darkness when Charlie sat up from their flimsy floor mattress, sat up too fast, his hands flying up in the shock of his wakefulness, one hitting the back of the driver's seat and the other flying to his head.

"I'm going for a walk," Jane said automatically. Charlie's hands moved to his face, rubbing his eyes.

"It's the middle of the night," he mumbled.

"It's near five. You know I can never sleep much." It was a lie, Jane felt like she could sleep for days sometimes.

"I'll go with you." Charlie said, feeling around in the darkness for his clothes. He never went on walks with her, never even woke up when she left. One of Jane's bare feet still hung in the air.

"Just go back to sleep," Jane said.

"No, no," Charlie said, his voice muffled from the shirt he was already pulling over his pale, hairless chest.

They walked between the trucks together in silence. Jane felt the objects in her pocket with one hand. Charlie gripped her other hand, entwining his fingers through hers like he had when things were still quiet and easy and Jane realized that she wasn't gripping back, her hand was in the right position but her fingers were loose and light; if Charlie had let go she would have too, without meaning to.

"Let's walk to that fence," Jane said, pointing to the silver line in the middle of the yellowing field.

"It seems far," Charlie said.

"We can watch the sun rise. It's gonna rise over the mountains soon." Truthfully, Jane didn't know which direction they were facing. Didn't even know which direction the sun rose from in the first place. The grass of the field brushed up against her feet and ankles, cold and wet. She wished she had worn shoes.

Jane saw the pillowcase first. It was just a yellow lump, barely more yellow than the yellow of the grass from a distance, but decidedly round instead of feathered.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing, when they were twenty feet away.

"It's a shirt," he said, squinting. The sky was lavender with daylight now. "Or a blanket. Some kind of fabric. Is that where the smell is coming from?" Jane didn't smell anything but air. Thick pungent air, like the sky was sweating.

"Should we pick it up?" Jane asked.

"No, leave it."

"I'm going to pick it up."

Slowly, they approached it, the smell hitting them harder with each step until finally Jane could feel it deep and wet all the way in her lungs. It wasn't a smell so much as a change in the air. Slowly, Jane bent down, and pinched the fabric between her thumb and forefinger.

Charlie dragged Jane to her feet by her upper arm. Her fingers slid out of the boy's hair, and her feet nearly slipped out from under her. Charlie had big hands that wrapped nearly all the way around Jane's bicep. His nails dug into her freckled flesh, gripping harder than he had ever gripped her before, even that one time in Oklahoma, the time Jane didn't like to think about. His round cheeks were red. Grey foamy saliva bubbled from the corners of his chapped lips and clung to the black stubble of his chin.

"What thjke fuck are you doing?" he asked, his voice all hoarse and scratched up from puking. Jane couldn't look at him. The sun was starting to come up now, making the flat grey sheet of clouds look gauzy. Charlie pulled on Jane's arm and dragged her away from the boy. She stumbled but kept her feet planted. He pulled again. Her arm tingled under his grip like something was buzzing under her skin. Her fingertips went numb. "Let's go," he said.

"Go?" It was hard for Jane to speak, like the words couldn't form properly in her throat.

"We have to get to Memphis by eight."

"But Charlie," Jane sputtered. She looked back at the boy's head, at the folded pillowcase. "We can't just go."

"Janie—"

"Don't call me that." Charlie paused, turned to look at her, his mouth turning up slightly in a smile.

"Oh, do you prefer Laura?" Jane's real name was Laura Jane; Laura was for her mother, who died purple and screaming on the night Jane was born, and Jane was for her grandma.

"Fuck you," Jane never used to swear but it came natural now. Charlie flinched slightly at the words. He shut his eyes. He loosened his grip on her arm.

"Jane," his voice was quiet again, his real voice, "it's so fucked up." He bit his chapped lip. Feeling traveled down from Jane's shoulder in hot waves.

"You go, then," she said. Her words surprised her. "You go, and I'll stay."

The red-faced man was finishing off a plate of bacon and eggs in his corner booth. He glanced up at Jane as she looked out the window again. In the moment of accidental eye contact, she realized it was the way Charlie had looked at her back when she had served him bacon and eggs when he came in every Wednesday like clockwork back in Nebraska—but Charlie hated eggs, she knew that. The heat the day promised was already seeping in through the window. Jane felt it on her back, against her neck. She thought of the boy with his unblemished skin and his blood, all of that blood.

"Actually, I do need something," Jane said. Her hands were shaking again. So she put her palms flat against the greasy red countertop on either side of her coffee mug and stared down at them to avoid looking at anything else. Dirty nails, and a blackened-green line on her left ring finger where it had once been silver and glittering. "I need a job. I'll take anything you got. I'll work for a place to sleep, for food, you don't even have to pay me. I got experience and I'm eighteen, I got a license to prove it. I'm good with people." Jane thought about what she would say to Grandma on the pay phone. _Grandma, It's Laura, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, forgive me, I'm coming back to Nebraska, home._ She rehearsed the lines in her head, said them loud to block the inevitable 'no' that would come from the waitress, listened to her grandma's voice in her mind to avoid imagining how she would get there. Maybe the man in the back booth was going west. Or she would hitchhike, and she imagined herself out on the side of the highway waving her arms like she had that night in Oklahoma, imagined herself sailing across rivers and prairies in some sweltering cab or car or minivan... _I'm coming home, I found a dead boy, Grandma, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, don't forgive me._

"You willin' to work nights?" the waitress asked. It was a few seconds before Jane really heard her.

"I can work here?"

"Overnight girl left a week or so back and I haven't had time to put up a sign yet." Jane's chest still felt tight.

"And one more thing," Jane said. "There's... There's a head in the field. A boy's head. Just his head." The words came out fast and whistling and Jane found herself choking over them. Her face was already wet and she didn't feel the tears this time. The woman didn't speak for a moment. "So maybe, maybe someone needs to call the police," Jane said. She wiped her face with the hem of her t-shirt, already stained charcoal from leftover eye makeup.

"Christ," the red-faced man said softly behind them. Jane tried to take another sip of her coffee for something to concentrate on. It had cooled down, and this time it was sweeter somehow. She thought maybe she could get used to the taste.

"See ya," was the last thing Charlie said to Jane, after she had dragged her backpack and her suitcase—never unpacked—out of the truck and started to slowly walk across the hot pavement of the parking lot, still barefoot. She didn't look at him. It struck her as odd that he would say that, 'See ya,' instead of 'Goodbye.' But it was probably true, she reasoned to herself, wasn't it, that they would see one another again, because they had spent so much time together in that stupid cab, loving each other so much that it got all rusted over with hate, so they would have to see each other again, wouldn't they? Jane would have to rip all those small pieces of them apart, all the pieces that were stuck and unmoving, and send them in different directions before they could be done with each other forever. She wondered if the boy in the field was a piece of her or a piece of Charlie before she realized that was selfish, and that, if anything, it was the other way around and she and Charlie were pieces of him.

She stopped outside the front door and tossed the mascara tube and Coors cap into a rusting trash can. The mascara thudded low and deep against the side but the cap didn't make any sound at all.

****

The Choice is Yours

Shelbie Janocha (Fiction)

The pill made me sick.

Both pills made me sick.

So many hormones locked into two tiny compact capsules that held the entire fate of my life inside. The instructions on the box told me to take the first pill with a glass of water, repeat with the second pill one hour later. The letter the pharmacist gave me, the sickly yellow color of the page reminding me of the shade that expectant parents painted the nursery whenever they wanted to be surprised with the sex of the child, told me that I could either follow the instructions on the box or I could take both pills together if it was more convenient, that the choice was mine.

The choice is yours.

Those four little words were a subtle dig. The choice is yours. More like 'the choice is yours...just like being irresponsible was a choice, you stupid whore.' It's not like I was irresponsible. I take my birth control every day, maybe not always at the same time, but I take it every day. I make sure of it. I don't want to be that girl. It just happened. He slipped inside before the condom was on. When I realized, I made him put one on. I wasn't irresponsible. I wasn't a bad girl.

The pharmacist put the box in a brown paper bag. It was small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, but of course, it was so warm out that I didn't wear one. Her eyes were dull, a dark brown that was void of any of the warmth that her false smile tried to give me. I left without a word.

The scratchy paper was damp from sweat and crinkled to oblivion by the time I finished the ten blocks back to my apartment. Everyone was staring at me. All the people in the lobby glared at the bag, following my every movement as I waited for the elevator to save me. The doors sliding shut in all of their judgmental little faces was satisfying.

Every floor that flew past wasn't going fast enough. Nothing would go fast enough until I got to the sink, ripped open the box and gulped down the pills. Nothing would be fast enough until I got the results, until I knew that I was okay, that this was fixed. Nothing would be fast enough until I woke up from this nightmare, wrapped in his arms, shivering from the cool sweat drying on my skin. Nothing would be fast enough until this was over.

Thank God my apartment is so close to the elevator. Any longer of a walk would leave me collapsed on the floor¸ nothing to show for myself except the little pink box in this little brown bag.

"Hello?"

I couldn't hear anything except for the ding of the elevator signaling its descent. Slipping inside, I saw my apartment in new light. This wasn't safe or clean or remotely decent for anyone who isn't a somewhat down and out college student to live in. The shower takes years to warm up to a somewhat decent cleansing experience, the stove reeks whenever the burner was on because there was food stuck below the coils that couldn't be reached, none of my roommates know how to clean up after themselves. No wonder I rarely came home.

The sink was full of days of dishes and remnants of food that I had taken no part in, but would surely be found responsible for. I rinsed out the only cup that didn't have drops of dried soda or coffee rings on the inside, filling it with the last of the ice cold water from the pitcher. I put the now empty container back in the fridge with the hopes of passive aggressively getting my point across.

The water and the bag came into my bedroom with me. My bed would never feel as soft and welcoming as it did at that moment. I wanted to curl up in a ball and fall asleep like an infant, like the thing that could possibly be forming inside me right now.

The acids in my stomach churned, threatening to relinquish onto my bedspread, decorating the pink and black squares with strings of stress.

The brown bag sat on my lap, staring, knowing, wanting. I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to open the crinkled mass, rip open the box and swallow the magic cure. I realized that this is how my mother must have felt at sixteen, younger than I am now, looking at the tiny pink plus sign that confirmed the life that was forming inside her.

Except this is different. She didn't have this option. She didn't have a third form of protection. The pills I held in my hands weren't approved until six years after my birth, until after she was in love with me.

I thought of my childhood. How hard it was for my mom to create a life for us at such a young age. To never have the things that I have now, all because she had made a similar mistake.

