The Last Girl Standing

by Jillian Luft

After the buses abandon the loading zone, after the custodians wipe clean the last careless mess, after the teachers shut their gradebooks and head home—to families, to pets, to empty living rooms—I am still waiting for D to walk by after band practice and notice me. On a few occasions, when I wait long enough, foisting myself in a shaded corner near the band room, advertising my scrawny limbs across a sun-dappled bench, he finds me and lets me be his for the next hour or so. The key is the indecency in my waiting, the power in its unapologetic need.

I wait for D, lingering near the empty bike racks, listening to our school flag clamor in the wind, rope clanking against pole like the dumb, stubborn sound of my heart. I wait in the run-down courtyard, unread textbooks splayed open like sunbathers while I daydream in the language of MTV and skin cream commercials. I wait during hurricane season under black hole sun skies. I wait when it’s so cold for October that the skin on my legs raises itself into pitiful topography. I wait because in my waiting, I unearth the secret other lonely eighth grade girls like me are too impatient to find: The last body standing will do. The last body standing won’t be ignored. The last body standing is seen for maybe the first time because there are no other distractions. No ways for it to get lost and stop mattering. The Last Girl Standing after school matters more than the others because she’s there and she’s willing. The Last Girl Standing wins, and she is me.

I am fourteen, horny, and bleeding. Mom’s been dead for months now and I’m the opposite of inconsolable. I am soothed by the sexual potency of every boy I know or meet or ogle on the silver screen. I write their names in my homeroom journal like scripture leading to salvation: Nick, Steve. C.J, José. Ryan, Brian. Sean, Jon. Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, Brandon Lee. And D. I am not an outgoing girl, not even that popular. But I am aching in ways the other girls aren’t. There’s a pathetic advantage to this.

With Mom gone, I yearn to be looked upon anew. I want to forget how she saw me: a shy, soft-spoken, dutiful martyr of a girl. Smart. Responsible but not pretty. I want to forget Mom in her pain med–addicted fury, her caustic reign in the darker days after Dad, exhausted by the caregiving, left to find solace in the arms of her caregiver. I want to forget Mom in the brief span of her healthier years, the Revlon glow of her face as she iced another massive sheet cake to perfection for the latest school function. I want to forget her random acts of kindness: fundraising for the burn victim in my brother’s class, dispensing homemade trinkets and thank you notes to the doctors and nurses and medical assistants, anonymously purchasing crayons for a classmate who broke all sixty-four of mine because he possessed none of his own. I want to forget the cool of her hand on my cheek, her lotion smelling like English gardens she would never see. I want to forget that there was love beneath the sallow skin, the brittle limbs, the glazed eyes, the morphine veins. 

To forget, I cling to metaphors. My life is a prime-time teen soap, an alternative music video, an ’80s goth song. Harsh realities are painted up as dramatic clichés. This is how I deal with grief. This is how I survive. 

Dad’s focus is his live-in girlfriend—my dead mother’s former nurse and ex-friend—and her toddler daughter. He’s determined to wedge them into the fissures of our disrupted life, the chasms forged out of collective loss and his personal indiscretions. Immersed in our individual mourning, we tell a common story: the Guilt-Ridden Father, Angry Brother, and Invisible Daughter, all circling their own islands of pain.

I’m the Invisible Daughter. I am treated like air—taken for granted, yet necessary for our family to function. I wash up for dinner, scrub the pans, clean the table, smile. I do homework without protest. I forgive everyone everything. When I’m in the way, which is often, I will myself microscopic, dissolving into couch cushions, evaporating through walls, disappearing into my bedroom to imagine all the ways I wish I could be seen.

The Guilt-Ridden Father locks himself in his bedroom at odd times of day, talks in hushed tones with the live-in girlfriend, cries hard through the crack in the door. He emerges with bloodshot eyes, cooks gourmet meals, speaks in monosyllables that all sound like Sorry. The Angry Brother bangs his head against walls, scrawls “I hate ____” above his pillow, fills in the blank with “Dad” or the girlfriend’s name or the Invisible Daughter’s name or the toddler’s name. He wears oversized clothing, speaks in rap lyrics, pleads for the Guilt-Ridden Father to scratch his back before bed—to treat him like a child again.

