A List of Cages(29)

I hear a noise.

Someone is opening the back door. My stomach starts to hurt and my ears tingle as I listen. The jingle of Russell’s keys. His footsteps on the hardwood floor.

My wildly beating heart is so loud, it’s hard to hear anything else as I wait for him to either go up the stairs or come down the hall.





I’M WALKING AND texting my way through the hall on Monday when I spot Mom coming out of the main office. For a second, I get a PTSD-style flashback of her menacing my middle school principal.

“Mom?” I say, and she gets this suspicious, caught-in-the-act look on her face. “What are you doing here?”

She straightens, her expression fierce all of a sudden. “Meeting with Mr. Pearce.”

“Oh—I swear that whole intercom thing wasn’t me.” The Game might’ve gotten a little out of hand during first period. But Allison totally didn’t have to accept the dare just because she’s an office aide with access to the PA system. Okay, maybe she did, but— “What?” Mom looks completely confused. “No, about Julian.”

“Julian? Why?”

“I just wanted to see how he’s been doing, and that man”—she means Julian’s uncle—“changed his number—not that he’d take my calls anyway—and Mr. Pearce won’t talk to me either. Confidentiality and everything.” She’s getting all worked up and not even bothering to put on the creepy-fake-happy smile.

“Mom, everything’s cool. You just need to take some anxiety drops.”

That suggestion goes over the way it usually does, with her being mildly offended at first, then saying, “Maybe you’re right,” with a sigh. “I need to get back to work.” The bell rings. “And you need to get to class,” she adds, scolding all of a sudden, like she’s not the reason I’m late.

“Okay.” I bend down to give her a hug. “See you at home.”





“WHAT IS HE—YOUR DATE?” Charlie mutters as Adam hands me my shoes.

When Adam asked me to go bowling this Saturday, I didn’t realize Charlie would be coming too. It’s been a week since Emerald’s birthday, and I’ve been getting a ride home from Adam almost every day since. Jesse and Allison and everyone else talks to me, but I think Charlie hates me.

I pretend he isn’t glowering and tell Adam, “I can pay you back.”

“It’s cool,” he says. “It’s like two dollars.”

I’m sitting on a bench in front of our lane, taking off my sneakers, when Charlie asks me loudly, “Do you shave your legs?” Now both he and Adam are staring at the strip of visible skin between my socks and too-short jeans.

“Yes?” I answer.

“Why?” Adam asks. He doesn’t look like he’s joking.

But to confirm: “Are you joking?”

“I’m totally serious. Why do you shave your legs?” They’re both squinting at my shins. I wish I wore Adam’s jeans again, even if they are dirty.

“Because we’re supposed to. Don’t you?”

“No,” they say together.

“But you have to. You’ll get sick. Body hair carries germs. It isn’t sanitary.”

“Who the hell told you that?” Charlie is looking at me like I’m crazy.

“My uncle.”

“Russell told you you’d get sick if you didn’t shave your body hair?” Adam’s voice deepens, clearly concerned for some reason.

“But that’s stupid,” Charlie adds. “You’ve seen guys’ legs before, right?”

I know that some men keep their leg hair, but Russell says it’s a disgusting habit and they’re going to get sick.

“What about PE?” Charlie says. “Don’t you see the other guys in the locker room?”

“I never had PE.”

“Never?” Adam asks.

“When I was really little, but not in years.”

Adam looks suspicious. “But it’s a required class.”

“I don’t know. I never had to take it,” I say.

“You should still know this stuff,” Charlie grumbles. “Everyone took that puberty class in sixth grade.”

I didn’t. Russell never signed the consent form, so when the boys and girls were split up to watch the video, I was sent to the library.

“So…” I say, “you really don’t shave?”

“I really don’t,” Adam says. “Guys don’t shave their legs. Except swimmers, because it’s supposed to make them faster—which I don’t get, because how much can leg hair slow you down? But no, it’s just something girls do.”

“But why just girls?”

“Because,” Charlie says, “no one’s gonna go out with a girl with hairy legs and pits—Wait a minute!” He grabs my sleeve. “Does this mean you shave your pits?”

I pull away.

“Quit it,” Adam says, moving to sit on the orange plastic bench between us. “New topic. Do we need to get the bumper rails for you, Charlie, or do you think you can handle it without them?”

“Right,” he says, “as if you will ever beat me at bowling.”