The Truth Hurts

08 │electric love

Water runs down her back, the same feeling of blood—as if it too—were drizzling down her body.

Julia turns around to face the showerhead mounted high above her. She lets the warm water slap her in the face as she rubs at her chest with a bar of soap. The shower room is huge and there are short, rather pointless glass walls separating each of the ten showers. Five are set against each wall, running parallel to one another. Steam fills the air, the long strip of mirrors above the sink being laced with a thin layer of fog.

The sound of metal on metal, as if a locker door was just slammed shut with great force, is muffled through the water splashing against her face.

She jumps, her head turning so fast that her wet hair wraps around to slap the front of her neck. Wiping at her eyes, she glares at the first set of lockers and the two pathways wrapping around it.

"Eric, is that you?"

She shakes the water out of her ears. Nobody responds.

Shrugging it off, she turns back to the shower. The water falls to the tile floor and slowly trickles through its own path until it hits the drain.

Minutes later, Julia wipes at the steam on the mirror to look at herself and smirks. She reaches down to grab her blow dryer out of her gym bag and plugs it into the outlet underneath the sink. Her towel is wrapped around her upper body, tied tight at the side.

Everything is quiet, the only noise coming from the sequent drips of water from the showerhead she was using just moments before, until she flips on the blow dryer. She runs her fingers through her hair, lifting it in certain parts as she dries it.

SLAM!

The sound again, this time louder and more clear. She cuts off the blow dryer and sets it on the counter next to the sink as she turns to face the rows of lockers.

"Seriously, Eric?" She peeks her head over to glance down the path on the left. "I came here for sex, not games."

She sees the locker room door, leading to the gym, slowly swing shut. She sighs and stomps toward the door, leaving a trail of wet footprints from her bare feet.

The door shuts behind her as she steps out into the gym, peering into the vast darkness surrounding her. The red light from the exit sign illuminates off her wet skin as she steps forward.

A basketball dribbles out from the darkness and rolls to a stop near the middle of the court and she halts. Laughing with frustration, she shakes her head as she quickly walks to the middle of the gym to snatch up the ball. She spins around, scanning the darkness surrounding her.

"Really cute, jerk." She stares into the shadows, the bleachers across from her barely visible. Her tone grows even more annoyed. " You can come out now."

She turns around to face the sets of bleachers behind her, then over at the wall to her left. The red light glares slightly from the thick glass composing the basketball goal.

"Okay then." She tosses the ball aside and turns to her right to walk back to the locker room. She hears it hit the floor only twice and then it stops bouncing, as if someone had caught it, and slowly turns around.

She steps back toward the middle of the court. "Eric?" She begins to shiver, if not from the creepy dark gym then from the cold air on her half-naked body. Water drips to the floor from her damp hair.

A sudden loud popping noise echoes throughout the auditorium. The shredded orange rubber is tossed in front of her, landing inches from her toes. She leans down to get a better look, seeing that the ball had apparently been slashed.