And the Invisible Daughter? I stare into mirrors, making sure I’m still there. I notice my flesh but there’s no glow behind it. So, I grab hold of the glow elsewhere—inside baggy denim, underneath damp cotton, within a warm and beckoning mouth. And then I feel it, my blood clarifying. Flowing with something like hope. A reason to take shape. I need something to keep me solid. And other girls, as soft and kind as they are, cannot discern the ways I’ve changed. I cannot press myself against them and remember I have bones.

When he lets me, I press myself against D and his objective middle school hotness—swarthy and well-built. A six-pack grids his stomach like a game board. He has the lean but sculpted arms of a Calvin Klein model and a jack-o’-lantern grin, wide and duplicitous. His dark eyebrows are sharp arrows that catch you in their crosshairs and make you agree to things you’ll deny when choosing “truth” at sleepovers. D plays the saxophone after school, soccer on weekends. All the girls say he is “fine” and all the dudes high-five him in the halls. D says he loves his girlfriend, Danielle. He likes metal, mainly Metallica. His favorite song is “Unforgiven.” Mine is “Nothing Else Matters.”

In the wooded glade two blocks south of Northport Middle, behind the elementary school playground, I tug on D’s dick while his mouth fills mine with indifferent wet. The world is crushed leaves, heavy breaths, the distant sound of children screaming. I don’t remember how many times we do this but, each time, I’m keenly aware of its aliveness, how it squirms and stiffens in response to my touch, and how I’m not afraid to get rough, to experiment with the firmness of my grasp, to remove my hand and leave it floundering. Sometimes he sticks his hands down my pants and sometimes he doesn’t. He never comes. And instead of humiliation, I feel relief because this means there’s still a next time to try. There’s still a reason to keep doing this.

I pedal my bike home and resurrect our most recent rendezvous, imbuing it with undeserved grit and color. In these reimaginings, there is more clawing and gasping and friction and, above all, the ineffable but awesome experience of being swallowed by ourselves.

This is hyperbole, revision, fiction. This is me swimming in the deep end of desire. In the deep end of despair? I can no longer tell the difference.

I make it home before dark, just in time for penne with pesto. I shed my skin as I enter the house and melt into my chair. The Rolling Stones drown out the awkward quiet around the table until the toddler daughter screams for her stuffed bunny and the Angry Brother rolls his eyes and the Guilt-Ridden Father abruptly clears the table and we all withdraw to our rooms. I turn away from Keanu’s poster-size gaze and press my head into my pillow, creating a black screen on which to project my recurring fantasy: D’s bed. Dirty sheets wadded between our bodies. It’s somewhere between 4 and 6 p.m. I can tell because the light slouches against the window as if it’s mortified to illuminate this sordid scene. Sitting upright on the side of his bed, I zip up my Bongo jeans, slip a CK One–soaked scrunchie onto my wrist, and stand before him, an aloof sex goddess—sleek, stealthy, and cold. I’ve gotta go. But thanks for the good time. I know that he knows I no longer need him. He props his head up with his elbow, dazed and hungry for more, while my knowing body slinks out his window like something slippery—like something waiting to be caught.

For all of eighth grade, this is reality: endless and obsessive wondering about the next time my body will be needed or wanted or enough. The next time that D will find me, alone and waiting, and make fun of my small tits before squeezing them in secret. The next time I’ll feel seen and alive and not at all like a void, like a gaping hole, like a great, big empty begging to be filled with the juvenile wants of a boy who’s . . .

No.

I must tell this without undeserved grit and color. Without metaphor. No more rampant symbolism to distract me from the predictable nature of grief.

This is reality: My Angry Brother befriends D. They bond over basketball and their penchant for posturing. My Angry Brother learns of my after-school escapades and blackmails me into making him daily milkshakes. Or else . . .

One day I come home from school, pale and feverish. Still, he waits for his blended chocolate concoction. Extra chunky. I recline on the love seat, park myself in front of MTV Jams. The Angry Brother fumes, Or else, or else, or else. But I am burning up inside, shivering flames enveloping my weakened limbs. I turn up the TV volume and surrender to my sickness. 

