Police Officer: There was a fight in the pep rally. Was Sunny involved?
Me: Yes.
Sunny was getting bumped a lot in the halls. Almost every week, her books wound up on the floor, needing to be lifted off the dry cement. She was getting good at ignoring it, though. One time, the loose-leaf from her two-inch binder flew everywhere. Oh no. She started to panic. Sunny did not want the seniors to deprecate her even more. Quickly, quickly pick them up and pretend as nothing happened. Sunny waved her hands on the sooty gray floors, trying to pick the lined paper up, but failing. Then, a copious voice approached. Sunny's stomach immediately tightened.
"Need help?" She had an accent, and skin the color of chocolate dip. I could tell right away that she was strong. A leader not by position or title, but by the strength of mind and action. She came from the fabric of dark matter, risen from the furnace of a phoenix. She was a Black queen—the most powerful piece in the game. She bent down with her frizzy afro and the two strangers finished the job together before the next class.
"Thank you. I'm—"
"Sunny, I saw in the... um, the videos." The comment made her uncomfortable; Sunny looked to the ground, feeling less than worthy. There was no way she was going to continue to talk to a girl like her. A freak. But the chocolate drop continued to speak, almost as if Sunny was normal.
"I'm Devon," she said, grinned and showing off her white teeth. Sunny widened her grin.
"Thank you, again..." A subtle suggestion of discomfiture roamed in between their breaths, mainly because they were both shy souls. Sunny felt like she should say something.
"Would you want to have lunch with me tomorrow or something?" she said, figuring that it was better than sitting alone.
"Oh... yeah. Sure." Devon looked pleased to get an invitation. The two smiled and headed off to each of their classes with a smidgen of sweetness intertwined around their tongues. Like the vines of a sprouting friendship.
***
They had lunch together almost every day. For Sunny, being friends with Devon was facile and trouble-free. Once in a while, she was expected to put the phone to her ear and "uh-huh" to Devon's long explanations of Model UN. The girl went on and on, while Sunny just stared at the newly uploaded clips. The account was growing to 4000 followers, and her videos were being retweeted, shared, and spread everywhere.
"Hello? Sunny, are you listening?" Said Devon, through the befouled speaker from her phone.
"Yeah, yeah... yes."
"You're really bad at pretending, you know."
"What?" Sunny said, scrolling through the videos of her humiliation, tightening her grip every few seconds.
"Don't look at those videos."
"I'm not."
"There's no point in staring at them if you aren't going to do anything."
"I can't do anything."
"Lie."
"What are you talking about."
"There's always something you can do." Sunny stopped scrolling.
"Like?"
"You were friends with her before, right?"
"I thought so."
"The way I see it, she's being an ass because you can't give her what she wants."
"What does she want?"
"That up to you to figure out. I'm just saying, the girl is working two jobs, she needs that cash." Sunny's eyes widened. That was it. C-A-S-H. The most egalitarian force in society. The solution to all life's problems.
***
The pucks swayed back and forth on the wooden creaking floor. Some twisted and turned under the stick, others were launched uncontrollably towards the plastic net, to which it always found a way to dodge the engulfing entrance. Floor hockey month had inevitably begun.
Hiram raised Sunny to be a girl very fond of sports, but she couldn't resist the smooth inviting benches. She sat in seclusion while the rest of the Kitties, in their skin-tight black lulus, swished their botties around in the name of playing hockey.
She picked at her fingernails feeling very un-popular and every few minutes breathed out toxic, hatred-filled breaths of air. Then, she would look up at Selena, tracking her every move, like a sniper. It was pointless because we all knew the girl was never going to talk to her.
Class ended and Mr. Jay asked Sunny to put away the hockey sticks because she was the only one who actually took orders. Yes, Mr. Jay. Thanks, Mr. Jay. By the time she finished, everybody was already out for lunch.
She entered the change room to get her bag. Perusal, there was a girl by the mirror. Except for today, it was Selena. She was there, wearing short boxer shorts and a sports bra with a thick white band that repeated Armour over and over again. Selena sat by the sink and accidentally got mascara in her eye. She rubbed it, smearing black lines across her face.
Sunny desperately wanted to grab her by the neck and shake her and scream at her for treating her like she didn't exist. She didn't know how long she could stand being stepped on like dirt. But she decided to be completely cool. She decided to be the bigger person and invite her to lunch.
"Hi," Sunny said. Selena wiped off the mascara from her cheeks.
"Hm."
"It's Sunny." Selena turned around from the mirror, put a vape between her lips, and blew a ring at her face. "I thought we could have lunch or something." Sunny had cracks in her voice as if she was scared for her life.
Selena's moved her body, making Sunny believe that she was going to do something to her. But instead, Selena bent down to retie her new Nikes. Then she walked out like nothing ever happened. Sunny, for the millionth time, had been dropped like a hot pizza on a cold kitchen floor. That was it. Sunny needed to do something. She went home that day and asked for a sports bra. And Nikes.
"Knives? You want knives? Sure, just come over to the kitchen—"
"No, Mom. Nikes. N-I-K-E-S."
"Nyykes?" Lyssa could barely pronounce it.
"No. It's Nikes. Never mind. Just call them whatever you want to call them."
"Ok."
"So that's a yes?"
