Read Online Bite Me by Donaya Haymond - Free Book Online Page A

noises and
startling other people. The results of Mom’s and my blood tests hadn’t
come back yet, so every time the phone rang, my heart would stop for at
least a minute.
Gayle, an African-American girl sitting three desks to my left, was
responding. “Well, it’s sort of an embarrassing disease for a person to get
if you think about it. Most of the time, it’s spread by people doing things
that can be avoided: not using protection, letting people stick
unsterilized needles into you. . .”
A dangerous feeling constricted my throat and stung my eyes. I
raised my hand without the teacher noticing. To get his attention, I
flailed my arm around. He seemed surprised, since I hadn’t volunteered
an answer ever since the Tammy incident. “Do you have something to
add, Dianne?”
“Please,” I quavered, “please, can I go to the restroom? Now?” “Can this wait for a moment?”
“Please!”
“Quickly, then.” At least five pairs of eyes followed me while I
escaped.
Fortunately, the nearest restroom was only a few classes away. After
seeing myself in the mirror I was doubly glad that I had left—I’d been
worried that my eyes would be getting red, but instead they had turned
yellow and wild. My subconscious self must be getting pretty smart in
meeting its desires. Wolf eyes can’t cry. I bared my teeth, frustrated, and
had to take some deep breaths to keep from transforming completely.
Some tears would have been such a relief, but no, the wolf inside me
refused to show weakness outside of my own territory. It remembered
that enemies will sense fear and strike.
Yet there was the sound of sobbing from one of the stalls, a fairly
common sound in a high school girls’ room, distracting me from my own
meltdown. When the gasps and whimpers whoever in there had been
trying so hard to restrain had died away, the girl began to speak in
broken phrases. The voice sounded an awful lot like Taylor. “I know it could be worse. . . I know. . . I’m lucky. . . it’s good in the end. What? The things you’re telling me are horrible! Does it make you feel better to say them, to share? I can’t. I mean, there’s. . . no. It’s been the end of the world before.” She giggled, which was somehow more depressing than her crying. “I guess it’s true. Every time something hurts us, we pull it in; hold it inside. We’re afraid of being judged, or worse, of adding to their own burden. Yet when we bring ourselves just to admit that we’re hurting, a little of the emptiness inside fills up. And every time someone shares a little to us back again, it actually isn’t so bad, because knowing that taking some his or her pain onto us makes it
better. . . it’s better overall. Nobody can heal all by themselves.” “Um. . .”
Taylor (if it was Taylor) didn’t hear me. “So maybe it would be best if
we all trusted at least one other person enough to talk to them. We could
hand our bleeding hearts over for someone else to fix. Every time we
shared it would get slightly lighter. Lighter. . . lighter. . . that’s a nice
word. I better go back to study hall now.”
In Taylor’s defence, she recovered quickly after running into me.
Telltale blotches covered her face, but her voice was steady, and her
mouth immediately stretched into a smile. “Hi! Imagine meeting you
here. I didn’t know you had a class so nearby.” She was silently pleading
me to not ask.
“Practicing lines for a play?” I suggested, giving her an excuse. I
didn’t want my friend to suffer any more embarrassment.
“Yes. . . no, I can’t. That would be a really good reason, wouldn’t it?
Better than you thinking I was schizophrenically jabbering to people
who weren’t there.”
I really did want to know but she had a right to her privacy,
especially if she noticed that my eyes had changed color. I smiled in an
effort to reassure her. “I get it. Good Mormon girls don’t lie.” She laughed self-deprecatingly and ran her fingers through her dark
brown hair.