The Guilt-Ridden Father gets home from work, starts preparing the evening’s gourmet meal. The Angry Brother heads to the fridge for milk and Hershey’s syrup, then sneers in my direction. His finger hovers above the “Blend” button before he turns to the Guilt-Ridden Father and gleefully spills details about the Invisible Daughter giving handjobs in the woods and ball sacks and how everyone knows she’s a ho. I offer a hoarse defense, feeble cries of protest, but the blender begins to whir. On TV, the girl group TLC writhe in their pajamas while I curl into a ball. The Guilt-Ridden Father continues to mince his garlic, dice his onions. His knife never misses a beat.

In the school cafeteria, D raises his eyebrows, takes aim. See that girl? He points across the salad bar. She felt on my nuts until I jizzed! And then laughter. Mostly his. But boys in sports jerseys, in surf shorts, in gold chains join in and snicker, double over, amused by my degradation. Boys I know and boys I don’t. I hear my own laughter joining their cruel chorus, the sound of complicity ringing in my ears.

Cafeteria workers mind their own business, concentrate on mounds of macaroni, the measured slopping of Salisbury steak. Girls blush and nibble on their pastel polish, some relieved that—at least for today—they’re not the target. Some envious that they aren’t. I flush a rashy red, eyes boring into my seafoam tray clacking against the other trays in front of it, behind it. No end of the line. No escape. No one tells me to watch where I’m going. Once the laughter dies, no one says a thing.

This is what girls do, I tell myself. Or, rather, what is done to them. And now it is happening to you, so you belong here. I don’t know if this is true, or something I’ve internalized from magazines. What I do know is that D never jizzed. Yet, his public hyperbole is applauded by most. Tolerated by all. No consequence, no shame.

Shame is what I’m supposed to feel, but I don’t. I feel other things: hurt, misunderstood, marked in a way that I can’t decide is good or bad or both. Will the shame come? I’m not sure it ever does.

I meet D in the woods again. One last time before the rumors reach his girlfriend. Before I realize how truly sad I am to still be doing this. 

Other girls befriend me because they want to know what it’s like to have D’s fingers deep inside, to hold the secret of him in the palm of your hand. At parties, these girls follow D into the quiet of backyards. They make out against fences, behind BBQ grills. They return with goofy, moonstruck grins, cornering me near the bathroom to confide how it felt weird but kinda good, and at least it’s done. I resent their giddy confessions. Not because I’m jealous but because their precious experimenting renders my trysts with D commonplace. Run-of-the-mill fooling around available for anyone. I must find something new, something that feels like a thorny romance depicted in an alt-rock video. Grainy sepia tones and running eye makeup. 

Before I can find it, D finds me at a holiday party, alone in the host’s bedroom. I’m standing in his walk-in closet, browsing the extensive VHS selection. The host owns mostly comedies with gratuitous nudity and fart jokes. He tacks swimsuit centerfolds and luxury cars to his closet walls. His typical boyness is endearing, I think, but would never do for my purposes.

When the lights go out, I know D is responsible. I turn and he looms before me, all jack-o’-lantern smile gleaming in the black, simultaneously locking the door and pushing himself against my waist chest hands thighs, his back barricading my exit. His sculpted model arms squeeze, grabbing at the parts he wants. His mouth is pressed tight to mine and I can’t breathe. This isn’t drowning. This isn’t fantasy. This is something else that I can’t bring myself to name. I focus on the noises outside the closet door: peals of shrill laughter, the hiss of an opened can, a boy reciting Ace Ventura dialogue. I ignore the hushed sound of my denim unbuttoning, the fingers clawing underneath silk and reaching skin. 

Do I say something? I don’t remember. Other sounds come closer: the prepubescent croak of the party host calling my name, the throaty murmurs of other boys conspiring. Then: C’mon! Let her out! Open up, man! Their fists pummel the face of the door as if they know what’s happening. As if they knew this would happen. Deafening thuds and thwacks rattle the closet shelves, reverberate through the walls. The boys bang and pound and kick and curse and I cheer them on even though they can’t hear me, even though the cheering is in my head, even though D is still huffing in my ear, telling me I want this, I want him, and always will. No consequence, no shame.

