Some days start off okay and head downhill until you're neck-deep in shit. October 3rd skipped the hill part altogether and jumped straight for the sewer. Before first bell Nip got shoved into a urinal while pissing by some push-and-run asshole. That alone might not have been so bad, but Nip was wearing these white corduroys (why he owned white pants at all is a mystery that, unlike the mystery looming over Honaw, will never be explained) and he splashed bright yellow down the right leg. Nip had two set responses for misfortune: laugh, and laugh harder. That morning he laughed so hard his eyes filled with tears. It was chilly outside—nippy, one might say. The wind blowing through Honaw would soften up and warm by noon, but with the sun still hiding behind the mountain, it sliced across the school's grounds like a razor over bare skin. I offered him my coat so he could wrap it around his waist and let the sleeves dangle over his legs, and that helped, sort of, except a pack of wrestlers leaving the gym from an early practice saw me take it off and hand it to him.

If you've ever hung out with high-school jocks, especially small-town high-school jocks, you'll find that "fag" makes up about eighty percent of their vocabulary. This group was no exception.

"Oh whook, wittle faggy wet himself."

"And now wittle faggy wants to play dress up."

"Don't you all have semen to wipe off your mats?" said Ash.

"Lick it up, fag-dike," shouted the stockiest of the bunch, and the goblin on his right gave him an approving punch on his shoulder.

My hands tightened involuntarily in my lap, and I earned the attention of troll number three. Lucky me.

He pointed gleefully. "The cripple wants a go!"

It's funny. You think you understand pain, that you've explored every inch of its scarred terrain, and then something comes along to show you there's another side to the map, new valleys and ridges and deep howling caves.

I went for them. I did. No thought, just impulse. I started pushing on my wheels, and Nip and Ash grabbed my chair to hold me back. I kept pushing, my teeth bared, my human brain swapped out for a mad dog's. The wrestlers went crazy with laughter, I mean nuts, hands on stomachs and bodies doubled over, staggering and clutching onto each other to keep from falling. Then the wind cut me down into shivers and I collapsed back into my chair, which rolled back into Nip and Ash and nearly toppled them.

Still laughing, the trio moved off.

We did not.

A green flier twirled through the air, like my lost map on the first day of school, and landed in front of us. I don't know what made Nip bend over to pick it up. I'm not even sure he knew he was doing it. In a flat voice, he read, "Calling all Grizzlies to the Bear Den for the annual school talent show on Thursday, October 8th. Be sure to sign up—"

Ash swiped the flier from Nip's hands and shoved it in her back pocket. She touched my shoulder softly. "Joel . . ."

I said nothing.

That was how the day got started.

Key word, started.

♫

Ash sensed it in me, in my silence. She heard the buzz deep down inside the lump of rock that I became, and she tried to crack me open before I cracked myself open, again.

Her plan backfired.

Gloriously.

♫

For a couple weeks I had been finding notes on myself. In my backpack, in my coat pockets, once in my left shoe, sweaty from the sole of my foot. Little pieces of notebook paper with things written on them like,

You look so ugly today.

Bitchmaster likes me more.

I want to spit in your mouth.

The first few periods were blank channels on a radio, static. Then Algebra rolled around and I rolled around to Algebra, late, to find a substitute at the front of the class. A real cave-dweller, he was. Head like a greased pan. Neck like a jungle. He spent fifteen minutes on roll call alone, fumbling over the pronunciations of the most straightforward names. When he reached the R's, he sat there saying, "Rascoe . . . Rascoe . . . Billy Rascoe . . ." until someone grunted, "Here," just to set the poor bastard free from his loop. The next morning our real teacher would give this little start when she saw a check next to Billy's name, and we'd all shrug when she asked about it, like we couldn't remember whether he'd been there or not. Billy had gone missing from school the same way his father had gone missing from town, but the truant officers couldn't do anything about it since Billy was eighteen. Rumor had it he was holed up in his house living off the liquor cabinet. Rumor had it, the Rascoe liquor cabinet went as deep as the mine.

The sub picked up his lesson plan.

"Open your books." A mouth-breathing pause. "To page 183." A slurp and swallow. "And work through the odd-numbered problems."

A dozen conversations broke out across the classroom. I'm sure someone was following instructions somewhere, but half an hour later I was barely getting to step one. I leaned over my wheel, unzipped my backpack, and pulled out my scuffed and hot sauce dappled textbook. Five more minutes passed. I reached for my notebook. Ten more minutes. I shaved my pencil with a thumbnail. My legs throbbed in turn, right, left, right, left. I wiped a graphite-tinted smear of blood onto my shirt.

Footsteps padded up the aisle, then a sashaying set of hips bumped into my textbook and knocked it off the desk.

"So clumsy," Ash said, leaning over to pick it up.

I made a, "Hmmm."

She set the book in front of me. "Here you go." Her voice sounded weird and fluttery, like her throat was full of moths or hummingbirds. She continued up the aisle, her heels not quite touching the floor, and U-turned to her desk down the next aisle over. I looked at my textbook. A tiny white corner of paper poked out beneath its cover. I turned in my seat. Ash had her head down and was working furiously on the assignment.

Tucked inside my textbook was a notebook page. On the page was a list titled Things I Will Steal from You.

1)Your innocence

2)Your toothbrush

3)That checkered shirt you wear with the hole in the armpit

4)Your ring

For the last item on the list, she'd written 'your heart,' only she'd scratched out 'heart' and scribbled 'BALLS' instead. My brain was just catching up to my eyes when a hand flicked out and snatched the paper away. "We-he-hell," said Kory Yenders. You know how every time some dickhead dictator is killed, there's always another waiting in the gates to take his place? The same goes for bullies and class clowns. Billy Rascoe's replacement held Ash's note up to the light. "What do we have here?"

I thought about reaching for it and saw the scene play out: his hand moves, my hand falls short, I get frustrated, he gets delighted, my hands go for his throat.

Kory raised his fingers to his lips in mock astonishment. "Oh. Oh my."

"Please," I said. "Don't."

"Don't keep your love hidden from the world?" he said, raising his voice to gather the class's attention. "I wouldn't dream of it, Joel. I wouldn't dream of it."

The sub was hunched over his laptop. A fly washed itself in the sweat on his skull.

Kory began to read.

My head rotated and my eyes met Ash's for a single breath. She looked down into her lap, her white chocolate cheeks turning a valentine shade of pink, and bombs started going off in my chest, deep underground.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

I said Ash's plan backfired. I never said it didn't work.

____ ____

IMPORTANT : In Ash's note to Joel, the last item was originally written like the others, with "heart" scratched through by a single line and "balls" jotted in next to it. Unfortunately, Wattpad doesn't hold onto the 'strikethrough' formatting when I hit publish, so I spelled out the end of the note instead. If anyone knows a way to get the 'strikethrough' to stick, I'd appreciate it!

____ ____

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying Poor Things, please consider hitting the vote button—it will help other readers find the story. Comments are always appreciated, too.

Coming up, Ash lets off some serious steam and Joel gets his own cruel nickname . . .