Stalls Can talk
By Lexie Kauffman
TW: references to infidelity, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, sexual harassment, and transphobia
Apparently there’s a spider in the shower next to you, if the screams are anything to go by. You hear the curtain and someone fighting an eight-legged foe, but you just keep shampooing.
It’s 4 AM, and the person kneeling on the floor of the stall next door hasn’t moved for a while. Your concern almost reaches the point of action, but then they gag and keep retching the night’s adventures into the toilet bowl.
The dining hall is usually questionable, but you really regret the burrito you ate last night. You sit so long that the motion sensor lights go dark.
You hear shower concerts often, and the girl is talented, but her parents wouldn’t let her go to school for musical theater. In an alternate universe, you think she could be starring on Broadway.
She’s a week late and the condom broke. She’s crying with her friends in the handicap stall and you’re just trying to brush your teeth.
The girl from down the hall is in love with her straight best friend. You hear the muffled cries and the whispered phone calls to her sister. She worries that she’ll never know love because her heart will forever belong to her.
Her boyfriend had a mysterious bruise on his neck during their last FaceTime and he claimed it was just a shadow. She thinks he’s cheating, but she just can’t find proof. He says she’s crazy. Her friends reassure her, wiping away her running mascara by the sink.
The girl next door regales the story of her first period to an audience of one. Her single dad went out and bought every type of hygiene product available but didn’t know how to use any of them. YouTube and encouraging texts taught her how to be a woman.
She cheated on her biology exam, but she had to because her midterm grade needs to be an A for her parents to be proud. She’s the first in her family to be here, and failure is not an option. Her confession floats through the mostly empty bathroom as she prays for forgiveness in the shower.
Her roommate is a bitch and makes her feel small and alone. Every moment in their shared room is filled with anxiety and aggression. But her mom didn’t raise a quitter, so the bathroom is her only safe space.
Her TA makes lewd comments about her body, so she now only wears baggy sweatshirts in that class. His dad is on the alumni board, so nothing will happen if she reports the behavior. It’s easier to wear big clothes, carry pepper spray in her pencil pouch, and obsess over visible skin in the bathroom than to fight an institution.
Her mother controlled her to ensure so she wouldn’t become a “fat whore.” Now that she’s away from home, she must rely on her fingers to keep the schedule.
He doesn’t think he’s a “she,” but he doesn’t want to die young at his own hand or someone else’s.
They all think that the shower drowns out the sounds of their sobs and their secrets. It doesn’t.