And I’m still invisible. I push my bucket with its rattling wheels into the teacher’s lounge, and three faculty members in tortoise shell glasses and pressed shirts sip shitty coffee at a round table, too enamored by their conversation to acknowledge my presence. I walk over to the kitchenette, keeping my body to the wall and my cap low—habit, I guess—to get some shitty coffee myself. 

     A fourth person wears the same uniform as me. He’s an older man with a worn face who gives me a grunt rather than a ‘good morning.’ 

     I let him know I’m clocked in.

     “East wing first. Then work your way towards the field,” he drones. “Oh, and hit the ladies’ bathroom by the cafeteria before lunch. Looks like breakfast didn’t agree with someone today.”

     I want to groan, but I just reply, “Sure thing, boss.” Behind me, the teachers’ continue their gossip in nasally voices unaware that their conversation might be overheard.

     “So you’re saying Mr. Ketter did meet that senior girl in the parking lot?”

     “Chelsie said she saw it herself. She was closing up the classroom when she saw the girl leave Mr. Ketter’s car.”

     “Which girl is this?”

     “The Yale-bound one.”

     “You don’t say…”

     “If she’s already been accepted, why sleep with a teacher? It’s not like she needs the marks, right?”

     “Well apparently tuition’s going to be hard for her folks, so she’s probably trying to get a letter of recommendation for a scholarship, most likely.”

     “Unless Ketter’s the one initiating.”

     “Poor thing…”

     I feel a thick boot on my foot.

     “Easy, kid,” the boss growls. He looks at my hands, and I realize I had bent the metal stirring spoon into an L. I hurriedly correct its shape, and he gives me a tired stern look as he leaves. “Mind your own business. No one likes a hero. You got a job to do, so do it.”

     I take a swig of coffee; it’s scalding hot and tastes like soil. Behind me, the three teachers cackle on like a coven of witches, sharing dark secrets that I want no part of.

​

 

     And I’m still invisible. I get caught by the bell down the East wing, and a flow of students break around me like a river around a boulder. They exchange greetings with friends, complain about assignments, make weekend plans, and cuss out teachers in the safety of the liminal halls. They bump shoulders and roughhouse with one another yet never even brush against my trolley.

     Nor look my way.

     I unfold the ‘no entry’ sign and investigate the  bathroom. A mirror puddle creeps across the tile of the last stall. After ten minutes of mopping and plunging, I find the culprit: a dense wad of toilet paper wedged at the bottom of the bowl. I pull the handle, and it flushes, wet paper ripping away to reveal an oblong thermometer-looking stick. I just make out two dark slashes on the tiny display before it gets carried away. 

     I stare down the unclogged toilet, realization dawning on me. The boss’ words come back to me, cold and stalwart: “Mind your own business.” There’s nothing I can do and even less that I should.

     So I do my job and paste a reminder on the mirror that reads: ‘DO NOT FLUSH FOREIGN OBJECTS.”

​

     And I’m still invisible. I restock paper towels in an art room where three juniors pour paint on a crying freshman’s head laughing all the while. During lunchtime, I fix a jammed window in a history classroom and overhear the teacher explain to children that colonial expansion across North America meant not genocide but salvation for the indigenous tribes. In the library,       I scrub a soda spill out of the carpet while a librarian helps a freshman navigate the database with an intimate pat on the back. The librarian's eyes meet mine, and she quickly retracts her hand, glaring at me like I’m an intruder. I pull my cap low.

     Mind your own business.

     As the sky yellows, my bucket gets harder to push, and the water is murky and opaque from the day’s work. I grab a rake and set to do my last task: cleaning the bleachers. Plastic bags, wrappers, and all manner of litter had blown across the field and got caught against the metal; it’s the easiest thing I’ve done all day. 

     A sharp sting at the base of my neck catches me off guard. I whirl around; no one is there. At my feet, nose crumpled from the collision, lies a paper airplane of floral origami paper. 

     I rake it towards the growing pile of trash, and the motion unfolds part of the plane. I see handwriting, dark and messy across the interior. 

     Mind your own business.

     I lean against the rake, trying to relieve some tension in my back; I’d been stooping too much recently. The slipping sun shone a brilliant gold through the clouds illuminating the prestigious school in all its glory like a spotlight on a lead actor. At my feet amongst the soft well-groomed turf sits the confidence of a stranger. Pain given form.

     Mind your own business. 

     I pick up the paper and my stomach drops.

     Nestled within floral origami paper folded into a little airplane and carried by the wind is a suicide letter.

     The soft afternoon breeze that rides across the field blows from the buff campus. I turn. Between the confetti leaves of the ash trees, I can just make out a figure on the roof of the sciences building. 

     Mind your own—.

     For a moment, I stare, in stasis while my mind and heart wage war.

     Then I drop my rake and run.