Roxanne is thirteen, the first time she gets a crush on a boy.

He asks her out three days after she realizes she likes him and it's like a dream. He tells her that she's beautiful, and when they kiss he gets this glazed look in his eyes that makes her feel wonderfully feminine and powerful. They date for three months and then one night they're kissing in his room (she snuck through his window, the thrill of breaking the rules part of the fun)—but she has to get home soon, so she reluctantly pulls away to tell him goodbye and—

He doesn't want to let her go.

She thinks he's joking at first, but when she tries to tug her wrist from his grip, he doesn't let go of her and she tries to pull away, tries harder, harder, beginning to panic, and suddenly it's not funny, not funny at all, and his eyes are glazed over, glassy, like he's not even seeing her and—

Roxanne breaks his nose.

(the breaking up with him is pretty much implied after that.)

He's—he's weird, really weird, after that; he follows her around at school and stares at her (eyes glazed over, glassy) and when she looks out her bedroom window one night she sees him standing in her yard, staring up at her window.

She calls for her mom and her mom calls the police and after that, the boy's parents move out of town and she doesn't see him again.


It takes her about six months to feel okay enough to like someone again after that, and when she does, it's a girl, which makes her more than a little worried that the whole trauma thing has permanently screwed up her brain. But before she can worry about it too long, the girl asks her over for a sleepover (which is—weird, since Roxanne didn't realize that the two of them were actually friends—)

There's a sweet, pleasurable tingle in Roxanne's stomach, the whole time they're hanging out that night, and when they're laying side-by-side in the girl's bed, and the girl whispers 'you're beautiful' and kisses her, Roxanne feels deliriously happy.

(the girl's eyes are glazed, glassy, but surely that's just a trick of the shadows, of the half-light of the darkened bedroom)

They date. It's meant to be a secret, something strictly private, between the two of them, but the girl…can't seem to control herself; she's always reaching for Roxanne's hand beneath the lunch table, brushing Roxanne's hair out of her eyes, pulling her into the bathroom during passing periods to make out.

At first it's flattering, the way she can't seem to keep her hands off Roxanne but—

"Come on, I said no; I have to go—" Roxanne says, laughing and pulling away, "—we're going to be late, come on."

The girl doesn't seem to hear her, pushes her against the door of the stall and kisses her even more insistently, and the memory

(suddenly not funny; not funny at all)

hits Roxanne in a sick rush and she pushes the girl away with more force than she intends.

"No," she says.

The girl looks at her, and instead of an expression of hurt or amusement or even anger there's just—

Her face is just blank, scarily blank, her eyes glazed and Roxanne fumbles for the latch on the stall door and flees the bathroom.

The girl runs after her and tries to kiss her in the hallway, in public, tears running down her face, but expression still weirdly blank.

("You're beautiful; you're beautiful," she says over and over again, and one of the hall monitors has to physically pull her away from Roxanne.)


It all comes out, after that, the secret dating; everything.

The girl's parents send her to a Christian boarding school.

Roxanne's mother has a long talk with her about 'being confused' and 'leading people on' and 'giving people the wrong idea' and Roxanne cries and cries and cries.


She wears layers, oversized sweaters to disguise the shape of her body, subdued colors, no makeup. She develops a trick of ducking her head to hide behind the curtain of her hair.

Roxanne teaches herself not to look at people she finds attractive (because if she does, they always look back at her, walk up to her, talk to her, touch her arm, their eyes going glassy and blank and—)

She trains herself not to see beauty, to look away when she sees something that gives her that burst of wonder/pleasure.

(it begins to be automatic, becomes second nature, this looking away from beauty; she finds herself looking away from artwork, from flowers, from sunsets)

In spite of all this, in spite of the puritanical avoidance of beauty, in spite of the ugly clothes and the hiding behind her hair, in spite of the way she barely talks to people—

People still stare at her as she goes by, their eyes glazing, their mouths slack. They look her up and down, like they can penetrate through the shapeless layers of sweaters with the force of their gazes.

She starts high school.

(Her head ducked as she hunches beneath her full backpack like it's the shell of a turtle.)

(She wishes it was the shell of a turtle, wishes she could pull herself beneath it, hide herself entirely from view, and then just stay there.)

"Don't give people the wrong idea about you," Roxanne's mother says, and Roxanne doesn't understand how any of them are getting any ideas about her at all.

She's dressed in the sweater equivalent of a potato sack, for god's sake! The sheer lumpy shapelessness that should kill any interest immediately. And yet!

"You're so beautiful," one boy whispers, leaning close to her ear, "I just want to see what you're really like beneath all of that—"

"I'm a carnivorous eldritch abomination with teeth in a place you won't like to find them," Roxanne says, voice deadpan flat. "Take your hand off my arm."

"You're so beautiful," a girl says, when they're eating lunch together in the band hall, to avoid the lunchroom.