I opened the bag, my heart racing. The box was variations of pink, an attempt at soothing the young woman who would need to take it, bold black letters proclaiming, "Next Step." It opened like a book, the instructions printed on the inside cover as well as the back. My savior was a calming blue, the same size as the pill I took every morning.

I could do this.

Popping one from its plastic shell, I shoved it in my mouth and gulped half of the water. I popped the next one in my mouth, choosing to follow the instructions of the pharmacist rather than the box because this was my choice.

No one elses.

And as I swallowed, I remembered following him into his bedroom that first time, unaware of what would happen, that this time would be any different than all the others. Where we laid on his bed like we usually did, the way he touched my face, kissed me, hands traveling lower and lower, goose bumps peppering my skin. His fingers played with the lace of my underwear, the pink ones, the new ones that I bought to feel sexy, to feel empowered. The ones he never noticed. His hand slipped inside, my own movements nothing but a mimic, putting my hand inside his boxers, doing what I knew would make us happy.

And this kept going and I didn't know what I was going to say until it was too late, "Do you have a condom?"

He was shocked. "Really? Are you sure?"

I remember nodding. The covers flying into the air, blanketing me in the cold of the basement room, the bumps on my skin no longer from his touch. I could hear him rattling the objects inside the dresser as he dug around for one, just one, his mumbles of frustration not enough to drown out my conscience.

Should I do this? Is this how you pictured it? You're not on birth control yet. What if something bad happens? Do you love him? Will it hurt? Do you need to love him? Will he still care about you in the morning?

The slamming drawer brought me back to the darkness of the room, and his body slid next to mine again, smelling my hair, touching my arm, trying to comfort me, I still don't know.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

****

A Death on Addison

Ben Kramer

A Death On Addison

A block away, above the chaos, families watched in horror from the Addison Red Line stop as a tiny figure ran amuck and was toppled over by an orgy of blood battered bodies. They could hear the wild war cries from the people below. The roads were overtaken by loyal, misguided soldiers, who carried out what they thought were proper orders under the lined, rows of city lights.

Mother's covered their children's eyes, hoping to shield them from such a bone-chilling event, unforgettable to all who attended.

Father's gripped their young sons hands, with the both of them trembling and the son's saying, "Daddy I'm scared." To which the father would reply, "It's ok son, we're safe up here."

First memories for some, as three year olds asked, "Mommy, what's going on?"

No reply.

Other mothers said, "It's nothing dear," for they didn't know what to say. How do you explain murder to an infant child?

While police and fans clashed, frenzied suburbanites stuck their heads down the tracks hoping to find the white headlights shining back at them, and soon deliver them from this dreadful sight. The trains, both southbound and northbound, were running at full speed now as ordered by the head of the CTA. Conductors were ordered to abandon all stops and run express from where they were to Addison. It was urgent to take in every passenger they could from the "Cubs" stop and to leave as quickly as possible.

A proximity war zone lay only twenty feet below, with guerilla tactics being performed by monkeys of men against the police, who tried to tame the many beasts. Wrigley field stood alone, and untouched, with people marching alongside it, trying to catch up with the rest and beat the man who ruined the game. The giant, red scoreboard at the front of the stadium read, in yellow Lite-Brite letters, "Please, Go Home! We Beg Of You, Please!!!"

But they did not listen, and they carried on with violating human decency, slitting it's throat and letting it be stampeded by thousands looking to take away a piece of Steve Bartman and place it on their mantles. "Madness," a lone man muttered in the corner of the platform. "Madness."

Cornered at the Harry Carey statue, they spat on him, again, as they did inside Wrigley, with every man pulling out whatever trick or attack they had in their arsenal, which wasn't too many. Kick, push, stomp, punch, smack, kick, spit, elbow, all at once, going four hundred beats a minute.

Steve's vision consisted of only flying fists coming at him, while all he could hear was the jumbled masses slurring and spewing words he had already heard since the top of the eighth inning. The smell of collective body odor, which reeked like rotting garbage, blended with stale beer, and exhausted, over heated porta potties, could not top the horror Steve felt as he tasted his own blood, not dripping now, but erupting like Krakatau and bleeding the life force out of the young Cub.

He couldn't tell the time, how long the massacre had been, but it didn't matter. He felt weightless as his head slumped over his shoulder and as his eyes rolled up to the heavens where the baseball Gods, with the Ghost of the Billy Goat covering his eyes, for such an event was not his intention, watched his Miramax demise and the fists faded, and fewer came until a puffy, cloud colored, grey blanketed his vision and ended the pain.

When the melee had started it was only five officers, reinforcements came later, against close to five thousand on the corner of Sheffield and Addison alone. They waved their batons like an orchestra conductor, trying to pick on different sections of the crowd and make them play their part and disperse. Many fled in fear of getting arrested or beaten down and tased. Most of the men who ran were older, wider, and sobering up at the sight of black Billy clubs firing off on random skulls.

The younger fans though, the ones in backwards Cubs caps and t-shirts, with the shaggy hair and scruffy chins, with the piss water known as the "Champagne" of beers in their bloodstreams, they did not leave. They ignored the force and continued to throw in the last punches they could at Him, the Asshole, and those that weren't near Steve, they tried to fight back, which was a mistake for fragile fists do nothing against bashful batons.

Not all young fans attacked though. Some ran away, with a story to tell their friends and family, that they, Chad, or Gill, or Connor, could say they were in the midst of the riot on Addison.

The attack itself lasted somewhere around two to three hours. A police horse lay on the ground with two broken legs because some Goliath came in and speared it with his shoulders. Many were injured, somewhere in the hundreds, but only one man was dead.

He was no longer recognizable, his face black and blue, swollen, deflated, for his skull had been crushed, flatten like a pancake, with his right arm nearly torn from his body, hanging on by a thread like a stringy scrap of meat on a turkey bone, and the cartilage of his left knee still sludgily plopping onto the bricks. His blood covered a good distance around him but nothing was more disturbing than when they removed his Piccasoed form. His corpse acted like a stencil, red all over the Harry Carey statue, except in the one spot where he spent his final moments. The sacrificial fan had been served.

****

A Sixteen Year Old Know it All

Samantha Traina

Heather lay strung out across her bed staring at the ceiling with unrelenting eyes. Her body didn't move except for the slight twitch at every noise that entered her room. The only light was that of the moon barely flooding through Heathers window, but her eyes had adjusted hours ago. She held her head just high enough so she wouldn't ruin her hair, which had taken forever to do in the mirror with no light. The makeup had been even worse. Too many times had she heard the dog scratch at her door, or the radiator bang causeing her to jerk in fear dragging mascara half way across her cheek. But now she was all done up, wearing her new sweater, one of those that have lace in the back that showed off the bra. Most of her classmates wore a tank top underneath these sweaters but she thought it would look sexier without one, older.

Then he won't look at me like a baby, she thought as she allowed herself to breathe deeply and blink. The only sound that was filling her house was the mechanics of her fan, softly clicking as it let out a comforting breeze that washed away some of the hot Arkansas air. Though the silence was the very thing that was putting her on edge. Even as she let the rest of her body relax her ears still strained for any sound.

Finally an awful noise resembling that of a spoon grinding into a garbage disposal erupted down the hall and burst through the crack underneath her door. It was this noise that let her body relax. All the tension immediately left her body as the noise repeated. The young blonde hopped off her bed no longer fearful of making a racket herself. The constant appearance of the horrid growl was her reassurance that her father was fast asleep. As she grabbed her purse she made sure that her bed was equipped with the proper pillows hidden underneath the covers. Heather doubted she would need them though, those pills were supposed to be strong.

She had gotten the pills from that one shady kid at lunch, who knew what the hell his name was, but he had said they were guaranteed to work. Heather was never one to rely on guarantees so even as she grinded them up and sprinkled into the sauce, just as she was told by this nameless kid, she doubted that anything at all would happen. She continued to doubt even as she grabbed her purse and snuck down the hall, all the way till she reached the family room and saw her father's head tilted back to rest on the back of the couch, mouth wide open, and drool dripping to form a small puddle on the cushion beside him.

His hag of a wife was doing much the same only instead of the couch was resting against her husband's swell of a belly. The sight of her mouth wide open, and the realization that part of the obnoxious growl was coming from her as well, let Heathers mouth curve into its own vindictive smile.

Hope I put enough in yours so that you never wake up stupid bitch, she thought happily as she pulled on her warn down Uggs. She had once been very fond of Caitlyn, when she had first come around. Before she had had another child with her father, before he started to ignore her. Before her own mother had started on the drugs, bad mouthing the hell out of Caitlyn while is a spiral of a pitiful drunken state. Before everything her mother said became true, and now that dumb bitch who she had even called mom at one point had suggested that she'd be taken away from her father, her brother, her home, her dogs, and be sent away to that horrid school.

See who has the last laugh now, was her last thought as Heather smiled to her father on last time and then snuck out the door. She wasn't going anywhere near that camp, and if she couldn't stay here at home then she would just go anywhere else. How far she would go was debatable with only an extra day of clothes shoved into her purse.

Heather slowly wandered down the sidewalk carful to keep her eyes on the neighbor's houses. The only light was that of the street lamp at the end of the block. All their windows were dark, but she still stayed on edge waiting for a light to flicker and for someone to catch her and force her to go back home. They always did those fucking busy bodies, they never minded their own business, but this night that didn't happen. No lights came on and no neighbor was watching as Heather dragged her feet slowly constantly checking her phone, the light ahead, and the widows on either side.

Jackson where the fuck are you? She thought as she finally made it to the street lamp and chose to stand right next to the old stop sign. She smiled at the crummy Zumies sticker that was half torn away, but still slightly stuck to the bottom of the stop sign. She had stuck that there herself, last year back when she was still just a freshman and knew still so little about life. She was much wiser now, now that she was sixteen.

Heather remained jumpy as she continuously looked down at her phone, only to see a blank screen and no little icon announcing that she had text message. Her fingers flew yet again over the keys, typing away, to send a few choice words to her boy friend and how he should hurry his ass up.

Fuckin always late, she though anger filling her. Though few would understand how Heather could get angry. I mean what could your really expect from a twenty five year old, still living at his mother's house, who was trying to get some from a sixteen year old? Could you really expect a man such as him to be on time? Any wise person wouldn't.

It was just as she sent her fifth text that Jackson's shitty little car turned the corner. His shaggy hair was rumpled and beer was spilt down his shirt. The box of two hundred and thirty seven condoms slid across his back seat as he swung around to match his speed. The same as the three empty beer cans clanking on the floor of the passenger side. His lights strategically turned off so to not alert Heather's father. His stereo was even turned off knowing that the little blondes face would only scrunch into a glare at the sound of pig destroyer or blood brothers.

