Rookies

One of Nichole’s habits include biting her nails into points, a sort of arrowhead shape – and this sort of makes sense since she’s apparently half-Native American. She doesn’t know her mother, nor her mother’s family, so she knows very little of this Native American heritage stuff. Her friends ask her about her nails and why, it seems, she puts so much work and devotes so much time just to make her fingernails into arrowhead shapes. Some ask her if she has intentions to hurt anyone – even though, which is an actual shock, she’s never speared anyone with these nails.

Inexplicably, she leaves the pinky on her right hand alone. She doesn’t mess with its nail. The finger next to it, the ring finger on her right hand – is it called the ring finger if it isn’t the correct hand for which to put on a wedding ring? How does this work? – this finger does not move. The word might be ‘paralyzed.’ The word might be ‘immobile.’ Maybe ‘unmovable.’ Nichole just tells people that it doesn’t move. She doesn’t have too many problems with this – not the problems you might expect.

She hasn’t been eating a whole lot. She could blame this on antidepressants and she could blame this on boys who are looking at her peculiarly, the look someone might give a person who disgusts them, the look that suggests that yes, you are a mammoth and I don’t wish to even get to know you.

Her best friend is a man named Aaron. Aaron is often arguing with people as to just who is a “man” and who is a “boy.” This causes Nichole to wonder if she’s a “woman” or if she’s a “girl.” This obsessive thinking only (mostly) causes her to think of a particular Britney Spears song.

Nichole loves Aaron deeply. And Aaron loves Nichole deeply. But there are things that make this relationship very complicated, and for these reasons, they cannot be together. There are a lot of things that have been done and there are a lot of things that simply cannot be forgiven.

A night comes where Nichole cuts off the pinky on her right hand. She didn’t actually want to do this. She had been thinking about this, though. She couldn’t help it. Her entire life, she would sit in classrooms, libraries, lie awake in bed, and think of doing something appallingly harmful to her body, to an appendage, to a limb. Chopping it off. Often her thoughts drifted to slicing the vein in her forehead open. The one that popped out whenever she felt any sort of intense emotion.

She knew that life without her pinky would be worse than life with it. She knew the pain would be intolerable. She knew people would ask about the missing finger for the rest of her life. She knew all of these things – all of the things she needed to knew, well, she knew those things. But she still took the steak knife to her finger. And one quick motion. It was severed. Surprisingly, easier than she expected. She imagined having to saw through bones and veins. But it was quite easy. Shocking her. There was a great deal of blood.

She was always thinking about doing these painful things, but never did them. Had no desire to actually go about doing these painful things. She’s not that type of girl. Woman. But she had these thoughts. Sort of like picking a scab. Wanting to know what might be underneath. Doing things just to do them. She would think about kissing the people she would talk to. At a job interview, kissing her possible future employer. These thoughts just popped in there and once they were there, it took something large to distract her. This is what lead her to cut off her pinky with a steak knife. Nothing to distract her.

Because in a more desirous life, Aaron would have been there to distract her. But Aaron let Nichole live alone. And for this reason, they are both to blame for all of Nichole’s fingernails being in arrowhead shapes.