make them look. ripley.

The first time you pick up a lacrosse stick you're eleven years old and you use it to break Teddy Douglas's nose.

You don't remember why after the fact, just know that he and he friends had been doing something you thought was annoying, you guess. Everyone said you were the instigator, but you don't remember picking the stick up off the ground and deciding to bash the thing against the bridge of Teddy's nose. You remember after, spitting at the ground above his shoulder.

"Stay down," you said.

Then you put the middle of your foot against the stick and yanked. You dropped the two pieces on either side of him.

They don't really have a school therapist in elementary school, but they send you to the nurse because they're not really sure what else to do with this tiny, thrashing ball of rage. A teacher has to come and drag you off the playground and litteraly sit you down before you finally still. It doesn't take much to restrain you, but it doesn't ever matter. They pluck you off the playground and sit you in that sticky, plastic chair and expect you to calm the fuck down or get the fuck out.

Pretty quickly, you just start getting the fuck out.

You keep picking fights and it turns out that lacrosse sticks are great weapons against the little shits who like to play with them. It's usually your mom who ends up showing up to pick you up, but you're not sure if she's ever actually there or not. She hides from her depression and her crumbling life behind bottles of grapefruit vodka washed down by her bleached white smile. When the principal calls home and tells your parents that the school nurse suspects some behavioral issues and wonders how life is at home, it's the housekeeper who picks up and she hasn't spoken to you in five days. You're pretty sure it takes years for you mom to get the message.

"Sweet girl," she says when she picks you up, tucks your hair behind your ears and then puts her hands on either side of your face. You breathe in once, twice, feel her thumbs press under your jaw. Right along your carotid. "Keep it up."