So with no music or lights to alert her, Heather just stood facing the other way still angry at her supposed boyfriend. She didn't see his eyes widening in their drunken haze at the sight of her. She didn't see him turn sharply, didn't even know he was behind her till the sound of his tires grazing over the curb. Even then she couldn't turn around fast enough that is until she was flying over the front of his car and landed solidly on the pavement.

Too confused to understand what had even just happened, lovely Jackson just threw his car into reverse, barely missing Heather's body as he again whipped around the corner in search of his easy lay. Heather's eyes couldn't even focus as his car drove away from her. She could feel something wet gathering around her head, but didn't even bother to get up. She was too dizzy to even comprehend the idea.

The neighbor remained silent till the early hours of the morning till a neighbor finally saw Heathers body stretched across the pavement. But it was far too late her body had bleed out from a head wound, her eyes and had long ago closed. The sirens did roar as fire trucks and an ambulance was called. Still Heather's father did not awake. It was the first good night sleep his daughter had given him in two years. No longer was he worried about his daughter that night. In fact he slept peacefully until a cop came knocking on his door.

****

Roger

James Giannelli

Emily stood in front of Roger, her black dress pushing her chest against her lungs. It was tight and too short to wear in public. She draped her knee length jacket, her appropriate cover up, over the green chair that was positioned to the left of the door.

She put her hands up around Roger's neck, slid her fingers under his collar in the back and used her thumbs to flip it up. She slid her fingertips in between the tie and the shirt and slowly circled to the front. She gripped the triangle knot of his tie and pulled hard and quick, then looped his tie around her own neck, seamlessly keeping his attention.

She returned to his collar, took to the first button, and slowly began undoing each as she moved her hands to his waist. When she undid the last button she moved back to his neck, took the collar on both sides into her hands and slowly pushed it back, from his shoulders, down his arms and eventually off. She folded it neatly and placed it on the dresser beside to door. She lined the shirt up squarely beside the small black television.

She went back to Roger. His eyes were closed and his face showed excitement like a child's on Christmas. Since he'd met Emily just a few short hours before, she'd had yet to disappoint him. She stood close to him, put her hands on his hips and moved him close to her. He could smell the sweet scent of toothpaste on her breath and a slight aroma of soft perfume. She took his belt in her fingers and quickly tore it off. She let it drop onto the bed beside her.

She placed her hands in the back of his khakis, sliding her hand around to the front as she'd done with his shirt, and slowly, magically, unclipped his pants, slid the zipper down and let them drop to the floor. She crouched down, sliding his feet out of his shoes and then slipped his legs out of his pants. She folded them too and placed them beside to TV. She took his shoes and hid them under the bed, at the foot, toes under first. She looked at Roger.

From what she remembered of their first conversation she had half heartedly taken part in, he was some kind of accountant or agent, selling real estate she thought. He was a lot different looking in the pale light of the motel than he was in his car, but he still wasn't bad. He was taller, his appearance less appealing than she'd hoped for but money was money.

He was wearing white boxer shorts. Her grandmother always told her this about older men, that they all wore white boxer shorts. It was her grandmothers one complaint for older men, they always dressed decently, drove nice cars, paid well, but always wore white boxer shorts. Something about the thin fabric, egg shell color and weird square look disgusted her. She tried to ignore it and went to her purse.

She withdrew a clothing iron.

Roger had pulled up beside her, his silver Lexus sleek and classy. He'd offered her $800 dollars, less than the first offer, but still decent. He'd requested she get something kinky but kinky was not her thing. She was a good girl who liked the cuddle and hold hands, not gag men and pour wax on their testicles, but for the money she'd agreed. Standing in the small check in office after Roger had paid, in cash, for the night, she asked the fat Mexican woman if she had an iron. After glaring at her for several moments, well aware of what Emily was doing, she went into the back room. When she returned she held an old brown iron, worn and used over the years. Emily slid it into her purse, the awkward shape hard to conceal, and went to join Roger.

"Lay Down." She instructed, pointing to the bed. He handed her his belt and followed instruction. She took the tie from around her neck and knotted his right arm to the bed post. She then used the belt to secure his other arm on the opposite side. He pulled but the belt was secure. The tie let go a bit but withstood him. He smiled.

"You'd make such a good wife. Such a good, hot wife." His wording stuck to her, like sap from a pine tree at her grandmothers old house, from when she was a child. It annoyed her that she couldn't let his use of the word hot go but something about being hot, not beautiful or lovely, but hot, made her feel sick.

"Beautiful women make wives, cute women make wives, even ugly women make wives, but hot women make for whores." She whispered to herself, loud enough for him to hear though not intending for him to.

"But look at yourself, you're so fucking hot, God damn." He howled, thrashing around on the bed. She grabbed the iron and went into the tiny sea foam green bathroom to get water. The tiles were old and grungy, like they'd been cleaned only once in the last ten years. She stopped to look at the black slime and reconsidered. Probably not even once in the past fifteen.

She looked in the mirror, her pale skin just like her grandmothers. Aside from her hair, she looked like a younger version of her, given if she were alive still. She smoothed out a clump of her hair and bit her lip, just like her grandmother always had. If it weren't for the cancer she'd still be there, still around to take care of Emily.

When she'd first died, Emily tried everything to sustain her lifestyle. She'd done waitressing, tried retail and even attempted to be a day care worker for a short period of time but nothing she did seemed to fit her. She would never have considered this, this disgracing occupation, if it hadn't been for the man who offered her a thousand dollars for one night.

She'd denied but after losing her grandmothers house from failing to keep up with the bills, she reconsidered. Now she was in this shitty hotel with Roger, making her first attempt at prostitution.

She returned to the bedside, the thin cotton blankets clumped at the foot, bare except for the soft sheet below Rodger. He was still bouncing around, tightly bound to the bed. He struggled to move freely but her knot was too secure and the thick leather of his belt too strong for him to break. He grinned at her, prepared for his beating.

She slid off her boots and stood them beside the door. The sleek leather looked glossy in the dim light seeping in from the vacancy sign outside. The lights in the room were dim but bright enough for them to see. The majority of the illumination came from the ceiling light in the bathroom. They kept the door open, ignoring the smell, so they'd be able to see without tripping over each other in the darkness. She plugged the iron in and climbed on top of Rodger, straddling him, her thighs around his chest.

"Oh fuck yeah, what are you going to do to me?" He moaned, his heart racing beneath her. She looked at his face, examining the contours of his skin in the dark. He was old, probably mid to late fifties, his skin sagged and his gut was round and soft. She was still new to grave digging, but from the experiences she'd had, she hadn't found what she was looking for.

Before her condition took hold of her, her grandmother was a firecracker for her age. She dated men younger than Emily one day than twenty years her senior then next, but always stuck by her morals, something Emily tried to do.

During her early twenties, she had told Emily she needed to stop dating all the hot muscle guys from the beach and go for older, more experienced men. "Maturity comes with age, darling. Older men know how to treat a pretty girl" she'd told her. But Emily didn't believe her and so far had found no verification on the topic.

"Do it baby, do it!" He whistled, tickling her mind, driving her insane with his talking. The sound of his voice pinched at her nerves, making her edgy and uncomfortable. She wanted to hit him.

She lifted the iron to his wrist. The steam wafted up to her hand, the warm touch easing her mind. She brought it down gently, quickly, burning a tiny half moon on his skin. She did it again, moving slowly down his arm to his shoulder. When she reached the joint, she moved to his other arm, repeating the process over again. He moaned in excitement, the burning a way for him to remind himself he was alive, but to her it felt like she was slowly dying.

"Do it baby, come on, keep doing it." He grunted, thrusting his hips up weirdly. It made her slip, searing his skin longer than she had intended. He screamed in excitement and urged her to continue.

She could feel him growing stiff beneath her. She shifted, awkwardly trying to escape his erection. He licked his lips several times, staring at her compressed chest. Doing something so degrading, with Roger, the man who only looked at her bust, made her feel less like a woman and more like a piece of meat.

She adjusted again. She didn't want to be here any more. She didn't want to be this girl but what choice did she have? She needed the money and good looks but no education left her with few options and with her whole family being gone now, she was all alone to fend for herself.

She began on his chest now. She wanted to get through tonight, get her money, and get out. She brought the iron down on his left pectoral then his right. She slowly brought more of the flat top down at a time until she built up to the full triangle shaped piece. She held it above his chest, teasing him with a smirk. He squirmed and bit into his lower lip, a small droplet of blood trickled down to his chin. She watched it sit there, staining his skin.

"Ready?" She asked quietly, almost ready to abandon him.

"Fucking do it!" She brought the iron down quick and hard, slamming it into his chest plate. It squealed as it burned into his chest. The tiny hairs burnt up instantly, the stench strong.

The smell stung her nostrils but in her mind she imagined herself ironing the wrinkles out of sheets fresh off the line. The smell of sweet cotton and laundry soap replacing the foul scent of burning flesh.

"Let me fuck you." He mumbled, his tongue falling into his throat.

"What?" She stopped and lifted the iron off of him.

"Let me fuck you."

"Don't you have a wife?"

"I don't care about her! Let me violate you!" She moved back, raising up on her knees. He said it with such eager conviction.

"What's wrong?"

Sex had never been an issue in the past, she had tons of boyfriends before but something about sex for money, let alone unwarranted sex, made her feel so ashamed. She had wanted to let herself be free, to be able to do this. The benefits were all there but she was raised too well for it. Her grandmother would be turning in her grave if she knew Emily, her little bug, was being paid for sex. There was no way she could go through with it. Not tonight, not ever.

"It's bad enough you're here, doing this with me, but to expect me to not only sleep with you but to let you knowingly cheat on your wife, that's disgusting. No, no way." She slid off of him and let the iron fall to the ground. It began to burn the tiny fibers of the carpet below her feet.

She went to the door and began lacing up her boots.

"What the fuck is your problem? Let me up." She turned to Rodger with disgust.

"Find your own way out." She took his wallet from his pants and his cigarettes from his jacket.

"Hey don't take those! You don't even smoke!" He screamed, struggling to free himself. She smiled, amused that he'd said she didn't smoke when he didn't know a thing about her beyond her name. She lit a cigarette and dropped the pack at the foot of the bed. She slid her coat on and began to leave.

"Wait, Emily..." She considered turning back, playing it off as part of the game but found that dignity meant much more to her than money and sex, especially more than sex with a sap like Rodger.

"Goodbye Rodger." She stepped into the cold, rainy night and began walking east towards town.

