Hands Off

New Year, and a yellow world dawned. Fresh, yet with an unhealthy tinge, like a jaundiced baby. I stepped into the unseasonably warm air, loosed the collar of my school uniform, and took off across the quad, as certain as I'd ever been that this was the right thing to do.

Why was I so certain? Couldn't I have sent the feelers of my thought into the future and sensed the shape of the next few years? Someone once said that every action echoes in eternity. If there is such a thing as a backward echo, surely, I would have realized there was no possibility of waking up in my bed the next day with all the world unchanged.

But I heard no echo.

Familiar shapes in my peripheral vision—columns, shadowy porches, white-topped figures in skirts hurrying late to breakfast. Back from winter break and slipping into old habits. I swung open a heavy door, tromped down corridors and up stairs, and arrived before a portrait.

He was a balding man draped in black robes, not bothering to look at the painter. The sight of his fat hands made my stomach clench. I didn't even glance around the room before opening my satchel and pulling out a brand new can of spray paint.

I thought no one saw. No one stopped me.

Seconds later, I stepped back to survey my handiwork. Finally thinking of myself, I shoved the can away and walked fast down a flight of stairs—a back service entrance Tracey had told me about. I didn't stop until I arrived at the dorm, where I collapsed against a brick wall and let my heart beat.

I didn't think about security cameras, guards, committees, or principals—the short-term consequences of my courageous idiocy. How much less did I imagine the lawyers, doctors, journalists, courtrooms, photographs, testimonies, and injustice of the years to come? At that moment, I knew whatever came would be worth it. I'd said my piece. Those dripping yellow letters—HANDS OFF—would get the message across. Maybe I'd be the last girl who'd have to tell him that.

Turns out I was the last, although my final words would be heard at the end of a knife.