what for

six

     something was off today. fabia laid on her bed lazily, bjork played on her radio and the autumn breeze drifted into her window. things were getting bad again, she knew it.

"mija!" her father yelled from downstairs. "take your medicine!"

fabia sighed and stood up, fluffing her hair and walking downstairs. a black woman was sitting on the couch, talking to her father with glee in her eyes. she pushed her way into the kitchen and grabbed her medicine out of a cupboard, swallowing it with faucet water.

before fabia could skip back upstairs her father called her. "this is miss arnette, our new neighbor! di hola."

"hello, i'm fabi."

     the black woman waved and kept the sweet smile in her face. she had long legs and a striped shirt on, her eyeliner was thin. and her hair, she could wrap her curls around the world if she wanted to. her ebony skin was glowing in the sun that shone through the open windows.

     fabia walked back upstairs, human behavior was playing on her radio. she closed the door and drifted back to her bed, this time crawling up to her window. a clean razor sat perched upon an unused ashtray in the windowsill, along with a cactus that she named slinging slasher on a whim.

and fuckshit, walking down the street with a girl. they held hands and talked to each other like it was nothing. her face dropped when she leaned in and kissed him, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. this is what was going to go wrong.

     fabia knew separate ways of killing herself. she even went to the library to look up the lethality of what she would do had on her body if she somehow lived. a case of sleeping pills were always on her, she had a new razor hidden in separate parts of her room, and she always kept her hairdryer plugged in when she was in the bathroom.

     and if that didn't work out, she lived on the second story of her house.

     suddenly everything had went out the door. her research and her urge to kill herself, to hurt herself if the slightest thing went wrong. her anger and confusion wasn't directed towards her, this entire time. these sixteen years of her life, she wasn't mad at herself.

     she was mad at the world around her.

***

     "are you okay?" gerardo rojas stood in his daughter's door, his arms crossed. fabia nodded and buried herself under the covers. "well- i have a date."

    "is it harold from accounting?" she yelled through the covers, her voice was still muffled. her father chuckled.

     "no, a differed guy. he's like harold from accounting but times ten."

     she giggled from under the covers. her dad was more of a woman then her mother, he never had a problem talking about boys with his daughter or his sexuality. he was unapologetically him.

     "i'm going to this party later, i might not be back until late." fabia uncovered her face to look at her dad. he nodded and closed the door behind him.

     a couple of minutes passed and she heard her dad's car start up and drive away, and she ran downstairs to the phone on the wall, dialing fuckshit's number that she'd memorized. he answered after three rings, his distinct voice sounded in her right ear.

     "fuckshit."

     "um, hey, fuckshit?" fabia twirled the cord around her fingers, a smile on her face. "can i come over?"

     "oh, angela?" her face dropped at the mention of her name, she kept her composure and cleared her throat.

     "no, um, it's fabi. fabia rojas."

"oh shit, princess, hey. yeah, i'm bout to be at motor down on thirteenth if you wanna chill."

she turned at looked at the clock perched on the wall, it was 6:26. she said yes and hung up, rushing back upstairs to get dressed in the best outfit she could find.

fabia didn't know how badly she dressed until she opened her closet and searched for something to wear. all she could find were pastel colored dresses and skirts from kindergarten that she obviously couldn't fit anymore. after thirty minutes passed, she finally decided on a purple skirt and a bralette that only covered her illegal parts.

she placed a matching beanie on and slid on her platformed sneakers, admiring herself in her vanity mirror. she knelt down and opened a new glitter eyeshadow, precariously doing her makeup and putting little star sticker around her eyes.

fabia decided against lipstick, but carried her favorite dark red with her in the backpack that was slung over her shoulder, and she was off.

the walk down to thirteenth was weird. men too old for her honked their horns and women gave her judging looks, she kept her head high.

the bell above the door rang when she pushed her way into the store. ray was behind the counter, talking to the boys that sat on the couch behind a television. it was fabia's first time here.

"yo, fabia!" rueben was the first to say anything. "you look hot!"

"thank you, ru," she dismissed his comment as if it was nothing. fuckshit stood from his place to give the dominican girl a hug, he made sure to grab her ass.

"you look sexy as fuck, princess." he mumbled in her ear, shivers went down her spine. "where you goin'?"

"out," she responded. he backed up at that, raising his eyebrows and smiling at her attitude. he liked attitude. "where y'all motherfuckers goin'?"

"shit," ray sat down on a stool. "home, there ain't no parties or nothin'."

"hell yeah, i'm tryna get laid!" fuckshit chirped, wrapping an arm around fabia's waist. she detached herself from him and walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

     she shifted through the bag she had on her shoulder and took out a ring of keys, taking a blue one and holding it in her hand. her mother lived down the street from here, so she could make it there and back in less than an hour.