The Mare

Velvet

After school I walked around looking for Dominic. I went to the block where I first met him with Strawberry and walked around it, like, three times. These little kids were staring the crap out of me. I kept my hand on my cell, hoping he might call, even though how could he? I never gave him my number.

I kept thinking, What would he do? I knew he wouldn’t kick a old man, but would he just walk away or would he try to stop them? What would it be like to crawl on the ground while people kicked you? What would it be like to kick somebody like that, with everybody else doing it too? I went back to the school and went to look at the place. There was still glass on the ground and something that was maybe blood. I felt, but not a normal feeling that you can say what it is. It didn’t come from inside me, it came to me, like a echo, far away, but from everywhere. Except I didn’t hear it, I felt it on my skin and in my body.

What Shawn said, that Ginger could be nice because people like her got other people to do the violence for them; I didn’t understand what he meant, but it felt true. Ginger in the car, talking to me about Fiery Girl loving me and the thing she could only hear by herself — that was true too. I knew because now I was hearing it.