The Burnouts by Lex Thomas

successfully puffed out her cheeks and madeher face seem rounder. She grabbed handfuls of moist soil from the jars by the wall, and smeared the dirt all over her face, her hands, and any exposed skin.
    There was a handful of kids in school with real mental conditions, who wandered around in filthy clothes, looking confused, begging for food, and yelling at people who weren’t there. Dickie Bellman would have been one of them, if he hadn’t been shot down at Gonzalo’s graduation. There was Mime Jerry, who stood by the same water fountain near the stairs to the basement, and he never stopped miming. Twenty-four/seven, you could always count on him being there, fighting to get out of a box, desperately, silently begging you to let him out. There was a cross-eyed boy who never stopped running through the halls of the school. There was another boy on the second floor by the auditorium who just sat in an open locker, smiling all day and staring into the distance. There was a girl who never wore pants, or underwear. She was always angry, and never seemed to understand anything you said to her. Once she’d broken a Skater girl’s fingers who’d tried to help her out by brushing her hair. No one touched the girl after that. That was the sort of reputation Lucy was looking for now.
    She crawled through the air duct to the hall. The middle of the day was the worst time to travel through the halls of McKinley, but Lucy needed to talk to a friend. She made her way to the library. Passersby avoided her like the plague,but she much preferred that to her actual reputation of the girl who got her gang leader killed. When she neared the library, she discovered Belinda cleaning out her locker in the hallway.
    Seeing Belinda now, after weeks of loneliness and rejection, had a crippling effect on Lucy. She watched in awe as her old friend rifled through her locker, either chucking things onto the floor or into the small purple backpack she had with her. Her clothes were clean and unwrinkled. Belinda’s face bloomed with happiness. There was something vivacious to the way she was sorting her locker. She was bubbling over with energy, and love, and hope—all feelings that Lucy couldn’t seem to summon anymore.
    “Belinda …,” Lucy dared to say, her syllables distorted by her overstuffed cheeks.
    Belinda jerked with shock, and backed away at the sight of Lucy coming toward her. Lucy realized she had forgotten her disguise for a moment.
    “Wait,” she said. She pulled the spacers out of her nose, and the jelly cutlets out of her mouth. “It’s me, Lucy.”
    She saw the truth click into place on Belinda’s face.
    “Oh my God, Lucy. Oh, baby. Oh no. What happened to you?” Belinda said.
    Lucy wanted to tell her no, this was only a disguise, that she wasn’t this low, this dirty, this driven to the edge, but as soon as she thought it she started to cry. She was all thosethings, only in a disguise. She told Belinda everything. She told her about the baby, about starving, about living in hiding, about the feeling that the world was collapsing in all around her.
    Belinda rubbed her back as Lucy spilled her feelings. Belinda bit her lip. She told her all the nice girlfriend things that she was supposed to say: that this would be okay, that this was probably meant to be, that she’d only grow stronger from it, and that Lucy was too nice a person for this to be the end of her story. All that stuff.
    “I feel so much better just knowing I have you in my life again,” Lucy said.
    A yelp escaped before Belinda could cover her mouth with her hand.
    “What? What is it, Bel?”
    Belinda shook her head and stomped her foot.
    “It’s not fair. I’d change it if I could.”
    “Change what?”
    “I’m graduating today.”
    Lucy felt like she was seeing life through a pinhole camera. Belinda’s voice became softer and softer. Her words had less impact, they were temporary distractions from the truth of how alone Lucy was. When the two of