****

Flyover Country

Wyl Villacres

It was at this moment, as Joe's mouth met the girl whose name he couldn't remember, as the last passenger jet would fly overhead, that he realized that his only connection to a real human being would be with his brother. The cicadas hummed a dull harmony to the crickets' staccato chirps, June bugs stirring the summer air, and the redhead with her nails digging into Joe's back cooed softly in his ear, her breath hot and thick as it lumbered down towards his back. His hands reached back, under the soft silky fabric of her shirt, fumbling drunkenly with the clasp of her bra, anxious to get to the prize hidden away, but with pangs of loneliness and an aching sense of boredom with the whole process. Her breathing jumped, her spine arching softly, hair rustling against his face, as Joe looked out over the corn, waist high and growing, a sea of blackened emeralds stretching out to the west and south. He thought of what people must think, looking down on his home from twenty thousand feet; if they thought about the people who lived there or just admired the checkerboard pattern of corn, then soy, then pasture. He thought about being up there, looking down as he was jettisoned far, far away, through clouds and up, up to the stars to touch God and whatever else was up there. Instead, he hadn't been out of the county in over a year, out of the state in a decade, and crossing the Mississippi only once, a trip to Kentucky in what seemed like a different lifetime, the furthest from home he had ever been. Eighteen years of corn and cows.

The redhead laughed as he pulled the last hook, the elastic snapping apart. "The retard just got hit with a bottle. You have to check this out! He's trying to fight them!" She giggled at this, choking back a surge of rye whiskey as it lurched forward, her stomach too full to process it all. Joe wasn't laughing, instead pushing away from the girl, spinning on the heels of his tennis shoes. Across the farm lane, over by the bon fire, a crowd was forming around Tank's over-aged body, that of a weathered general, as he stood over a cowering boy, as it could only be a boy with such a small frame, fuming. The boy tried to push himself up, to get away from the onslaught of fists and heels, but every time he could make it to his knees, Tank would deliver a swift kick to his midsection, knocking the air out of him, sending him reeling back to the ground. The crowd would burst into applause, laughing and pointing, excited to watch the one sided spectacle plow forward. Joe turned, ripping his hands out of the redhead's shirt, leaving her asking "what the fuck?"

"That's my brother."

Cal had always been slow, never learning things like math, or how to read. Joe watched out for him, only one year his junior, sticking up for him when the kids at school would throw balls of paper or call him names. Cal was always in his own world, never really caring what they were saying about him, but relishing the attention, the sound of their voices. Sometimes, Joe would watch as the kids would try to pick a fight with Cal, try to incite him into a "retard fury," but that just wasn't how Cal worked. He hadn't even raised his voice to another human being, preferring to love everyone equally, needing to gain others' affection through kindness and smiles. Cal was so sweet that it was infuriating, a straight face from Joe prompting reprimands from their parents, Joe held to a different standard because of his special, loving, happy brother. On Christmas, Joe would say "thank you," hiding his disappointment better than most at the yearly package of socks and military information pamphlets, while Cal, simple, stupid Cal, would bounce up and down for joy at another fucking matchbox car, a five pack of them that the parents would break down into five individual gifts, giving Cal more and more reasons to be excited. Once, Joe had bought him a larger model car, a ten dollar model at the hobby shop that he put together for Cal, knowing the small pieces would frustrate him. The whole gift only took ten minutes, required little effort, and was Joe's last minute idea on Christmas Eve, but when Cal unwrapped it, he cried tears of joy, his heart swelling, face reddening, the greatest moment of his life. Joe felt a low twinge of guilt as his brother blubber on, not about the car, but about the fact that Joe had spent money or time on him at all. Joe, his hero. Joe, his defender. Joe, his brother.

Someone from the crowd threw a bottle, the green glass glancing off of Cal's head, breaking the skin and forcing a high pitched whine to escape from his gritted teeth. His sobs started, the tears running hot, harder with every second, every laugh cutting deeper, each call of "retard!" biting into him like a rabid dog, the crowd growing thicker, pulling in tighter, circling him-- just a blur of faces and blue jeans, sleeveless t-shirts and tank tops, boots and flip-flops, laughing and cat calling, Tank being urged on and Cal being belittled, no one helping, no one caring, everyone watching as the blood got in his eyes and mixed with the tears and blinded him and fell into his mouth and tasted like pennies and Joe wasn't there-- where was Joe?

Joe was running, at first a trot, but as he heard the crowd start heckling harder, laughing, and closing in around his brother, Joe dug down, pushing hard, his feet tearing through the dirt as he went. As he pushed his way through the people (there must be fifty of them, laughing. Those bastards!) his tongue started begging for the taste of blood. He saw Tank, saw his calm repose, saw his cocky arrogance, and as he made his way into the clearing, in the center, feet away from his brother, his fists were clenched, knuckles leaping from his skin. He hardly had a chance to look at Tank before he swung; didn't have a chance to look into his dark brown eyes, to look at his acne scarred forehead, to see the broken nose he had gotten from his dad. Joe couldn't see the cracked ribs, the cigarette burns, the depleted sense of self-worth. All Joe could see was the overgrown prick who was kicking the shit out of his brother. He swung hard and straight, the jab leaping from his hands, connecting with Tank's jaw, sending him flying, landing on his back, the crowd snapping silent in an instant. "Get the fuck away! All of you! Fuck off!" Joe screamed, turning in a circle, red-faced as the party muttered to themselves, unsure who to root for anymore. It's not that Tank was a hero by any means, no, but it was blood sport, it was exciting. A one punch knock-out was boring, ending their entertainment.

Joe leaned down as Cal wailed like a war widow, holding his ribs, then his head, then back to the ribs. Joe sat in the dirt, gathering Cal into his lap, holding him by the shoulders, trying to calm him, saying "it's ok, Cal. They won't hurt you anymore. I'll kill them if they try. It's ok. It's going to be ok." The fire casting their shadow up on and over the corn before being drowned out by moonlight, invisible to any plane as they flew over the country side, totally unaware of the life below.

****

Ben Knox Miller- A Profile

Virginia Baker

"That was the strangest show we've ever played," Ben Knox Miller tells me towards the end of the night after all of the concert-goers have left the venue. "We've never done anything like that before." Before the show the band had come up with a chronological set list that was supposed to start at the early stuff and bring us to the most recently crafted songs. Somewhere along the way, the set list was abandoned and The Low Anthem opted for impromptu acoustic covers instead. The band stood on the edge of the stage, sans microphones, in front of a modest crowd, accompanied only by Miller's guitar. At points, the sounds from the people playing billiards in the next room was louder than the intimate harmonies of the band.

While on stage, Miller's eyes are almost always closed. He is enveloped in the music, completely absorbed by the sounds. It's apparent when an artist loses interest with their craft. After reading their stories over and over or playing their songs for multiple audiences, it's hard for them to stay interested and passionate about their creations. But Miller's closed-eyed focus is poignant and passionate, almost to the point of being melancholy, a complete contrast to the smiling guy with high-pitched laughs that you discover once he disembarks from the stage.

It was my fifth time seeing the band, so the off-beat performance was more than welcomed in my opinion. The Low Anthem holds my personal record for the band I've seen live the most times. As we stand in the empty venue, I can't help but find Miller's self-criticism endearing. He tells me that after each show he figures whether the night was a win, loss or tie. I try to convince him to put it down as a win, but after much arguing back and forth he's settles on "maybe, just maybe" declaring it a tie. At least it doesn't go down in the scorebook as a loss.

The band has been touring for two years now, making its way across Europe and America. But, after years on the road, they have announced plans to settle down and start recording a new album, or two. "We may record in the Hudson Valley where one of the records is set. Maybe in western Rhode Island," Miller says. He makes a crack about replacing the houseplants and beginning a vegetable juice purge once the tour is over. Sticking to the tradition of recording in unconventional spaces (their most recent album was recorded in an abandoned pasta sauce factory), the band hopes to find a studio that brings "the spirit of the environment" to life. "The album will be suited to late-summer or autumn," Miller says. "I would like for there to be fireflies."

Miller, who describes his writing style as "deliberate," tells me he's been writing a song every morning upon waking. Before uttering a word to another human being, as this verbal communication disrupts his creative flow, he crafts a new song. When I ask him what comes first, the words or the music, he tells me that, "Words never exist without music. There's infinite expression in tone of voice. There's rhythm, melody, timbre and implied harmony in speech, and those are just the tangible music elements. Even as you read the word-on-page you give music to the words with your internal voice. By the time words pop into my head the whole song is there and just needs to be coddled along. It's hard to get there though. Most of them die in anonymity."

****

The College of Santa Fe  
Brittany Selters

My first year of college was kind of a disaster. I didn't fail, and I didn't spend its entirety locked in my room; I didn't take up binge drinking or become a stoner and decide to run away and live in a van and perform shitty street music until I "found myself." No, my first year of college was a disaster because of a much larger issue: my school was thirty million dollars in debt.

They finally told us what was going on during Thanksgiving break, when almost no one was actually at the school. A mass email was sent out by the President of the school; it explained that a deal with a for-profit company—Laureate—had fallen through due to the company's financial realities; it indicated that unless a solution for the school's 30 million dollar debt was found, the College of Santa Fe would close. It also indicated that the school was actively seeking these solutions, which included merging with one of several of New Mexico's state institutions.

It wasn't a new sort of thing, a college closing. It had happened before, and it would happen again; it was happening all over, although no one ever told us that. Every year, according to insidehighered.com, at least one US college fails or merges with another institution. As the economy got worse, more colleges—especially small, private ones like CSF—were failing, or at least faltering. In 2008 and 2009, small colleges in California, Washington DC, Iowa, and Missouri faced the same issues that the College of Santa Fe was facing. Declining enrollment (often due to rising tuition costs), higher maintenance and utility costs, and years of financial mismanagement—in the case of CSF, a former president who had been embezzling money and using funds for unnecessary things like a tennis center--all played a part in the ends of these schools.

I read the stories of these schools, and I'm thankful that these things didn't happen at CSF. The New College of California, located in San Francisco, could not let students come back after fall semester 2007 due to lost accreditation and the department of education's withholding of financial aid funds. Several faculty members hung around unpaid in an attempt to teach-out graduating students and regain the school's accreditation. They were unable to succeed, and the school was forced to close its doors. At Vennard College, a small Christian school in Iowa, the school announced it was closing on November 12, 2008 due to declining enrollment and financial difficulties. By the end of the month the last commencement ceremony had been held, and students had left the campus.

We worried about these things happening at CSF, even though we didn't know they had happened in other places. "What if we can't finish our year here?" we wondered, "Will it still be an accredited institution? Will the degrees the seniors have been working towards be worth anything? Will my credits transfer? Will I be behind at a new school?"