Then there’s silence outside. Why did they abandon me? D’s hands tongue smile roam the white flag of my body. I’m afraid I’ll let this happen. I’m afraid I’ll convince myself this is another way for me to matter. This is what girls do. Or, rather, what is done to them. And now it is happening to me, so I belong here. I am a cave collapsing, a vacancy begging to be filled, a very special episode of 90210. I am a scared girl being attacked in a closet and I can’t help but feel that my grief led me here.    

The pounding resumes, this time more urgent and erratic, accompanied by desperate grunts. I sense the boys’ fear on the other side of the door, feel my own panic dissipating with each chaotic ramming of the hardwood slab that separates me from them. D stops his storytelling in my ear, his hands static and unsure. Then: light and cold and an inflatable raft, one of those PVC banana boats, penetrating the black like a torpedo. In the open doorway, the frozen silhouettes of panting boys. 

I don’t seek further clarity on how I was rescued. Maybe it was the cumbersome bulk of the float combined with these boys’ bodyweight that allowed them to batter their way in. Maybe the float was only a macho prop. I don’t care. The host pats my shoulder and asks if I’m okay while the other boys stand solemnly. I brush off any concern, ask where my friends are. I seek out the light and the noise and rejoin the party. I don’t look back to see D but I know he’s somewhere behind me, trapped by the What the hells of all his pals, their need for clarity. 

Out in the open garage, girls huddle in lawn chairs, dusk’s crittered hum barely heard over Bone Thugs. With red cups in hand, taupe lips parted in pity, they listen as I attempt to process what’s happened. I don’t mind telling the story. I prefer it to other stories I could tell about disease and death and divorce and live-in nurse girlfriends and toddler daughters and Guilt-Ridden Fathers. All the girls agree D is a player and a user. But I also know what they see under the unforgiving fluorescent light: the disheveled jitter of me. Played, used. They politely avert their eyes. At some point, D is asked to leave. For the rest of the year, I’m known as the girl freed from a dick in a dark closet. Yet another metaphor.

At home, I tell the Guilt-Ridden Father what happened. Maybe reflected in danger’s siren-red glare, he will finally see me. I tell it straight with a shaky voice. He washes dishes in the dark, fumbles with a rag, offers an occasional Huh, a clearing of the throat. I watch his discomfort, his refusal to acknowledge the way I brace myself against the dining room table, standing, but barely, as another aftershock of dread ripples through my calves. When the faucet stops running, I stop talking. He mutters a Good night that sounds like Forgive me. I stand there for a while, staring at the sink, listening to it drain.

After the party, D continues to shoot hoops in my driveway with my Angry Brother. My Guilt-Ridden Father is oblivious to these impromptu visits. A few times, D flashes the tacky gold of the condom wrapper he keeps in his back pocket, asks me if I want to use it. I shake my head. I walk onward and into my house, into my bedroom where I try not to imagine what would happen if I said yes.

I give up on being whole or visible. I give up on MTV-worthy romance. Instead, I succumb to the pleasures of my couch and fill my head with rock ‘n’ roll fantasies impossible to live out. And when I remember Mom, I let her linger like a beloved but discontinued perfume. A bouquet of memories so visceral and immediate that I can’t help but inhale every last note until it dissipates and loses its potency.

I forgive the live-in nurse girlfriend and refer to her by name. We make small talk that grows big. I try to forgive Dad and accept why he looks through me as my maturing face sheds baby fat, the nose protruding just like hers, the pouting mouth, the petite hands with long fingers. When he forgives himself for leaving her, I know I’ll take shape again in his eyes. Sometimes I scratch my younger brother’s back like she would and let him be a kid again. Let us be kids again. Some days I write poetry about D, pages and pages of clear-eyed and unadorned prose.

D continues to approach me with no consequence, no shame. Even after all he’s done to me, I know my grief is not to blame. I am not to blame. I may have been broken before he found me, but the pieces never belonged to him.

I was wrong when I said the Last Girl Standing wins. The Last Girl Standing is the first to fall because she never truly stood. The last girl was flat on the floor, emptied by loss. Defeated, deflated. The last girl gave her body because she hoped a boy could reach inside and wrangle free what she couldn’t. The last girl wanted to matter to someone, to herself. The last girl was left behind, waiting to be found again. Not by the men in the movies or the boys of her dreams, but by the woman who would never see her become one. The last girl was me—is me still.

Published May 9th, 2021