Growing

Anne was the product of two young lovers named Margaret and Greg. She was now five. She had spent the day exploring her mother’s closet.

She zipped up the dress and twisted it around to look at herself. More than half of the dress was sitting in a pile on the floor. She heaved up the big white pile, and waddled back over to the closet. Sitting in the corner was the veil. It was sheer and embedded with small flowers. She picked it up, but what was beneath it caught her eye. A small wooden box with a delicate latch that held it shut, but not locked. She clutched the box tightly in her small hands, antsy to investigate. She tried exiting the closet, but her foot caught the mountain of fabric and she toppled over. The box hit the ground with a quiet thump.

“Anne?!” Her mother called up the stairs. Anne was silent. She ran quickly up the stairs and entered the room. 

“What are you doing?” Her mother asked, finding it difficult to stifle her laugh. 

“Nothing…” 

“Well, you look very pretty.”

“It doesn’t fit!” Anne cried. 

“Don’t worry, honey,” her mother reassured her. “You’re still young.” Margaret wrapped her arms around Anne’s small form, allowing her to nestle into her mother’s chest. Margaret thought it was funny, Anne was already growing desperate for her future when she had just grasped onto her childhood.

A few years later, Anne waited at the bus stop a few blocks from her house. Her blonde hair was strung tightly into pigtails, and her striped leggings matched her shoes. The oversized straps of her backpack hung onto her narrow shoulders, and hung so low it almost touched the ground. 

“Are you excited for your first day?” Greg squeezed her hand from beside her. “Third grade is a big deal!” Anne looked up at her father.

“Why didn’t Mommy come too?” Anne asked.             

“Because it’s my turn to get you all to myself!” Anne looked down, disappointed with his response. Greg sighed. 

“I’m sorry, she really wanted to come, but she has responsibilities. Don’t worry too much, she’ll be here when you get back and you can tell her all about it.” The bus screeched to a stop in front of them. Greg knelt down to give Anne a tight hug, and then released her to climb onto the bus.

When it was time for Anne to return home, her pigtails were significantly looser than they were that morning. She ran from the bus to her mother. As they walked home, Anne told her everything about her day. When she played hide-n-seek in the playground, when the teacher taught her how to make frogs with paper, and how she made a new friend named Meg. As Anne told her mother everything, Margaret couldn't help feeling like she was missing out on her daughter's life. Margaret had never even thought to teach Anne origami, and her mother hadn’t either. But now she thought about all the things her daughter would learn without her.

A few months had passed since Anne started middle school. “Please, Mom, everyone at school has one!”

“Anne, I’m not negotiating this with you, you’re too young.” 

“Margaret, come on, maybe it’s time we give her more responsibility?” Greg interjected.

“Greg, whose side are you on?” Margaret looked at Greg with a stern look. 

“Nobody’s side! I’m just saying that Anne hasn’t done anything to make us believe she would be irresponsible with a phone.” Anne crossed her arms and made a hmph noise. Margaret glared at the two of them and stormed out of the room. Greg quickly followed her.

“Margaret, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to overrule you.”

“Greg, I don’t want her to have a phone!” 

“I know honey.” Greg reached for her hand, but she pulled it away and crossed her arms as if to show him she wasn't going to budge. “But I still think that she needs to communicate with us.”

The next day they all piled into the car and went to Best Buy. Greg convinced Margaret to let him drive, assuring her that it wasn't because she was acting erratic. Anne sat in the back seat looking out the window with her arms crossed, as if she had never let them uncross since the previous night. When they returned home, Anne was more upset than ever. 

“Are you kidding me Mom?!” She stormed into the house holding the small black box.

“You should be grateful Anne, I wasn’t going to get you anything!” 

“This is nothing!” Anne shouted. “Do you want me to be an outcast? Everyone will make fun of me.”

“Well, you don't have to use it.” Anne threw the box to the ground and stormed into the house slamming the door behind her. 

Later that day, Anne was still locked in her room watching things on her computer. Margaret knocked on her door but Anne remained silent. The sound of people fighting on her screen bled through the door. 

