He Should Have Knocked

by Lila Coen
11/04/24

He should have knocked. Period. He should have knocked. Because the door is closed and the light is on and he can see the shadow of my feet from the crack under the door and he can hear the sound of the floor squeaking against the hard parts of the soles of my feet. And I’m not supposed to lock the bathroom door because the lock gets stuck and my mom yells at me when I do. So I didn’t lock the fucking door. And he should have knocked because he knows all of this. And if he had opened the door 30 seconds before he would have walked in on me brushing my teeth. Towel smothering every vulnerable part of naked and my shoulders hunched over the bowl of the sink. Shiny and reflective and it feels like glass and I can see my reflection in the drain where the water falls into. And if he had opened the door sixty seconds later then I would have been pulling my sweatpants up to my hips and tying the elastic waist-band strings into two little bunny ear and wrapping it around. Like how my daddy taught me to do when I was five and I wanted to ride my new hot pink roller skates around the kitchen island. But he opened
The door at that fucking
Very moment and I am
Towel at my ankles and palms caving into my
Breasts
Shoving chewed nail into my spine
Lips parted only enough that I have to breathe through my nose but I can
See the white in my teeth and the lights
Are turned on over the sink but the
Overhead light was too yellow looks like
Expired orange juice made my skin look
Sickly so the only light i had was the
One that made my eyes look pale like lukewarm tap water the light over the sink and I could hear the ringing of the air conditioner
Outside the bathroom except in here the fan is on because
The steam blinds me and smothers my lungs burnt
and the mirror and my left arm is broken outstretched below my left thigh
and I don’t hear the door open until I look in the mirror and see him behind my reflection
Behind me
And I don’t see his face first no the first thing
I notice is the white of his tshirt tracing his torso how it outlines the part of his body that he used to try to hide but
At sixty two years old it doesn’t matter
Anymore
Outgrown and outgrown dreams and outgrown love and paste and does my mom know her husband doesn’t
Know how to knock?
And maybe this shouldn’t have been what I noticed second because maybe I should have told him that I was in there
In case he hasn’t noticed
And I think I did but I didn’t hear myself and
For some reason my eyes search the floor and then search
The way he holds in his stomach and it is flat like
How the ocean smothers little kids sandcastles and blames it on bigger kids when it’s just the
Ocean sea foam flattens sand and I used to try to bury my legs under the beach when I was younger and eventually the water kept pulling the sand
Away from me that I stopped trying to bury myself so close to the water. Sand on my tongue and let it soak at the roof of my mouth
And just like that he
should have knocked but he didn’t and I am
Empty and thirty seconds later I am pulling a sweatshirt
over my head and wondering why
There is sand in my lungs
Will always be like this and I wish it was last
Year again
November and now it’s too warm to be fall so much to look forward to and now I am
Left wondering
How much of me as he seen and how much of me do I have
Left?

***

(This piece is part of our yearlong series called Heart Beets that features the work of a group of teen writers, giving us a glimpse into their journey through the school year.)