Seven Days in June(25)

“Who are you?”

“Genevieve Mercier. Sorry, I got…lost.”

“We’re all lost.” Mr. Weismuller was whippet thin with a sallow complexion. He looked like he had mono. “Class, welcome Genevieve.”

“The fuck’s that name, though?” a girl shouted.

“Young, why her name sound like Pepé Le Pew?”

Genevieve sank lower in her chair. Mr. Weismuller turned to face the chalkboard.

“This bitch think she Aaliyah ’cause she got a half a cup of hair.”

“That ain’t hers,” said a tall girl in Apple Bottom jeans, sitting behind Genevieve.

She turned around to face her. From his corner in the back, Shane caught her eye. And shook his head. A warning that Genevieve ignored.

“What’d you say?”

“I said that hair ain’t yours, ho. And what?”

“Yeah, and what?” said a slight boy who materialized next to Apple Bottom, presumably her boyfriend. The whole class was watching Genevieve. She was surrounded. The only person she knew was four rows back. She wasn’t going to win.

“Nothing,” she muttered.

“I thought not,” said Apple Bottom, and the class resumed cutting up. Behind her, Genevieve heard The Boyfriend whisper “Yeah, do that shit” to Apple Bottom.

There was an electric calm. Suddenly, Genevieve’s neck snapped back, hard, and her head felt eerily weightless. She turned around, and Apple Bottom was grasping three-fourths of Genevieve’s ponytail in one hand and scissors in the other. The Boyfriend cackled.

“I’m getting Principal Miller,” Mr. Weismuller said with a robotic lack of urgency and left the room.

Genevieve felt behind her neck, where her hair no longer was. A red fury raged through her, and she pushed Apple Bottom’s desk violently, knocking her backward. Apple Bottom shrieked, unhurt but tangled under a chair.

“Kill this new bitch,” screamed The Boyfriend to no one.

“No,” said Shane, standing up. “You. Fight me.”

Everybody looked at The Boyfriend. It was clear he didn’t want to do this.

One girl went, “Nope. When Shane starts with his shit, I’m out. Y’all ain’t gonna fuck around and get me suspended right before graduation.” She grabbed her backpack and left.

“Fight me, nigga,” Shane repeated. They were nose-to-nose now. The crowd formed a wide circle around them.

The Boyfriend threw a weak punch, knocking Shane across the nose. Shane folded his arm across his chest. He hit Shane harder. Then Shane whispered something in his ear, causing him to really rear back and crack Shane on the temple. Then the class was shouting “Fuck him up, fuck him up,” and The Boyfriend shoved Shane to the ground, fists flying. Shane’s nose and lip were bleeding, but he didn’t fight back.

“Stop!” Genevieve yelled. “Jesus Christ, Shane, it’s just hair!”

Abruptly, Shane heaved the kid off him and stood up. His breathing was jagged, erratic. And then he lifted up his hurt arm, the one in the cast, and whacked The Boyfriend across the cheekbone, hard, with a sickening thwack. The Boyfriend dropped.

Shane clutched his ravaged arm to his chest, the bone rebroken. He stood there, trembling, gritting his teeth, radiance draining from his skin. Then he shot Genevieve a bloody smile and crumpled to the ground. It was the most terrifying, graceful thing she’d ever seen.

“Someone get help. He’s…”

The last thing Genevieve saw was Apple Bottom’s fist inches from her nose, and then a zillion bright lights.



Six hours later, Genevieve and Shane lay in cots next to each other in a curtain-enclosed space at United Medical Center’s emergency room. They’d been there all day with the school guidance counselor, Ms. Guzman, perched between them in a foldout chair. The Boyfriend was discharged and went home with his grandmother, sporting a fractured cheekbone. Apple Bottom left with her aunt and a bruised shoulder. Shane’s arm was reset with a new cast, and between his upper lip and left eyebrow, he had a total of fourteen stitches. Genevieve got off easiest, with a ghastly black eye and an even ghastlier bob.

She and Shane were suspended, but as seventeen-year-old minors, they couldn’t legally be discharged until a parent or guardian picked them up. Ms. Guzman couldn’t reach Lizette, which was no surprise.

Ms. Guzman couldn’t find Shane’s guardian, either. Apparently, he lived in a foster-kid shelter, and no administrators were reachable.

Now they were just lying there. Waiting. While Ms. Guzman dipped outside for her thirty-seventh smoke break.

Genevieve was in agony. That punch had rattled her brain. The ER docs had treated her bruised eye, but despite her increasingly panicked pleas, they’d given her only Advil for her head. At her pain level, this was as helpful as an M&M.

Shaking badly, she’d curled into a ball, clawing into her forearm with her nails as a distraction.

“Genevieve?” Shane whispered from his cot.

“John-vee-EV,” she groaned, through gritted teeth.

“You good?”

“No.”

She watched him peer out into the hallway and then shut the curtain. He dug in his jeans pocket, yanked out a baggie of pills, and grabbed a Dixie cup of water. He handed both to her.

“Will OxyContin help?”