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Rachelle

Six full months and seven filled notebooks later, Crystal’s plan to purge her head of poisonous content—by putting down on paper every embarrassment, every regrettable incident, every single thing she’d undo or do differently if only she could—hadn’t been going so well. The enormous snot bubble that had bloomed from her schnoz in front of the whole class that day in fifth grade was no less vivid in her mind’s peripheral vision, and no less mortifying.

It occurred to her that confiding in someone might help; and after an exhaustive mental vetting of everyone in her acquaintance, she decided to confide in her coworker Rachelle about this unremitting fixation. “After all,” she said to herself in the car on the way to work, “Rachelle confided in me that time in the break room.”

Yes, with a few suggestive winks and a liberal application of air quotes, Rachelle had indeed divulged to Crystal the sexual (air quotes) quirks of her new boyfriend, David, whom she’d met at the funeral of some woman who lived in her mother’s building—when she was living, Rachelle had hastened to clarify. “That woman loved her some fountain pens too, yo” she’d added parenthetically.

And so, mustering every molecule of gumption she could summon from what seemed like every cell in her body, Crystal confided in Rachelle about the snot bubble, and gained from that simple act a rush of closure that almost made her swoon. But the blessed relief proved all too brief when, not twenty minutes later, Felix poked his head into her cube and said, “Good morning ... Bubbles.”

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