After Birth by Elisa Albert

and did you remember the thermos and I think the blue sweatshirt and it’s too cold for no pants don’t you think?
     
    Things start to get fuzzy around puberty, with hormones and trauma doing their muddy two-step on memory. Depression and memory loss the best of friends.
    Lost in a private-school morass of Sarahs and Jennys and Melissas and Lindsays, hideous rich girls so brainwashed and servile they were destined to spend their lives whipped into a tooth-whitened nail-polish cardio bronzer plucked-and-waxed chemical-peel synthetic fertility-treatment hormone-replacement reproductive surgery froth.
    In the wake of Bat Mitzvah season we sprouted simultaneous breasts and mustaches. Despaired our acne, the frizz of our hair. Rose at dawn to iron said hair with the commitment and resolve of conquistadores.
    Those who had mothers were summarily carted to electrolysis and dermatology, put on meds for anything and everything as soon as possible: the Pill, months-long courses of antibiotics for acne, scorched-earth acne medication accompanied by detailed drawings of what your fetus would look like should you accidentally become pregnant thusly medicated, more Pill, antidepressants, more antidepressants.
    My father did his damnedest not to notice my budding disfigurements: terrible skin, dark cheek fuzz, lopsided tits. As though failing to address these new and terrible disfigurements was the polite thing to do. So long as I was a kid I was of course his Pretty Little Princess; when shit started to go south he was like yeah, tough break, good luck with that, bye. The Blind Ophthalmologist Looks Away.
    There were six girls named Lindsay in my grade alone. Unibrow Lindsay , we’d say to identify the particular, or Fat Lindsay . Hand Job Lindsay. Bulimic Lindsay. Pretty Lindsay. Ren-faire Lindsay . Two of the Lindsays had the same last name, even. Lindsay Harris and Lindsay Harris. Unrelated.
    No— we’d roll our eyes whilst talking shit— the other Lindsay Harris .
    O Manhattan private school, where I learned to decode absolutely everything about a girl based on the smallest detail of grooming and attire. Upon graduation they might’ve offered diplomas in Object-Oriented Mysticism. I was forged in the fire of hell’s lowest circle of Bitch.
    That enraged cat noise we used to conjure female testiness, the claw. Girls whose mothers built them up and ripped them down. Girls with absent fathers, girls with doting fathers. Girls without mothers, sorry little lambs, primary wound glistening forevermore. Girls who hate each other with a passion because really they love each other. The ones who love each other up syrupy sweet because really they despise each other.
    Girls who don’t look at each other when they pass on the street. Girls who ignore the fact of each other whenever possible. No: who pretend to ignore the fact of each other.
    My friend Shane and I decided to level with each other. Her wealthy ex-hippie underachiever “artist” parents were forever stoned; her older sister was fucking the wrestling-champ senior (fucking him constantly, fucking him everywhere). My mother was dead and no help regardless. So we had to be totally honest. Tell each other what the rest of the world saw. We occupied the same rung of the social ladder: Utterly Irrelevant. There was nothing to lose.
    She went first: No offense but your nose is suuuuuuper Jewish. Your stomach is fat, I mean, like, weirdly way fatter than the rest of you. You have really good legs. And eyes. And okay, we seriously have to do something about your mustache. No offense. You could be almost pretty .
    No offense was Shane’s thing. Offense: God forbid.
    Then my turn: Your face looks like an alien’s. Your weird eye fold is creepy, and your eyes are so far apart, like practically on the sides of your head. It makes you kind of look like a fat fish. Let’s just leave your body out of it for now. You wear really ugly clothes. No offense. Your hair is amazing, don’t