I opened the door and my mother and Danny’s mother, Cathy, sat in the office chairs. Cathy’s face was raw and puffy. My mother looked shell-shocked. They both walked me outside. I felt like I was going to throw up. We stood in the sun for a moment, and Danny’s mother finally spoke. “Danny was hurt once,” she started and paused. “It happened at church.

Someone hurt him… so this really isn’t his fault. He didn’t mean to hurt his sister.” My face turned red. I rolled her words around in my brain, trying to make sense of them. “Danny,” my mother interjected, “isn’t coming home for a while. He touched his sister and he had to go away.” I couldn’t breathe. “You are not to talk to him anymore.”

I turned away from her stare. “Okay,” I said. “I have to go back to class now. I have a test.” “Are you okay?” My mother touched me on the shoulder. “I’m fine,” I said, and pushed her hand away. I didn’t want to be touched. “Okay, well, we’ll talk later about this more?” “I don’t need to.” I turned and walked back into school. I went to my locker and took out Danny’s notebook. He always left it in my locker when he couldn’t open his, which was most of the time. It smelled just like him. I opened it, burying my nose in the pages and breathing him in. I held it in my hands and cried.

The news spread like wildfire through our middle school. By the next afternoon everyone knew that Danny Hunt had been sent away for “diddling” his sister. The kids were unforgiving. Spitballs were launched at my head, laughter thrown in my face. I walked the halls with my head down. I tried to make it through the day without going to the girls’ bathroom. When I couldn’t hold it in any longer, I found the bathroom furthest away from every class, aware that it would make me late for math class. I snuck behind the sanctuary of the restroom’s big red door, locking myself in the last stall.

One time, I was seen. The door slammed open again, letting in two giggling “He musta had to do that to his sister because you wouldn’t fuck him,” one said, tapping on my stall door with her nails. I stared at my feet. “You shoulda sucked his dick.”

“Nasty bitch,” her friend joined in. I could see their Reeboks under the stall door as they stood and waited for me to come out. I knew the bell would ring any second. I just had to wait for it. I stopped going to the bathroom altogether after that day. My insides atrophied. My mother took me to the doctor. They poked and prodded me, gave me barium shakes to drink so that they could investigate my intestines on the big screen. I was too ill to go to back to school. I stayed at home, comatose on the couch.

The letters began to arrive. Danny sent me snippets of his hair with letters from prison. Once, he even sent me a piece of his skin. All of his letters smelled like him and I would sleep with them under my pillow. I wanted to be sick forever so I could stay and watch the mailbox.

Danny had an older brother named Todd. Todd was even better looking than Danny and acne free. He also always wore a leather trench coat that I was infatuated with. I decided with Danny long gone, Todd was my next best option. But there were other contenders as well. From the ninth grade on, I’d had dates booked for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My mother was beside herself. “One of these boys is going to kill you,” she’d say. “Someone is going to chop you up and put you in a suitcase!”