Julia
“But like, I need to fuck him sober before I can commit to him vaginally,” says Julia on a Thursday night before spritzing perfume over her pussy and gliding out the door for her “dick date.” I wonder if this one will be added to her rolodex of booty call cock, but I can’t remember if the picture she showed me from facebook was attractive or not.
Julia looks for husband material at frat parties, does not expect them to call her the day after, but hopes that they will anyways.
“I’m gonna make 2018 my Bitch,” she announced the day after getting back from Christmas break.
A week later, she was elected president of Alpha Chi Omega, the biggest baddest sorority on our Catholic school campus, and the cult of girls in white dresses cheered, “That’s my president!”
On weekdays, Julia is messy bun study sessions into the early morning, starbucks vanilla cold brew coffee addiction, straight A anxiety over 10-page research papers assigned the day before.
On weekends, she blooms into a “Slim Thick Ho,” dresses to the nines in slutty theme party outfits, twerks against the wall after downing a cocktail of vodka and smirnoff ice.
I want to tell her, “Julia, you twerk way too much, sometimes it makes me feel uncomfortable.” But I just smile and give her an awkward thumbs up from the other side of the bathroom mirror.
I supply the thin oreos for those darling wasted 2am chats about a boy who didn’t text back, a boy who sent an unsolicited picture of his average looking penis, a boy who slept with someone else, a boy who wouldn’t take no for an answer, a boy who said he cared, a boy who lied.
“Men are such trash,” I parrot, as I hand her the box of kleenex. I tell her she is smart, she is kind, she is beautiful. She deserves better. I remind her. She deserves better.
Julia never misses a day at the gym. Dumbbells raised to God ten times over, says ten Hail Marys before it’s over. I think muscle fatigue must be her way of repenting her own body. Every calorie burnt is a candle lit, let me sculpt my own body out of clay, let me breathe life into my own lungs. I am tired of this asthma. I am tired of self medicating with the red inhaler and the liquid dayquil and the starbucks vanilla cold brew.
Julia takes her birth control pill every morning at 9am with the lavender kombucha from whole foods. This too, is a form of prayer. The contraction of throat muscles forming a swallow as a wave of purple delivers the tiny pink pellet down her esophagus.
“When I Decide to have a daughter,” Julia says, “I will be wise enough to tell her what is right and what is wrong, strong enough to watch her make mistakes. I will teach her how to own herself, sing to the scabs on her knees when she falls down, worship the stretch marks that grow on her thighs when she turns 16. When she bleeds, I will give her a red dress and show her how to bloom.”
When they mistake you for a question mark, show them the birthmark on your ankle bone. You are a period. Every sentence starts and ends with you. And your blood. And your pussy.
I used to think Julia and I were different. But lately I’ve been thinking there’s no difference between us. We’re both learning to love our pimple scars, nursing the fire under our tongues.
Because the next time someone calls her a Bitch, I’ll show them they don’t even know the meaning of the word.