“You need to get ready, my family will be here in 30 minutes!” Margaret shouted through the door. Anne stayed still. Lying on her bed resting her head on her hand. The Blackberry was in front of her. One thin crack snaked across the screen. At first, Anne contemplated not getting ready at all and staying in her room the whole night. She ultimately decided that it would look worse on her than her mother. 

At dinner, Margaret's family circled the table that they had managed to make longer by adding folding tables on either side. Margaret knew her family would criticize her for this, but she tried not to care. Anne sat uncomfortably between Margaret’s sisters. Politics was the main topic of conversation that night. Greg was silent during that time because his political views would only get him in trouble with Marget's family, who were “so far on the right, they were going to fall off their flat earth,” or so Greg said. Maragret would not allow fighting at family events, so she had sworn Greg to silence. Anne observed his tense fists as the topic of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and how she was hiding her sickness. 

Anne sat on the toilet with her face in her hands, tears slowly pooling. The school bathroom floor was white with stained grout ranging from yellow to brownish gray. The blue paint on the walls was peeling revealing the old yellow-stained walls. Anne reached over to the toilet paper dispenser and picked up her phone. She flipped it open and looked at the time. It was 11:09, the third period was halfway through, which meant that she had been sitting in the bathroom for 37 minutes. Looking down at her underwear, the same brown stain she hoped was gone remained. Of all times for her to start her period or “become a woman,” it had to be at school. People came and left the bathroom. She was sure people would notice that she had been in the same stall since the second period. The last thing she wanted to do at this moment was tell anyone at her school what had happened. So she decided to call her mom. She dialed the familiar number on her flip phone and listened to the old-timey ring. She sniffed up the last of her tears when the ringing stopped. 

“Hello?” Her mom said through the line.

“Hey,” Anne responded. “Can you pick me up?”

“Anne, what’s wrong?” As Anne told her what happened, she started to feel the shame building. When Anne ended the call, she pulled up her pants and walked out of the stall. She looked at herself in the mirror and couldn’t help thinking of herself. Innocent and naive, waiting and begging for this day to come, but now that it had, she couldn’t help but feel alone. She had grown too fast and now her mind couldn’t catch up. Her body was ready to bear but her mind couldn’t bear her own feelings. 

She left the bathroom, her face red and puffy. She walked as quickly as she could past the classrooms so she wouldn’t be seen.

When she got home, she tried to go to her room alone, but her mother insisted that they talk about her “changing body”. 

“I know this might be embarrassing for you, but you need to know these things.” Margaret talked for a long time. Explaining the difference between pads and tampons, birth control, and sex. It wasn’t as awful as a lot of her friends had told her it was, but maybe that was because her friends weren’t as close with their moms. Maragret and Anne weren’t particularly close, but they had a way of communicating with each other that she didn’t have with her dad. Something she didn’t think a lot of her friends had with their parents, either. Anne was grateful for this but she didn’t feel like she could tell her mom everything. They didn’t talk about crushes really, and it wasn’t because Anne didn’t want to, but because her mom wasn’t like that. After the conversation was over, Anne was considerably embarrassed and made it a goal to never talk to her mother about her period ever again. This would prove very difficult given the severe pain and mood swings she endured each month. 

Anne could hear noise from outside her bedroom. Margaret and Greg were bickering about nothing in particular in the kitchen and Anne was getting ready to leave. It was 10:13 and Anne had told her parents she was going to bed, but of course, this was a lie. She was staring at herself in the mirror adjusting her eyeliner when she got the text.

“Here.” It was from Nate. She put the phone in her pocket and climbed out the window. She immediately regretted not bringing a jacket when her exposed stomach hit the damp air. She looked around for the familiar blue rusty car and began to walk quickly over to it, almost so quickly that it was unsustainable and she would have looked funny had someone seen her. When she reached the car she hopped in the backseat with her best friend, Meagan. 

“Hey,” said Nate, he looked back over his shoulder and smiled, and Anne gave him a half smile back. Nate was three years older than her and lanky. The seat was pushed back all the way but his knees still hovered above the seat. His hair was curly and short and his nose was covered in heavenly freckles. He sped out of the parking lot, forcing all of them against their seats. 

“Jesus, Nate,” Meagan rolled her eyes. 

“Seriously man, I'm not interested in getting arrested tonight,” Jack said. Jack was Nate's best friend; they were hardly ever seen apart. 