Roxanne gives her a wary look from beneath her curtain of hair. That comment might be a sign that things are about to get weird. Which is unfortunate. She likes this girl; they've bonded over their mutual hatred of sugary pop music and the school's ridiculous lunch policy.

"I'm really not," Roxanne says flatly, hiding her face, scowling her most unattractive scowl.

The girl laughs.

"I don't even wear makeup," Roxanne says.

"Oh, I know; you've got this really great natural beauty look going for you! Like a—pixie or an elf or something in those clothes. Really—fresh. Different—beautiful."

Roxanne makes a deliberately ugly face and the girl laughs.

"Okay, maybe not when you do that," she says to Roxanne.

Her tone is light, teasing, fun; Roxanne glances up in relief, lips curving into a smile and—

The girl's breath catches and her eyes go glazed and glassy and she leans forward to kiss Roxanne.

There's a split second where Roxanne considers letting her do it; she doesn't like this girl like that, but she's always been so nice to Roxanne and evidently this girl has—

(don't lead people on)

—gotten the wrong idea about Roxanne and it has to be Roxanne's fault somehow, so maybe she should just—

(a pulse of panic, the remembrance of the boy's hand around her wrist, not letting go, the memory of being pushed up against the bathroom stall and)

(blank eyes blank eyes)

Roxanne jerks away before their lips connect, jumps to her feet and walks away fast.

She eats lunch alone in the library after that.

Half a year goes by like this, in quiet, desperate, lonely misery for Roxanne.

And then the boy whose locker is next to hers gets a girlfriend.

The two of them make out against the lockers every day, and Roxanne trains herself not to look at that, too, but—

—one day she turns her head on accident and catches sight of them, the two of them wrapped up in each other, her hands in his hair, his arms around her waist, and Roxanne can't quite help the sudden twist of envy, of desire, of I want that

(something nice, something not—not scary or possessive, just nice—)

The girl's eyes open; she sees Roxanne looking and Roxanne flushes, drops her gaze, the curtain of her hair falling over her face. She's moves to step away from the lockers, but she sees the girl frown and let go of her boyfriend, sees her step in front of Roxanne, blocking her escape.

Roxanne tenses, ready for the girl to snap at her for staring at her boyfriend, and then she jumps as the girl brushes Roxanne's hair back from her face instead.

Roxanne looks up, startled, just as the girl leans in to kiss her.

The shock of it makes Roxanne jerk her head back, slamming it against the locker, and then the girl's boyfriend is beside Roxanne, pressed up against her, kissing her ,too.

Fear blooms in Roxanne's chest; she struggles out of their grip, only to have someone else grab her wrist and pull her towards them, and then there's a crowd around her, all of them reaching for her, their eyes blank and their mouths slack, and it's like a nightmare; she can't get away from them; can't get away—

Panic is Roxanne's friend; it gives her the strength to claw her way out of the crowd.

(people turning in the hall to see what was causing the commotion, and then their eyes going blank, too)

She runs.

She runs out of the school, runs down one street, and then another—she doesn't stop running until she's home. The house is empty; her mother and stepfather are at work; her step siblings at school, but Roxanne flees to her bedroom anyway, grabs the home phone on her way there, locks the door.

She dials 911 with shaking fingers.

The operator answers: a woman's voice.

"I—I—th-think there's—something—w-wrong with me," Roxanne manages to say, between sobs.

She describes it to the woman, crying as she does.

The woman is sympathetic, soothing. She connects Roxanne with another voice—someone who specializes in Roxanne's kind of problems, she says to Roxanne, and Roxanne is completely and utterly grateful.

This new voice—another woman—listens to Roxanne's descriptions, too, and asks questions. She's less sympathetic than the 911 operator, but she has a tone of brisk efficiency that Roxanne actually finds more soothing than the first woman's sympathy.

This is a person who solves problems, Roxanne thinks, and when this woman says—

"Stay where you are; we're coming."

—Roxanne feels nothing but relief.

(later, after everything, the memory of her relief makes her feel physically ill)

"Thank you," she whispers into the phone.

"Don't worry," the woman says, "we're going to help you."

(this is the first lie that they tell her.)


(there are other lies)


She lets them into the house, when they knock.

"Roxanne Ritchi?"

It's the efficient woman; Roxanne recognizes her voice.

"Yes, I—"

The woman nods at the man next to her; he moves suddenly towards Roxanne, grabbing her upper arm, his other hand holding—

(a needle, silver and glistening)

—there's a quick, sharp pain in the side of her neck, and then nothing.

When she wakes up, she's in the lab, and she's wearing a collar.

The collar, they say, is there for her own good

(this is a lie.)

once she learns to control it, they say, they'll let her go home

(this is a lie.)

everything is going to be fine, they say

(and this is very definitely a lie.)


After a while (days and days and days and she loses track of the days), when she screams at them to let her go, screams that she's getting out of here, she has to get out of here, they tell her that there is no way she can escape from the facility, that she'll never leave.

(this is not a lie.)


(but it is incorrect.)


...to be continued.