In a way, we were lucky; we were able to finish out the year, and the school remained an accredited institution. Teachers and faculty took massive pay cuts, but they never had to work unpaid. We didn't close down mid-semester, despite the rumors that flew across campus saying that spring break would be the end. My credits transferred to both of the schools I ended up transferring too, although I was behind a little. And even after the official "end" of the school, the land was bought by Laureate and many of the same professors were hired back, and the school continued on under a different name.

But at the time, we were in the dark about all of this. No one told us that it had happened to other schools, or that it could be worse. Every day we worried about the future of the school, or we were faced with some new news that could make or break the rest of the year. Or, that's how it seemed anyway. We were angry, alone, isolated, stressed, unsure. It felt like we had nowhere else to go.

The College of Santa Fe was the kind of school you went to if you were weird, or awkward, or misunderstood. There were 1,300 students, including those in the night and weekend program. Only about 500 of them lived on campus. CSF was the kind of place you went if you didn't want to get lost in the shuffle, if you wanted to belong and be yourself.

It only took a few weeks for me to find a close group of friends. One night during dinner, I was eating alone, about to open a book, when Danielle, a girl who was in my Intro to Creative Writing class walked shyly across the aisle between the tables and asked, "Do you want to come join us? I mean, if you're not super into your book." She stood a timidly, her toes pointed in and her hands combing through her long blonde hair.

"Sure!" I said, and picked up my bag and tray, and joined her and some other girls that I had seen around, including two or three from our writing class. That first day, there was Jeselyn, Danielle's dreadlocked, pierced, lesbian roommate; Tera, a tall, thin, blonde girl; Anna, a short brunette girl with small heart shaped tattoo on her right hand; Aemi, who had orange-red hair and gauged ears; and Daisy, an athletic girl who lived next door to Danielle and Jeselyn. I realized that I had seen them all before; Danielle, Tera, Anna, and Jeselyn were in my writing class; Daisy had sat next to me in my literature class for the past two classes; and I had eaten lunch with Aemi on the first day of classes a week previously. Later, we were joined by Skye—a tall, chunky guy with long black hair, who had a class with me and Aemi—and his roommate Mike, who had met Danielle at some orientation event.

We had come from all over the country to attend this tiny school in the middle of New Mexico—Danielle and Skye from Texas, Mike from Maryland, Jeselyn from California, Terafrom Seattle, Daisy from Arizona, Aemi from Mississippi, Anna from Georgia, and me from Colorado. By the end of the year we had added others to our group, namely Michelle, from St. Croix in the US Virgin islands, and Nich, Anna's Texan, bacon-loving boyfriend. We were writers and artists and filmmakers—or at least those were our goals—but those interests and activities always seemed to cross over. We began eating dinner together every night; by the time we had known each other three months, I knew all of them better than anyone I'd ever known before. I didn't feel as awkward or uncomfortable with them, and we spent what seemed like all of our time together—at meals, in class, going on adventures around town, having small parties in dorm rooms. We had movie nights and study groups. We sat on the quad and talked, basking in the Santa Fe sun.

When you start college, you think you're going to have the same friends for the entire four years of your experience. You imagine being off-campus roommates and collaborating on creative projects; you expect to find people that you can trust with your darkest secrets, and that will laugh at your stupidest jokes. That's what we were preparing for in those first few months at CSF. On one occasion, Jeselyn, Danielle, and I found ourselves sitting in their room, imagining renting a small house together the next year; on another, Danielle, Aemi, Mike, Skye and I played Truth or Dare until four in the morning, laughing and sharing secrets on the red shag area rug in Mike and Skye's dorm. So it was rather jarring when, after only three months, we were told that the school might not have enough funds to finish out the year, despite the $28,000 we were each paying in tuition. We had to continue the semester, and eventually the year, with the knowledge that we would be going our separate ways sooner, rather than later.

One evening, after dinner, maybe a week after we'd met, Jeselyn and I sat on a bench in the middle of the quad, waiting for Danielle to get off the phone with her boyfriend; I asked her why she had come to Santa Fe instead of staying in Los Angeles.

"Because Santa Fe is magic," she told me. Whenever I see this memory in my head, she has a cigarette, even though I know she didn't smoke then; she was probably actually playing with one of her dreadlocks, the one we named Fred. "I had this huge writer's block before I came here, and then when I came to visit, everything I'd been trying to write, everything I'd been holding back, it just poured out of me." I nodded, not really understanding. I hadn't had that kind of reaction to Santa Fe—I'd gotten excited by the classes, but I'd never wanted to be in Santa Fe because of the place itself; I wanted to work on my writing. Looking back, I realize that this was probably not the best way to choose a school; Santa Fe taught me exactly what I didn't want in a city or a school.

Santa Fe is not a place you go to if you want to go out after 7pm. The only places that will be open are Target and the one movie theater, and maybe the mall. Mike constantly complained about this; having come from a large city, he was used to having someplace to go have fun at any hour of the night. Instead, we spent most of our time crammed into a dorm room watching movies (fall semester) or drinking (spring semester). For my birthday in October, we watched "The Shining" in Mike and Skye's room, Skye's laptop propped up on his bed, and everyone on the floor, leaning against Mike's bed. In January, when we all came back from Winter break, Danielle had a party in her room (Jeselyn having moved to a single room), where at one point fifteen people were crammed in, talking over each other and the music that was pumping through her laptop's speakers and swigging from bottles of beer or Smirnoff Ice. Sometimes we would find someone with a car and take the hour-long drive down to Albuquerque, to the mall or the one nightclub that had an 18+ night, but those adventures were few and far between.

The College of Santa Fe was a good place to be if you needed to feel a sense of belonging; it was not a good place to be if you wanted something from your education. At least, that's the conclusion I've come to in the two and a half years since I attended CSF, although I do wonder if that was because of what was going on, rather than the actual nature of the school. I spent the first semester, like most freshmen in college, in gen-ed classes that, while interesting, didn't add to or change my worldview or my intelligence. My Intro to Creative Writing class was decent, but it revealed the program to be much more literary and poetry-focused than I'd thought when I'd been investigating the school. Most of the professors in the department were poets; the fiction writers all taught upper level classes that I was never able to participate in.

I often wonder if it was worth it to stay for spring semester that year. We didn't know what was going to happen to the school, and we spent most of it campaigning to for the school to merge with a state institution—making signs and t-shirts, showing up at the statehouse to support a bill that could save us by merging us with a state institution; writing letters to celebrities and congressmen and representatives and even the President begging for money or votes; anything to save our school. But all of our efforts failed, and in mid-April it was announced that the school would close its doors for good on May 22.

Things began to really break down after the bill failed. People disappeared from classes—one kid, Stewart, had a breakdown and just left the school one day in his beat up car and headed back to California because he couldn't take it anymore. I remember watching him loading boxes into his trunk from my window and wondering if anyone would make him come back and finish his classes.

Projects disappeared from classes too. Matt, my poetry teacher, made the usual final paper an extra credit assignment, and graded pretty leniently on the rest of our work. I know he graded leniently because my poetry was awful; I just stopped trying near the end.

In some cases, entire subjects disappeared from classes. Jeselyn, Tera, and I were in Theories of Personality together, and eventually the class devolved into the professor showing slides from his time in China, and the class bitching about who was getting screwed over this week: the teachers were getting pay cuts, students had to find new schools to go to, no one wanted to leave. I retained very few things from that class; usually, Jeselyn and I sat side by side with our (unintentionally) matching computers, working on our writing or surfing the internet or playing solitaire. Tera and I both wrote about fictional characters for the final assignment—a psychological analysis of a serial killer—and we both got A's.

Rules went straight out the window; Daisy's boyfriend, Victor, got himself a puppy, even though he lived in a student apartment where they were not allowed. Danielle and Mike had a menagerie started in her dorm room; he bought a salamander and a frog, and she had bought a rabbit. Everyone drank more, even though we were all underage and it was often Tuesday night. Others smoked more weed, even though the smell is atrocious and everyone could tell which rooms it was coming from. Usually the RAs would just tell people to clean up the smell although some of them would join in on these activities, because they had no reason to care either. The school was probably going to be knocked down and turned into condos anyway.

The most noticeable sign of the breakdown of the school was the vandalism. Broken glass was everywhere. It was scattered along the hallway to the cafeteria; someone, or perhaps several someone's, had gone through and randomly punched out the windows that lined the hall. Someone took a baseball bat to a few windows in one of the dorms; they were covered in plywood for the remainder of the semester. It was hard to walk anywhere in sandals for fear of getting your feet cut. I would walk down the long, purple and green hallway to the cafeteria with my friends, and we would have to carefully skirt the piles of glass, while also avoiding the people coming in the opposite direction on their bikes or skateboards, or just walking in groups of twos and threes, making the same cautious steps around the glass.

No one knew how to react, or what to do next. We spent so much of the semester in limbo that we barely had time to plan for the future. Finding CSF had taken most of us four years of high school; how were we supposed to find somewhere else in the space of a few weeks? No place ever seemed right, because none of the other schools were CSF. What had been merely a daunting task the year before became an overwhelming one. Most of my friends left on May 22 without a clue as to what to do next.

"Maybe I'll just get a job at Barnes and Nobel and work there the rest of my life," Jeselyn told me one afternoon, smoking a cigarette on the quad. "I wasn't going to really be able to use a Creative Writing degree anyway."

"I'll just take a year off and work, maybe go to community college" seemed to be most people's plans after a while. We were tired of the stress and anxiety of finding a new school so soon after leaving a place that had been—to our naive, awkward, eighteen year old eyes—perfect. After tearful goodbyes and promises to visit, we went our separate ways, never knowing what exactly was going to happen to us, or where we would end up, or if we would see each other again.

Two months later, I came home from work to a message on the answering machine; it offered me a reduced tuition and a scholarship if I returned to Santa Fe; Laureate had bought the land and buildings and the school was opening up again for former students in the fall. I rolled my eyes and deleted the message without listening to all of it. The next time someone called, I asked them to take me off their list. Maybe I was being overdramatic, but I had been through too much with that school to be able to jump at the opportunity to return. I didn't go back, not even to visit those of my friends that had returned. It wasn't going to be the same.

****

Rejection Story

Lisa Mrock

I usually don't have much to do on most Saturday nights, but when I sat on my bed typing away to my friend Irene on Facebook, I deserved to be lazy. I'd been out earlier in the day, walking among old people with funny accents in Ukrainian Village, and thought a night inside a room with leaky windows and a space heater was a good reward for the earlier day's work.

While watching music videos on YouTube, I heard a "blip" and clicked on my Facebook tab. It came from Jake. I immediately cringed. He'd been talking to me more than usual in the past two months and it made me suspicious. I have a talent of noticing when guys I don't like as anything more than friends have crushes on me, and with Jake the alarm bells were ringing. Add in his penchant to attach himself to any vagina with a pair of tits that's nice to him, and I was scared.

