Us Girls at Our Boys’ Graduation | Jennifer Todhunter
Us girls get ready for our boys’ graduation, stick cigarettes in our push-up bras, cut the hems of our second-hand dresses just so. We talk about what it’ll be like to graduate ourselves one day, how we’ll wear longer, prettier dresses, how we won’t need our boys to get in the front door. We talk about quitting our after-school jobs, our early-morning shifts at the shitty motel. Going to university. Travelling through the jungle. Costa Rica. Malaysia. All the things our boys take for granted. All the things we’ve been told we can’t do. We kiss each other’s cheeks, pin dahlias from somebody else's garden to our dresses, get on our bikes and ride down the road.
Our boys drink whiskey beneath the bleachers, sip from flasks engraved with their initials, flasks gifted to them by their parents for this very occasion. Our boys have gelled hair, potato-and-needle-pierced-ears, no plans, no plans, no plans. Us girls decline their offer for a swig, say this is a night we want to remember: the bright squares of the disco ball skipping across the wall, the smell of hairspray and sex in the bathroom, the way the music oozes through our twice-broken hearts. This time, we don't want to be wasted.
Us girls know all the words to all the songs, all the moves to all the dances. We are hip-swaying, feet-stomping, arms-waving. We are somebody, somebody, somebody. We let our boys run their fingers down our sides, cup our butts in their soft, unscarred hands, hook their hips into ours. We hear murmurs, see whisperings, feel private-school eyes cut into our bubble from across the room, and we tell ourselves it doesn't matter. We'll be something one day—something more than those girls on those bikes with those boys.
Our boys parade us girls around the room like they’re proud of where we're from, like they've eaten supper at our rickety kitchen tables, like they've walked with confidence down our town's main drag. We laugh amongst ourselves, slip a cigarette between our teeth, blow smoke rings into the blank faces of our boys’ classmates until they finally look away because, around here, all anybody does is stare.
Us girls leave our boys’ graduation, flip off the kids barfing in the hedges, the kids waiting for tinted-out limos. We ride our bikes through the security gate at the hotel our boys have held rooms at, plunge into the steaming pool, our handlebars the last thing to sink underneath. Our dresses balloon in the water and we choke on our laughter, the lacy underwear we stole on display, the matching scars on our ribcages shimmering in the lights underwater.
Our boys cannonball in beside us, and we float on our backs, kick water in their faces. They grab at our ankles, pull us toward them, paint kisses on our cheeks, on our chests, on our stomachs, stomachs that will hold babies sooner than we want them to. Us girls let our boys paw us, will always let them paw us, until we’ve had enough, and we catch each other's mascara-raccooned eyes over our boys’ shoulders, bite at their ears and suck on their necks, because this is the ride we're on tonight, but this isn't our ticket out of here. We'll make our own ticket for that next year when we graduate and say goodbye to this town, leaving our boys far behind.
Jennifer Todhunter's stories have appeared in The Forge, Hobart, CHEAP POP, and elsewhere. Her work has been selected for Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions, and Wigleaf´s Top 50 Very Short Fictions. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Pidgeonholes and founder of Trash Mag. Find her at www.foxbane.ca or @JenTod