Grade 10 Drop Out

I'm dusting off the beginnings to a few short stories that will hopefully supply the majority of the material for a collection I'm going to pitch in a few months.

Grade 10 Drop Out
By Andrea Warner

Her hair is dark and wild, impatient even, she realizes when she looks into the small mirror glued to the inside of her locker and notices that only half of the unruly mop can be contained within the reflection. It is the first day of school and already her body has begun the first of its’ expected many betrayals. Over the summer she’d tried bargaining with her hormones, her flesh, her follicles: Alright, arms, if you just begin to adopt the shape of muscles, even if it’s just pretend muscles like the skinny, wimpy girls who flex their bare arms while sticking their fingers down their throats, I’ll never take up cutting. Her shoulders listened and became broader, but now she just looked like a linebacker on the football team. Fuck the pep squad.