One reason why I was deathly afraid of Jake liking me was, besides the fact that he finds me entertaining and my college major "fascinating," we don't have a _whole_ lot in common. I like talking about art things - books, music, movies - and when it comes art, let's just say he's not an abstract thinker. I major in Fiction Writing. He majors in Mathematical Theory. I post music videos and writing-related things as Facebook statuses. He makes posts about newly discovered planets, how his day went at the shooting range, and every so often he throws out a video supporting whatever Republican candidate for President is popular that week, though somehow he always ends up supporting Mitt Romney by the end of the month.

He asked me, "How's it going?"

I informed him how I might be doing a reading at a local bookstore. He said, "Awesome! Is it okay if I go?"

More alarm bells rung in my head. He didn't just ask if he could go. He asked if it be _okay_ if he went. I thought of a conversation I'd had with my friend Bailey about how I was afraid of Jake liking me. When I said how he tried to invite me out for a "lunch" the other day, my friend said, "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!" Yes. Danger, Will Robinson indeed.

A dilemma arose. Should I invite him? Well, I had to because if I didn't I'd look like a douche. But what would happen when he arrived? On one hand, I would feel awkward the whole night. On the other hand, I could either get my male friends to ward him off or I could hire a male escort and make out with him furiously to show how much I'm not into him.

I typed, "Sure. I'm sure you won't be bored the whole night." After I hit enter, I said to myself, "I am never telling him the date of that reading."

"Alright, well keep me updated. Not much is going on for me right now."

I quickly analyzed everything he had typed thus far. "Is it okay if I go?... Not much is going on for me at the moment." I realized he could be leading up to some sort of big moment, but I quelled down the thought because I didn't want it to happen.

When a guy I don't like has a crush on me, I get legitimately grossed out. It's just that when I think of a guy strictly in a platonic state, it's because I have no intentions whatsoever of wanting anything more with him. It doesn't mean _all_ my guy friends are forever stuck in a friendship with me, but most are. Anyway, if one of those guys admits to liking me, I start thinking, "Ugh, he's probably thought about kissing me." Then I think of kissing that person and a nauseous, reptilian feeling grows in my stomach. Then I think, "Ew, what if he's imagined having sex with me?" And when I imagine that guy between my legs, I get the urge to grab the nearest sharp objects and jam them into my eyes to get that image out of my head.

I went through this exact process with Jake, but I kept my cool during the chat. We talked about school and I mentioned an essay I had to write for a class which I got points taken away from for accidentally having typed the word "shit" instead of "shot."

I told him, "I put, 'He shit him in the head,' instead of, 'shot.' I'm obviously an incredible writer and am fantastic at catching typos."

I was sure nothing awkward could come from a conversation about a simple typo.

Jake typed, "Typo or not, you're still my favorite writer." He added a winking smile emoticon to the end of the sentence. I felt like scrubbing my face with sandpaper after reading that.

He began a one-sided conversation about "Star Trek" when out of nowhere he sent the message, "You know what? Screw it. Just screw it. I don't care how this is gonna go, but I've had a lot of time to this about this. I like you. I like you a lot. Just had to get that out. Anyway, do you like Kirk better or Picard?"

"DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!" A mixture of that and a number of expletives ran through my head, such as, "FUCK MY LIFE! DEAR GOD! NO! NO! WHY DO YOU LIKE ME?!" I clicked over to the chat I was having simultaneously with Irene. "IRENE. HE JUST SAID HE LIKED ME. OH GOD. THIS IS BAD. HELP ME."

__________

Clinton took Honors Pre-Calculus with me and in the few weeks before Prom, he'd been acting strange. I already thought he was a little strange, seeing as how he had the charm, wit, and personality of a paper bag, but this was different. He suddenly would be nervous and would try to act like he _had_ a personality. It unsettled me.

What didn't help was how a classmate was trying to push us together by constantly saying, "Oh, you'd be such a cute couple!" and tiny poisonous nudges like those. The thought of going out with him made me want to swallow shards of glass, but I endured her attempts at matchmaking.

It was at the end of the day, a few weeks before Prom, when Clinton achieved his first failure with me. I walked through the congested hallway and felt a strong pull on the handle of my backpack. I turned around to find Clinton looking happy and waving.

He stopped me. In the middle of the hallway. To wave. I wanted to punch his goofy smile off his face.

I turned around and continued to my locker. I reached it and kneeled to the ground to transport books and supplies to and from my backpack Out of nowhere, Clinton appeared by my side. "I tried to say hi to you." I looked up and said, "Hi," then looked away. When I was done, I pretended to look for something and stuck my head in the locker, thinking he would leave me alone. He didn't.

"So my date for Prom cancelled on me."

I stuck my head out long enough to say, "That's nice," and stuck it back in. I hoped my rudeness would turn him off, but it only made him more persistent. I came to the conclusion that he wouldn't leave me alone so I zipped up everything, closed the locker, and put on my backpack. He leaned onto the locker, trying to look suave and failing miserably. "So I was wondering if..."

I knew I couldn't let him finish the question and create a barrel-full of awkwardness for me. My life had been nothing but awkward moments. I couldn't let him create another. I opened my mouth and blurted, "BYE!" then zoomed to the stairwell. I looked back for a second and saw his jaw drop and his hands out like a homeless man asking for spare change. I turned back around and kept running for fear he'd chase me.

__________

"HELP ME IRENE!" I typed. No answer. "FUCK YOU!" I shouted to myself. I was alone in a room on the internet, and a guy I felt more pity than friendship for just told me I was his crush. Support would have been good, but what I needed more was a nice way to reject him. I checked the chat list for my friend Bailey, but he wasn't on. I saw another friend, Liz, was online and typed, "Quick question. Is there a nice way to reject someone? I'm gathering opinions." After a minute or two, I received no response. Another friend, Wyl, was online. I thought, "He has a penis. He might know what Jake is thinking, since Jake has a penis. And he might know how to nicely reject someone." I typed, "Is there a nice way to reject someone? Because I only know the horrible bad way and it makes me feel, well, bad." I received no response.

With trembling hands, I grabbed for my cell phone on my nightstand. I could barely aim my thumb at the correct arrow button as I searched through my contacts list for my sister's phone number. When I hit "send," I saw the time was one-fifty in the morning. "Fuck! She's asleep for church in the morning! Fucking church!" I snapped the phone shut and realized it'd been a while since I said anything to Jake, so I told him, "Um, hold on a second."

Without any responses from my friends, I tried thinking back to stories I'd heard about rejection. Then, I thought of my own.

__________

"Oh my God! You look like a model!"

Michael, a classmate from my AP German class, told me this as I showed up outside the entrance to the ballroom in the Marriott hotel, where Prom was held. I said, "Thank you," and looked down at my dress. It was a long, strapless blue dress which draped me all the way down to my feet.

I asked him if he was there with a boyfriend, but didn't get an answer when our other classmates showed up for a group picture. After the picture was taken, I reentered the ballroom to find friends and dance. While looking around the dining tables for some people, far off in the distance, I noticed Clinton staring at me like I was his very own deep dish pizza. I think I unconsciously pulled my dress up to show less cleavage and slowly backed away from his direction. For the whole night whenever I searched for people, I would see him in the vicinity coming toward me, and I would either nonchalantly change direction or run away as fast as my high heels would allow me

In the last hour of Prom, I sat with my friend Monica and some other mutual friends. Everything was chill until Clinton tapped my shoulder, appearing out of nowhere, again.

"Hi, Lisa."

In the most apathetic tone, I uttered, "Hi, Clint."

"Yeah, my Prom date's over there with a stomach ache." He pointed to the corner of the lobby, where a girl sat crouched over in excruciating pain. "She's been there the whole night." He hung his head low, staring at his feet, but brightened up and directed his glance toward me. "Wow, Lisa, You look _really_ pretty tonight." Monica, sitting next to me in a plushy seat, slapped her hands over her mouth and began convulsing in stifled laughter. Clinton was completely oblivious to it. "So, I saw you _dancing_ earlier." He made an awkward combination-arm-and-hip movement. "You want to go _dancing_ with me?"

My mind went to work on a somewhat viable excuse. "Um, no. Because I'm tired. From the dancing. Earlier. Because I danced a lot. And you saw me dancing. So you know."

He nodded and grinned. "Ah! Alright. See you later." He pointed his finger at me like he was trying to be cool. He walked away and Monica tore her hands off her face and burst out laughing maniacally.

Clinton traumatized me like this two more times throughout the night.

__________

"Pic please. Why don't you like him?"

Still in freak out mode, I didn't get why Irene asked for a picture of Jake, but I provided one anyway. "FUCK. I HATE THIS. EVERY GUY WHO LIKES ME, I DON'T LIKE BACK. WHY? WHY CAN'T A GUY I LIKE, LIKE ME BACK? THIS SUCKS. Oh, and my response is fucking brilliant. 'Um, hold on a second.' Tell me how to reject him."

"Well, you can always go with the classic, 'I'm not ready for a relationship' excuse... Just tell him you want to be friends... No matter what, it's gonna be awkward."

I heard a "blip" from Jake's chat window. He kept talking about fucking "Star Trek." I didn't understand it. He just admitted to having a crush on me and he just goes on talking about a fucking TV show like nothing happened. Didn't he realize he just ruined the dynamic of our sort-of-friendship?

Another "blip" came from Liz's chat window. "No one likes rejection... so no matter how well you do it, you'll be rejected. Um, be honest and don't be sarcastic. Honesty is better than nothing."

There was still no response from Wyl. I needed a guy's opinion desperately and he wasn't responding. I said to myself, "Fuck you, Wyl," and typed, "Nevermind, I'm going to reject him the bad way and gain a seat in hell. Ignore this."

I wanted to close my laptop and hide under my bedcovers, but I couldn't. It's like when you're having an argument with someone over the phone - you can _easily_ hang up, but you don't. You're so invested in the argument that you forget you even have the option.

I tried to convince myself that perhaps Jake meant something else entirely. It could be possible. He was bad with words anyway. Besides, it created a glimmer of hope I seriously needed. So I asked, "Like me how?"

He answered faster than I would've liked him to. "Oh! Sorry! I should've been more specific. I like you like you." Oh God, he uses grade school terms. "As in, you're a very intelligent, witty, interesting, talented person and I'm attracted to that. I enjoy talking with you. Sorry for the shocker. Lol." My fingers typed to Irene, "GOD NO. HE SAYS I'M WITTY AND INTELLIGENT AND INTERESTING AND TALENTED AND HE'S ATTRACTED TO THAT. DEAR GOD NO. DON'T BE ATTRACTED TO THOSE THINGS. WHY IS HE ATTRACTED TO THOSE THINGS?"