"Sure, honey," replied Lyssa, not realizing the shoes were three-hundred dollars. Sunny kissed her on the cheek and went upstairs.
***
First pep rally of the year. Basketball.
Sunny never liked them in middle school. She and Kelly always thought that it was just noise and pointless cheering. But now she was feeling fine about it; she was just glad she has somebody to sit with on the bleachers. The cheerleaders cartwheeled into the gym; the jocks followed wearing looks of inordinate opinions of their own dignity. Such satisfaction with their positions.
Devon said something, but the noise covered her mumbles. She spotted Cole. The crowd stomped on the bleachers and roared some sort of cheer that Sunny hadn't memorized just yet. She saw Selena on the other end of the gym with her friends. The game started.
Cole scored. Cheer. Cole scored again. Cheer. Cheer. Cole scored for the 20th time in a row. Cheer. Cheer. Whistle. Yell. Cheer. Sunny's mouth dropped. Devon kept a straight face.
"Don't you think that's cool?" Sunny finally asked.
"Oh hell no. He's the same boy who got detention in elementary school for beating kids up and now he's bein' praised for his strength. It's what they call basketball. But he doesn't got anything to be proud of. He and everybody else on the team is just an athletic boy with big big zits."
Sunny listened along and she continued. "I gotta tell you, he has a reputation for smoking pot you know. And everybody knows that. But all the gym teachers are so full of admiration that they just chose to ignore that fact. They look at his future and see State Championships, raised pays, another thing to brag about at barbecues, so it don't matter that he is a douche. It's all just so..."
"Unfair," Sunny added.
"What?"
"I said it's unfair."
"Exactly. I mean we just didn't get lucky."
"Lucky?"
"Yeah. If we were the good breed of human, you think that we'd still be sitting here alone like losers?"
"You mean..."
"You know what I mean. The pale faces, they get it handed to them. We have to work for it, and even then, we might not get it. It's privilege they got. Privilege."
They turned their heads to watch the rest of the game unfold. In the first round, Cole alone scored 29 baskets before the other team vanished to the nurses with injuries and fractured bones. Cole could do anything that involved a ball and a whistle. Basketball, football, football, rugby, volleyball. And he made it look so easy that the other boys watch him learn, and the girls watch him and drool. Especially Callie.
Permed, with heavy makeup, she stood on the bench in her hooker outfit like an actress. She cheered for Cole like her life depended on it and made sure to make a performance out of it. Everyone knew that he preferred his women supportive and joyful. Prettiness was her greatest charm. She screamed, pushed up her boobies. Winked a few times.
On the other bench was Selena. She stared from afar, her softly repellent body beneath her sweater, never exposed to public view. Was she scared? Or just insecure? Or a bit of both? She had a swirl of anger tucked under her chin, and I could tell it would only be a matter of time before it burst like fireworks. Selena was an incalculable person with a blistering tonged that twisted itself around spitting out horrendous words. She wore a look of covetousness with regard to Callie's advantage over Cole.
I was surprised Selena didn't kill someone then and there. Her absolute powerlessness to foster a grand theatre of violence. Instead, Selena ran away, undeniably paralyzed by the fact that the hottest boy in all of Fort McMurray was a stupid, contemptible player who fell in love with her irritating, shallow best friend. Right before her very own eyes.
Near the end of the pep rally, a girl behind Sunny tapped her shoulders with her long pink nails and awoke her from her increasingly striking imaginations.
"Sunny?" She asked. Sunny turned, nodded, surprised that somebody actually recognized her existence. "You're the girl from the video, right?" She blew a bubble and sucked it back into her mouth, turned to her friends who had their phones out video-taping Sunny. Again. Then they noticed Devon. Ha-ha-ha. Something was remarkably hilarious to them.
"Black and yellow, black and yellow. Ha-ha-ha." They made condescending remarks then jam their knees into their backs. Sunny didn't say anything, just inched forward in her seat and stared at Callie shake her pom-poms. Her head wound up all the way like a jack in the box.
Beside her, they yanked Devon's curly afro hair, and she couldn't take it anymore. She popped up, and started a shit show, turning around and calling them white whores, bitches, dumb blondes. The girls were brunette. Good thing the cheering was loud so that nobody heard Devon's rant. Sunny put her head in her knees. Shame on you.
The pep rally ended. The girls left, giving them all kinds of dirty looks. Sunny dragged Devon into a bathroom stall for some privacy.
"You didn't have to do that you know."
"What? Of course, I did. That's what friends are for. They totally deserved it anyway. Those bitches—"
"No!" Devon's face suddenly flushed a tint of green. "I just... I don't mean to be rude... it's just... I mean it's embarrassing."
"Embarrassing?"
"Not embarrassing, it's just... do you want another video up? Humiliating us everywhere?"
"No. That's why I was fighting for us, for you."
"I don't need someone like you to stand up for me."
"Someone like me?"
"Just don't do it anymore. Ok?"
"Fine, because I don't need someone like you either," said Devon, walking away with her afro popping up and down. An animal noise rustled in Sunny's stomach. Was she crazy? Why was she driving her only friend away? Her head voice grew louder. Apologize. Quick. Before it's too late. But she didn't; her feet stayed planted in place, stuck in quicksand. Sinking. Sinking. Sinking.