by Joyanna Priest
Strategy
The school bathroom echoed emptily, sun streaming in through the high smeared windows, bouncing off the mirrors and the green tiles. I double checked to make sure no one was there and slipped into the stall farthest from the door. I carefully locked it and took out the collapsible yellow camping cup from my overalls pocket. In the tiny snapped shut pill container in the lid was a note from my fourth grade teacher, sharpied over and painstakingly shredded into confetti.
She had asked for “a word” with me at the end of the school day earlier in the week.
“Please give this to your mother,” she said, handing me a handwritten note and stapling it closed. The staple aroused my suspicion. I read:
and I did what I had to.
Subterfuge
When I was a young teenager, my mom and I got into our worst fights when I said she was judgmental. This usually happened after I told her something I thought was interesting that she thought was terrible.
She looked hurt and sad and offended and she said she wasn’t judgmental at all, she was far from judgmental. But I didn’t know what else to call it.
Survival
What I wish/ how I pass it on (incidentally):
Joyanna Priest lives in Prince George’s County Maryland, where she teaches teenagers and makes secret comics about her coworkers. This is her debut non-secret comic, thanks to the inspiration and psychic permission generated by Alyssa Graybeal’s workshop. She’s in the midst of a lifesaving time-travel novel about addiction and love.