__________

Right before my high school graduation ceremony at the UIC Pavilion, the whole senior class had to wait in the first level of the parking garage next to the venue. Wearing robes over dress clothes in eighty-degree weather wasn't ideal for us, especially for me since I'd thought wearing black slacks, a white dress shirt, and Doc Marten boots would be great to wear under it, but we knew it'd be worth graduating for. I leaned on my elbows on the concrete ledge looking down at the pavement and the grass when Clinton appeared out of nowhere. Again.

"Hi, Lisa."

"Hi, Clint."

"So, you excited about graduating?"

I shrugged.

"You're not excited?"

I shrugged again. Taking my elbows off the ledge, I crossed my arms and stared Clinton down. It was time to cut off the bullshit, so I tactfully asked, "Clinton? Were you blatantly hitting on me at Prom?"

Those chipmunk cheeks of his were frozen in a nervous smile. "Uh... I was _trying_ to."

"Um... _yeah_. I don't _see_ you that way. I just see you as a _friend_. _Just_ a friend."

Comprehension finally dawned on him for the first time in weeks. "Oh! Oh." We stood awkwardly in our green robes for a few moments. "Well, see you later." He waved and walked away.

A kind of coolness swept over me. Everything seemed lighter. A pressure had been lifted off me. I could've floated.

I searched the crowds for a person wearing thick-soled Hot Topic boots with green and blonde dreads. After a few moments, I found Bailey to tell him the good news. "Bailey! I just rejected a guy for the first time!"

He awed. "Isn't that nice?"

"I know! I finally did it! I'm so proud of myself!"

The feeling of finally rejecting Clinton mixed with the feeling of finally leaving high school, and by the time I walked through the large entrance to the main floor of the pavilion, I completely forgot about the whole situation.

I haven't seen or talked to Clinton ever since.

__________

He continued to talk about fucking "Star Trek." I typed, "Let me respond to your confession." I imagined him anxiously tugging at his beard in anticipation. "You've been my friend for a while, and I can _only_ see you as a friend."

He said, "Just being friends is cool. No harm done in me being honest?"

I said, "No! Of course not!" I switched to Irene's chat window. "HE ASKED IF THERE'S ANY HARM DONE. I SAID NO. I LIED. YES. HARM HAS BEEN DONE."

Jake said, "Okay. Friends then. So, Kirk or Picard?"

Eventually, I said my goodbyes, X-ed the chat windows, closed the laptop, and lied down. The guilt brewed quicker than I would've liked. I felt bad for him. He was so needy and lonely. What made me feel worse was he really wasn't a bad guy. He's actually really sweet and shy.

The episode made me question my standards. Find a guy I get along with. Make sure he's not a shithead. Find him attractive - not necessarily conventionally good-looking, but what _I_ think is attractive. I'm not looking for some guy who's rich, has a Ferrari, muscles, or connections. By comparison to that, my standards aren't high at all.

Then I factored in how I generally dislike most of this world's population. On top of this, I tend to keep to myself. From these facts, the insecurities popped up and I soon had visions of being a forty-year-old catlady. It made me wonder if I should go back and give Jake a chance.

As soon as the idea came up, I threw it away. I knew I didn't like him, so if I went on a date with him, I'd be wasting both of our time.

I resolved to do what I always do, which is wait, because while it'd be nice to have somebody I can invest my time and feelings in, I've always been just as happy being alone in my room, sitting on my bed, Facebook chatting with friends.

****

Street Fair

Gibson Culbreth

(Novel Excerpt)

When Atticus and London moved to Chicago London picked up a job at a bar almost immediately. Atticus spent most of his time tending to his marijuana plants and sleeping on the couch. He felt dead in Chicago, lazy and dependant on his girlfriend. London worked almost every day, and since she worked around booze she no longer liked to drink. In fact, Atticus noticed one morning as he was guzzling beer to chase one of the last of his Xanex, she had stopped doing drugs as well.

"London! London wake up it's an emergency!" He stumbled into their darkened bedroom. It smelled of sleep and neglect. Dust particles filtered through the air scattering across London's sleeping body.

"Atticus, stop screaming. What's wrong?"

"Take this!" He pulled two pills out of his back pocket. They were just Advil because Atticus had just taken the last of his good stuff. It was more the principal of the matter he was trying to prove.

"No, go away..." London rolled onto her stomach and stuck her head into her pillow.

"You hate me." His voice got dramatic and still and London finally looked up, clearing sleep from her eyes with her fingers.

"I don't hate you, why do you say that?"

"You won't take pills with me anymore."

"I have a job, I can't just get fucked up all the time. I have to support us..."

"I used to support us. Can't we just go back to that?" London sat up on the bed, her hair twisting and turning every which way. Atticus could feel something in his brain click while he remembered how beautiful she really was. He would lose her if he couldn't get the upper hand back. It was only a matter of time.

"Att, you fucked that all up remember? And I hated that you sold drugs. I hated the people we hung out with." The elephantine presence of Allison washed over the room; the ghost of the night London caught her straddling Atticus swirling in with the dust and grime catching light by the window.

"I wouldn't do that again. We could make better friends."

"I am making friends Atticus."

"Why can't I meet them?"

London's mouth pressed into a line for a second before she began chewing on her lower lip.

"I love you."

"And?"

"You're sort of a mess right now."

"You took me away from my home," he raged, throwing the pills at her. One of them stuck briefly to her cheek before tumbling to the sheets. She stared down at it. Atticus could see her arming herself mentally. He had witnessed her do this on multiple occasions, the way she'd get quiet and distance herself, build those walls quickly and accurately. Fear sprinted under his skin, covering his body in goose bumps. He had never been on the receiving end of London's shut out. He wasn't sure what to do.

"I mean... I just have no life here. Please take me out with you. I want to meet your friends." His voice became grenadine.

"I think maybe you should go for a walk."

"Not unless you go with me." Atticus was sure that he couldn't lose her.

Atticus and London attended the street fair in attempt to patch things up. London assumed, as she often did, that a couple related outing might force Atticus into a more mannered state, that he might somehow regain the boyish charm he had used to court her, to make her fall in love with him. But mostly with the sun beating down so hard upon their backs she realized that he smelled like pepper.

"Atticus, my birthday is next week..." She was trying out a light tone, something to distract him from tired nagging she had done on the way over. Even as it slipped from her mouth she realized it had not succeeded.

"Yeah, I know. It's in my phone..." Atticus's phone had lost service, along with London's almost two months prior.

"I want a tambourine."

To this declaration he turned, eyes unfocused and boring, and glared at her.

"How can I afford a goddamn tambourine? Unless you want me to start selling again?" His voice wheedled right under her skin, soaking through to her bones.

"No, of course we can't do that. I make money."

"Babe, I can't buy you a birthday present with your own money..." Every once in a while Atticus would lapse into his real voice, the one she remembered so vividly from the winter they fell in love. He turned to her, his hair blowing in a slight breeze, a smile playing on his lips. His height threw shade on her and she looked up at him, curious as to what mood he would turn to. She was hesitant to smile even though seeing him free and lovely in the summer air made her heart jump and hum like a beehive. He leaned down and kissed her softly on the cheek, his earthy smell of tobacco and pepper drifting slowly to her senses.

"Point out whatever you'd like here and let me get it for you." His grin was so wide and fluid she felt as though he'd broken through his every day glaze. She clasped his hand harder they continued along the rows of stalls.

"Would you like a nice pocket watch?" He asked spinning her into a booth with silver pocket watches clicking quietly under glass.

"I told you, I want a tambourine!" London giggled a bit and he moved his hand to her lower back. The sun was making her sleepy and loose. She watched him talk to the lady behind the glass about how nice her booth was, and how nice her necklace was, and she watched him reach under the glass and pull out a prize while the woman was gushing. His eyes glinted. When the lady stopped speaking they turned and left as quickly as they'd appeared. His charm was visible around his face like a wreath of smoke. London wanted to ask what he was doing and why, but really she liked this not fighting they were doing. She liked his hand pressed against her back, and she liked the glow of his good humor. If that meant turning her back on his theft, she thought that just for today, she could do it.

"Why a tambourine, love?"

"They seem kind of magical don't you think? It just sounds happy. I want happy sounds in my life."

"I can make you happy," he whispered into her ear, his grip getting a little bit rougher on her hip, sliding her closer to his middle so that her head was at his collar bone. He was still smiling, teeth exposed. London felt a bit of unease, a moment of knotted tenseness, and then he let her go, his arms falling away as he veered into another stall.

"What about a ukulele?" He called out, strumming a dusty out of tune melody on a shadowy instrument.

"Not good enough," London sang back, skipping away from the vendor. Atticus followed, hands in pockets again.

"What about a pretty scarf?" He fingered a lace number draped over the top of an antique bureau. She watched as it floated through the summer air before disappearing into his shirt with easy confidence.

"What about my tambourine?"

"So a nice necklace wouldn't do?"

"I want something ring shaped." London laughed after her statement but she looked back to see Atticus stalled, standing with a necklace laced through his fingers and eyes as wide as dinner plates.

"London I..."

"I didn't mean that... I meant... No, just don't..." Atticus stuffed the necklace in his pocket, this time more visibly and the owner screamed at him.

"THEIF! GET HIM!" And Atticus stumbled away from her, jogging towards the entrance unscathed. London paid the poor woman and then left as well, hoping to catch Atticus before he made any other ill-advised moves.

He was sitting on a park bench with the necklace, dropping it slowly from one hand to the other so that the golden thread of chain pooled like an oasis in his palm.

"You know I don't expect a proposal."

"Why shouldn't you? We've been together for three years now. That's normal right?"

"Att, we're 21. I don't want to get married right now. I'm happy just living with you." There was a highly evident lie in her voice.

"You haven't seemed so happy lately."

"It's just the drugs. I thought you would have stopped by now."

"I have stopped."

"Don't lie to me Atticus. I'm not stupid."

Atticus looked up at her, his hair flying, his mouth set into a puppy dog pout. "You're not stupid, but I don't want to quit. I've given up a lot for you London. I don't think I should have to give up the one part of my life that's outside of you..."

It was as if she had just been smacked in the face. London was sure that if she stayed still she could hear the words hit her heart.

"What does that mean?" Her voice got quiet, the birds screeched louder so she wasn't sure if she could be heard. She wasn't sure she wanted to be heard. Maybe she could slip away and leave Atticus there on the bench. But now he was turned to her, his eyes grasping hers and he was opening his mouth to talk and she could feel the world stop, and for a brief moment she realized just how little she had outside of him, how her world had shrunk since meeting him and falling into the pit of love. And then he spoke words she was sure she wouldn't want to hear, because no matter what form they took they would all have the same meaning.

