She came into the study hall room with a flounce. I was the only tutor on duty that day. She carelessly tossed her bag onto the floor as she sat in the chair across from mine. To cover my nervousness, I stacked my notebooks off to the side and checked the tip of my mechanical pencil.
She began to apply some lipstick. Her lips were full and pouty, framing perfect teeth. She used her phone to check for stray marks or blemishes on her face. Of course, there were none. Blond hair. Sculpted eyebrows. Just the right amount of flush in the cheeks to show she was alive and with a hint of innocence lightly veiling availability.
Her name was Amanda. We had a few of our classes together but not Spanish. I was a student Spanish tutor. She was in Spanish 1. That’s why she was here today. For my help.
“How long will this take?” she said, not looking at me, still stuck to her phone.
“I…it shouldn’t take long,” I said. “You needed chapter 4 recorded?”
“4…and 5, too. I want to finally get through this, and they all told me that you have the best pronunciation.”
I did. My parents had been living in America since before I was born, but they were originally from Colombia. We still spoke Spanish at home and they still called me chica. They wanted the language to remain alive in me in case I should ever want to do something with it.
During the last three years Amanda had acquired something of a reputation here in the school. She had rifled through three boyfriends, leaving each one behind her as she made her way up. Her current guy was Carl, probably the best-looking guy in school.
But recently cracks seemed to have been appearing on her perfect veneer. There was a rumor going around that Carl had taken her some clinic across town, somewhere where nobody knew them. Just a rumor. But…
As I looked at Amanda, smoothing her perfect hair, I realized that she probably didn’t remember what she had done. It was back in ninth grade. We were in Short Stories…reading a piece by a Colombian writer, Hernando Tellez. The teacher had asked me to read. I fell into the rhythm of the piece and suddenly I was pronouncing the name of one of the characters. Usually, I Americanize my pronunciation, but I was lost in the text and the name came out distinctly Colombian. I froze and stopped speaking.
And then, behind me, I heard her whisper, “Well, she would know how to say it.” There was a titter of laughter that followed from the back of the room. My face began to burn.
And now, here she was. I finished checking my pencil and opened the book to chapter 4. She glanced up. “Oh, here,” she said, holding up her phone. “Just put it on mine. That way I don’t need to figure out how to get it on here later.”
She slid her phone across to me. Her screen saver hadn’t faded yet. It was a pic of her and Carl. And then the screen turned black.
I picked it up and looked at her. “It’s off,” I said. “Can you…?”
“Password’s ‘3465’,” she said, and leaned back in the chair.
I typed in the code and the screen came alive. Her home screen had the usual series of buttons, heavy on the social apps. I slid right a few times and found the recording app.
“Listen,” she said. “I’m gonna go to the nurse’s station. Can you do this by the time I get back?”
I looked up from the phone at her. Before I could say anything, she was gone.
The room was quiet. I could hear a teacher’s voice from the next room. Somewhere down the hall there was the sound of cheerleading practice. I sat there for a moment. Her phone had gone dead again. I typed the code and it lit up.
I hovered my finger over the screen for a second, waiting. Then, before I gave myself a chance to think about it, I tapped her photos app.
A second later a timeline appeared. I scrolled back a few weeks. I tapped into a folder. It was from the prom last month. Lots of selfies. Lots of Carl.
I clicked back and scrolled again. There was a whole row of Carls and Amandas sliding across the screen. Cheek to cheek. Arms up at the sky. Heavy photoshopping. Sun beams and artistic flares.
And then, just from last week, the thumbnails changed. It was… no. Was it? I clicked into the folder. And then I stared at the screen, unblinking.
There were several shots of a familiar plastic stick with a small slit on one end. A solid blue line and a faint pink one just below the slit.
I glanced up at the door. The teacher from the next room had lapsed into the silence. I could hear the sound of the wall clock whirring as the second hand crawled around the dial.
I looked back at her phone. And then, without really realizing it, I reached for mine. I clicked the photo icon, held it above her screen, and pressed record. As it recorded I refreshed her screen saver so it showed her and Carl. Then I typed in the code, and panned my phone across the pic of the plastic stick for a second.
Before I had time to change my mind, I clicked off my phone and slid it back into my bag. I scrolled to her recording app, opened the book, and started to read chapter 4.
That night, in my room, I pulled out my phone again and spent a long time looking at the recording I took. The plastic stick shook slightly in the recording. I must have been pretty nervous.
I opened my Snapchat. I took a slow breath. My thumb hovered over the send button. I blinked a few times and finally looked out my window at the moon. It’s not easy to kill.//
About the Author
Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete
About the Author