When they got to Meagan’s house they all climbed out of the car but her insistent shushing made them pause.

“What?” Anne asked, a little startled she was only halfway out of the car. 

“My parents are asleep, be quiet.” They all walked around the house and went in through the back door. For a while, they just talked and passed around Jack’s pen. 

“I have an idea!” Meagan burst. “Let’s play truth or dare.” Meagan made Jack go first and he picked truth.

“Anne, you pick,” Nate said.

“Oh, umm, I dunno,” Anne thought. “Who is your least favorite person here?”

“Yo, that's mean.” Nate smirked at Anne. 

“Um, I think I’m going to have to say… Meagan.” Meagan glared at Jack. “To be fair, you're so judgmental and you keep punching me!” Jack reasoned. Meagan punched his arm out of spite.

“Okay, your turn, Anne.” Meagan turned away from Jack like she was ending the interaction. 

“Okay, I pick dare.”

“Okay, I dare you…” Meagan thought hard, looking around the room for ideas. Her eyes landed on the sewing kit, “I've got it,” she said, smiling, “ I dare you to let me pierce your nose.” 

“No way!” Anne shouted. 

“Come on, don’t be a pussy.” Jack glared at Anne, who reluctantly gave in. She wanted to look cool and it didn’t help that Jack had already called her a pussy. Meagan dug around her closet for rubbing alcohol which she used to sterilize the needle and eat. Anne had heard of people giving each other piercings around school but had previously thought it was extremely stupid. Anne sat with her knees up and Meagan kneeled between them for a better angle. As Meagan positioned the needle, she felt someone hold her hand and briefly opened her eyes to see that it was Nate. 

“Ready?” Meagan asked.

“Yeah, go for it.” As the needle penetrated Anne’s skin, she squeezed Nate’s hand. By the time Meagan had the jewelry in, Anne’s blood was dripping down to her mouth and her eyes were wet with tears. She went to the bathroom to clean her face and when she came back they were all standing by the door with their bags.

“Are we leaving?” Anne asked.

“Yeah, my mom just texted.” Jack said.

Anne was the last to be dropped off. Nate pulled up in front of her house and turned the car off. 

“You look really hot with that nose piercing.” He reached his arm around the back of Anne’s seat and turned to face her.

“Really? You think so?” Anne blushed. Nate reached his other hand over to her face, unclipping her seat belt. Along the way, his fingertips brushed against her breast. He cupped her face gently but became more forceful to kiss her. She tried to pull away, but his hands only became tighter around her face, pressing it into his own. Hot tears welled in her eyes and she felt a ping of pain in her new piercing. He groped her as she winced in pain. She maneuvered her leg free and slammed it on his chest.

“What the fuck, Anne?” Nate shouted. Anne scrambled out of the car and grabbed her bag as fast as she could and ran to her window. She could taste the salt and iron swimming in her mouth and she climbed in. 

Anne sat on the bathroom floor, unsure how to process what had happened. She felt a pit of nausea rise to her throat and lunged for the toilet. Her throat raw from the bile and her nose bloody, she began to sob. Nate had been the person she looked up to for years, she had strived to be close to him but it was all gone. Nate was now someone who made her sick but she still fantasized that this never happened and instead he would hold her hand and kiss her by her locker between classes. Footsteps approached the bathroom and Anne hurried to flush the toilet. 

“Anne, are you okay?” Margaret was standing in the doorway.

“Yeah,” Anne responded, but she couldn’t hold in her tears. 

“Where have you been?” Margaret asked. Anne was unable to answer. Margaret sighed. She sat in front of Anne and began to wipe her face gently with a wet cloth. Once she was done, she cupped her face in her hands and looked at her daughter’s face. They left the bathroom and Margaret grabbed Anne a sweatshirt. She sat at the kitchen counter while Margaret put some leftover spaghetti in the microwave. She hadn’t taken care of her daughter like this for some time, so they sat in silence for a while.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Margaret asked, but before Anne could answer, warm tears spilled onto her pink cheeks once again. Margaret held her daughter, her body shaking and limp, warmth surrounding her. 

“I’m so sorry,” Margaret whispered. Tears of her own began to swell as her once-infant child cried.