"I think maybe we should spend a little time away from each other to figure out if this is what we really want..." He took her palm, now cool and pale and dropped the necklace inside. "I will move all of my stuff out in a few days when I find a place. I think this could be really good for us London." And he unhinged himself from the park bench and kissed her cheek, chucking something warm into her lap before striding away. London sat for a second, her palm still outstretched with the necklace glittering inside, as the news seeped through. She could still hear the buzz of happy conversations at the street fair a block away, the birds chatting and screaming, the cars whooshing by on their way to some better place. She closed her fingers over the necklace and let her hand drop into her lap where a small surprise awaited. It was a cigarette case, sliver with mother of pearl inlay, the one she had been admiring in the vintage store down the street from her apartment. She popped open the clasp to find four rolled cigarettes, a picture of Atticus in high school and a note that said, quite simply "Night and day and night and day, I'll never finish loving you. Happy Birthday." She looked up just in time to see Atticus's frame move onto a bus, and the trail of dust it left in it's midst.

****

Rule #1

Sayla Blackwood

I pad down the hallway with my belly swinging in front of me. It's a full fat mound the size of a bowling ball and it sways from side to side as I step lightly down the long, wooded hallways of our home. I can practically feel the food packed tightly inside my stomach, a bloated cushion of Captain Crunch cereal all squished together in a tight yellow mass that seems to be growing bigger by the second. I'm stuffed.

"Sammy!" my mother calls from the kitchen, "Are you ready yet? We're leaving in an hour!" She pokes her mousy brown head around the corner and pauses when she sees me standing next to the bathroom. Her eyes flicker from my stomach to my eyes and back again.

I yank my sleeves over my hands and shove them inside the big pocket at the bottom of my sweatshirt. "Yeah mom, I'm all packed. Just need to shower." I'm lying through my teeth but I try to keep my voice at a low, steady level or she'll get suspicious. As if she weren't already.

She narrows her eyes and they look like little slits behind her brown, rectangular glasses. "But didn't you just eat?" she asks and I hear the cluck, cluck, cluck sound her tongue makes as she smacks it against the roof of her mouth.

_Yes._ I think to myself, _six bowls of yellow Captain Crunch with two percent milk filled to the brim._

"Not a lot," I lie, "just a small bowl of cereal." I look to the floor and my mom starts around the corner, her bony frame coming into full view as she takes the first steps towards me. I can feel the cereal flakes twist and quiver inside my stomach.

I hold my hands in the air, palms facing outward. "No, no, no mom, really, I'm fine. I didn't eat enough to feel uncomfortable."

"Are you sure?" she asks and continues to step towards me until she's so close I can feel her hot breath on my cheek. She purses her lips and clucks her tongue again. She's disappointed. "You know what Elaina said about sticking to the rules and I already broke one of them by letting you eat in your room today..."

"I know, mom, but the rules can't stick around all the time. We're leaving in a hour and I need to take a shower if I want to be ready." I pull my ponytail out of my rat's nest of hair and the blonde tangles drop down around my face. "See?" I point a finger at the sticky mess, "A shower is desperately needed."

We glare at each other for a few minutes. I count the seconds in my head. 1...2...3... I can feel the food starting to soak into my stomach and my heart starts beating rapid-fire....4...5...6...I imagine my stomach and thighs filling up with Captain Crunch until they both look like giant, inflatable sponges....7...8...9... I imagine showing up at my new school looking like a big, yellow slob of a sponge and hearing the _fatfatfat_ whispers behind my back....10...11...12...

"Okay you can go," my mom says, "but remember what Elaina told you..."

...13...14...15..."I will mom, don't worry." I run to the bathroom and slam the door shut behind my back.

By the time Elaina finally decided to release me from therapy, I had gained twenty pounds and a shiny, red binder full of rules, regulations, and diet plans. She handed it off to me with a flourish of her ballpoint pen and a toothy grin, "It's something you'll be able to refer back to when you're feeling lost."

I nodded my head and grabbed the binder without hesitation. Hesitation will kill you in the therapist's office. "Thanks," I said and opened it up to the front page. There \- written in bold, black font at the top of the page was this:

RULE #1: STAY AWAY FROM THE BATHROOM AFTER EATING.

I cringed inwardly. "This is great," I lie, "I think it'll really help."

Elaina clapped her chubby hands together. "I'm glad you like it!" she shrieked, "I made a second copy for your mom (by this point she's stopped using the word 'parents') so she can be your support system through it all too (because your dad has stopped participating in therapy and obviously can't help you anymore.) This way she will know how to help you out whenever you need it."

"Thank you Elaina. Really," I said out loud and my voice sounds sweet and pure and wholesome. I've finally figured out how to make myself sound like an angel though in my head the thoughts run rampant.

YouaresodumbwhywouldyoueverreleasemefromtherapywhenI'mstillthrowingupeverydayandwhydidyougivemymomabinderbecausenowIwillneverbeabletotrickherormanipulateherintobelievingmyliesyou'vespoiledeverythingyouareevilevilevilwhywouldyoudothatyouaresodumb.

She continued, "I wasn't even going to give you the binder at first since you are doing so well, but then I thought well maybe just in case, you know?"

"It's probably a good idea," I said just before the buzzer rings and we both stand and shake hands for the last time. I tucked the binder beneath my right arm and slumped out the door to meet my mother in the parking lot.

It's been three months since then and I still haven't looked at that binder, but sometimes when I'm not paying attention I can see the shiny red of the spine flickering in the corner of my eye and I can feel it pulling me closer and closer and closer.

Once I'm inside the bathroom with the door locked and secured behind me, I yank the shower curtain shut and run the hot water. I watch the steam rising in curls and puffs to the bathroom ceiling and count to sixty so I can be sure my mom is no longer standing outside the bathroom door listening in. It never takes long for her to leave.

Then I strip off my clothes piece by piece until I'm standing naked in the swirls of steam and can feel the cold tiles of the floor beneath my seashell pink toes. The cereal is still twitching inside of me and pulling at my insides like an angry child.

I look to the mirror.

Current Weight: 120 lbs

Lowest Weight: 95 lbs

Normal Weight for a 5 ft. 4 in. Girl: 125-135 lbs

I should be thinner.

I begin gathering my ratty hair into a ponytail at the top of my head and I study myself closely in the full-length mirror that's plastered to the back of our bathroom door. My stomach is still pushed far out in front of me and I can see the stretch marks gathered on the skin of my waist. They started popping up on my flesh after I stuffed myself with food one too many times and now my sides are littered with the small, blue streaks. My thighs and arms are fleshy and full – the kind of size four thighs most girls would kill for but which make me feel too thick and too big, the kind of thighs that make me feel like I take up too much space. I run my fingers over my bulging stomach and poke and prod my skin. When I lift my fingers, the flesh of my stomach turns white before flooding with color again.

I should be thinner.

I turn to the side and take one last look at my own bursting, bloated body before turning to lift the toilet seat. I grab a toothbrush and hunch over the white circular bowl until my spine forms a half-circle over the edge of the toilet. Most girls who do this, (do most girls do this?) _Most_ girls who do this stick their fingers down their throats but I don't like to get my hands dirty. I stick the back of the toothbrush all the way back until it touches the fleshy, dangly pink thing at the back of my throat.

I should be thinner.

And just like that the food comes roaring, ripping, bounding up my throat and surging over my tongue in a torrent of chewed up, yellow, Captain Crunch vomit. It splashes in chunks directly into the toilet water and my eyes start to itch and burn and water from the strain of puking up the food.

I should be thinner.

I reach the toothbrush back again and again and again and food comes soaring up each time and I think to myself _IwonderwhenthiswillbeoverbutIcan'tstopwon'tstopuntilthefoodisallgoneeventhoughmyheartisleapingoutofmychestandbeatingsoharditfeelslikeit'sgoingtocaveinandIcan'tbreatheandmyeyeshurtandIknowthisissogrossbutIwilldoanythingandeverythingtomakemystomachflatagainbecauseIcan'tlivewiththislumpofCaptainCrunchinmygutforeverbecauseifitstaysthenIwillnevereverbehappyorlovedandIcan'tl_ ivewithmyselfifthathappens.

I should be thinner.

When I start dry heaving and I can taste the bitterness of stomach acid on my tongue then I let myself stop. But only then. I stand up, towel off the stray globs of vomit from the end of the toothbrush, and wipe the toilet bowl clean (a new

habit I acquired after my mother started noticing the leftover flakes of orange and yellow inside the bowl) before washing my hands and looking at myself in the mirror again.

My eyes are red and several blood vessels have popped in places so I look like I've just cried for several hours but my stomach has returned to a flat plane. The bulge is gone, the Captain Crunch is gone, and my insides feel pink and clean again. I can relax. I smile at my own reflection before turning away to brush my teeth and take a shower like I promised my mom I would. I need to look good for my first day at a new school, after all.

****

Skirt Interlude

Liz Baudler

1

Drums don't make a chord

strike a skirt swish, you say

what is that, interlude and

many moons seem to go

together, they schmooze.

2

There are simple steps the band took

to ensure that they played on.

When the fire alarm first sounded,

the smoke snuck into the eyes without

ID, they merely smashed the cymbals

into its glare, bronze softening the flame.

The singer stared at the wooden-planked

stage and tried to imagine his feet burning

and what notes his toes would be hitting

if they were blistering on white-hot pianos.

He sang softer, too, for oxygen, occasionally deferred

to the percussive tabla buzz of the one alarm people

listened to. He saw the flamenco skirts fringe up a

yellow border, and wondered what could possibly

go wrong next. Fuego was a false cognate—I went,

not I go, and combining the two meant an unanswerable

exit. Now the guitar strings were ablaze and there

was no time to end the coda.

3

da da da swish da da da

4.

Everything becomes an interlude in the aftermath,

survivors of the matchless tragedy ask "why me"

and it seems that all reports appear, to, in a phrase,

"skirt the issue". Dancing around the topic never

was so intricate. We stand in wreckage, and bow our heads

to listen, softly, for the tinkle of a bracelet.

####

Brought to you by I Feel Pretty Writers Collective

I Feel Pretty started as a writers group- a place where young Chicago fiction writers could workshop their stories and receive critical feedback in a more relaxed environment. Over the course of a year, the group opened up to involve more people and a more diverse set of skills and time schedules. As the numbers grew, old members moving on, new members being added, there was a driving urge to do something with the pieces we had been working on. Disenchanted with the short story publishing world, the decision was made to do it ourselves, our way.

Check us out online at Ifeelprettyonline.com

