Distorted Waters

The water is still tonight, it’s a perfect reflection of the sky above, as if it was a perfect photo. But something jumps in the water and the distortion starts with each ripple. Slowly that perfect photo was destroyed. I like to think of my life like this water.

I was an honor’s student in high school nothing but A’s and B’s. I was in the math team, and the environmental club. I even was in the Future Leaders of Tomorrow club. I had a plan to leave this small town. I was going to take a plane and fly over the flat land I know to the ravenous mountains to the west. I was going to go to one of the colleges in California, and work to become a senator. I had my whole life planned. I got into my top five colleges, too. But as time passed so did my dream.

I wanted one night to let loose, and not try to be the perfect daughter, so I went to a party my senior year of school, and had a few drinks. Sebastian was there, he was the most popular guy in school with lean muscle, dark curly hair, and a great tan from always practicing outside for soccer, or lacrosse. And at that party he, the hottest guy in my school, approached me. Me the one everyone deemed a stick in the mud. He offered me a drink and I couldn’t say no, so I took it... But things got fuzzy.

The next thing I know I woke up in a bed with him with my shirt unbuttoned, and the skirt hiked well above my waist. I looked at him with such confusion.

“Did we just...” I said cautiously, examining him. He didn’t have any clothes on. He was just laying there smirking.

“Yup, but don’t worry if you don’t remember we have it on tape.”

I leapt outta bed pulling the blanket with me. “You what?! Delete it now. This wasn’t sex don’t remember it, I couldn’t give consent my judgement was impaired.”

“You see that’s not what you said last night.” He pulls out his phone with an evil glare. And the video starts to play, I look away. I can hear a voice similar to mine slurring but I can’t make out the words. I walk over and snatch his phone and hit pause. Realizing it was in full screen mode I turned it the mini player mode, and realized it was on Youtube. I was going to flag it but I lost my temper. I threw my fist downward, and the phone slipped hurling it into the ground.

“How the fuck can you do that what’s the matter with you?!”

He gets outta bed and starts walking towards his phone and reveals the screen is shattered.

“So not worth the $20, Minnie gave me.” He finds his shorts, puts them on and throws his shirt over his shoulder and begins to leave the room.

“Wait what do you mean the $20 Minnie gave you?”

He walks out without saying a word. Of course Minnie had something to do with it, she’s been a troubled kid, who struggles in school. She was in honors somehow, and she was copying off my paper so I reported her. She swore she would get back at me, but like this. It could ruin my life.

And well that’s exactly what happened. I fixed my clothes and went home. My parents were informed of this video and never looked at me the same, they were embarrassed, and furious, and confused. I heard my mom crying downstairs that night asking what she did wrong for me to turn out like ‘this.’ But it wasn’t just my parents who knew in school, people would pass me in the halls moaning, and making ridiculous faces. But it didn’t matter right? I was gonna go to California and all this would be behind me. Within a few days I received 5 phone calls from the schools that accepted me, rescinding their offer. They kept saying that they didn’t want someone with such a reputation at their school.

Of course, nothing happened to Sabastian. He got told not to do it again by the principal, and in the halls all the guys gave him high fives. He was unscathed from this incident but my entire life just broke, like a glass figurine hitting the ground. And you want to know the worst part, I never got to tell Minnie off. I never got to scream about how she ruined my life, and you want to know why?! Because she always avoided me in the halls after that. She never looked me in the eyes, she didn’t tease me like the rest of them but she never owned up to her actions.

For about a month, I kept visiting this bridge off town to look over the water near the bay. I kept wishing the wind would blow me in so I wouldn’t have to deal with trying to put together the shambles of my life. But no wind blew.

Nothing changed for one month, the only thing that changed was me. I stopped taking care of myself. It started small by skipping brushing my teeth every once and while, then it became more frequent, next was brushing my thick wavy hair. The dirty blond mess became a rat’s nest. Soon after showering was out of the question and eating. I didn’t have the energy to do anything. My parents tried to help but they still judged me for that video, they couldn’t get past that to help me, which only made things worse.

The only thing I had energy to do was to go to the bridge and hope to fall. But I never did. One day I stood up, and began to step over. But someone pulled me back and a flash of scarlet hair, I was falling onto the bridge while someone was going over. Her pale skin glowed as she fell into the darkness and then the bay. She broke the picture. I watched her fall kneeling over the side of the bridge to process what occurred. And then it dawned on me, no one in this small town has hair like that except Minnie. I got scared and ran. I ran for the first time in a month, my body felt so heavy, and I moved so slowly but I kept running. When I got home I went into the shower, and tried to wash the blood off from my hands. There was no physical blood but I knew I was the one to spill her blood. After getting out of the shower, my parents were waiting at the door. They hugged me tightly like before. And then handed me a letter. It was addressed to me but my parents had already opened it. It was a letter from Minnie explaining what had happened and how she was sorry. She said she was going to run away, but that she first wanted to right this wrong. She explained that she thought this humiliation would be the same as what she experienced when she got caught cheating, but that it went too far.

I dropped to my knees processing everything that happened within the past 15 minutes.

“She’s dead. I tried to jump but she pulled me back and fell in.”

My parents knew exactly what I meant. I heard my Mom mutter a prayer, as she fell next to me and pulled me close. My Dad ran into the bathroom and vomited from shock.

“Hun, there was an earthquake, it wasn’t that bad here, but it was really bad in California. I think that knocked Minnie in, it was enough to shift everything just a bit.”

I looked at her with a strange mix of horror and relief, I was glad I wasn’t the direct cause, but I also knew that she wasn’t planning on dying to save me. It’s been a strange grief to process, but I’ve been working on it with my therapist. I can still picture the water, and that moment when scarlet hair flashed across my vision. In my sleep I see the rippled water frozen in time, forever distorted from that one moment.