Gymfloor squeakshine and whistleblast and the afternoon arranged into teams and velocity and she moves through drills carefulcareful because running jars and pivoting flares and every sudden stop sends a small bright objection up from lowerbody where the ache nests quiet but alert and she tells herself bruiseonly bruiseonly because bruises require no narrative and sport supplies many and the others laugh breathless and collide harmlessly and the world pretends cohesion and when she missteps once the laughter is ordinary not cruel not yet and she lifts her hand to signal fine fine and the word hovers like chalkdust in fluorescent air.

  Showerroom steamthick tileecho and lockerslam and towelwhip snap-snap and the girls undress in practiced indifference and skin is ordinary currency here knee-scrapes shoulder-marks straplines from sportsbras and she hesitates halfbeat longer than usual before peeling fabric from thigh and the seamrip memory flickers and denimghost falls to tile and someone says hey what happened there and the sentence is light as foam and yet it lands heavy and she looks down and the bruise has surfaced darkflower spreading across pale and lower still another smaller one blooming and the steam does not blur them enough and a girl laughs just brightcurious and says rough night and another says Callummm sing-song and the name stretches and bounces against tile and multiplies in echo.

  She feels heat rise not from showerwater but from inside-out and the room tilts slightdegree and the rabbitmask flickers in steamshape above the showerhead earshadow elongate then dripdrip gone and the laughter continues carelesscareless because the story is simple and the story fits what they know and she could correct them she could say no not that not him not consent and the corridoridor of speech opens thin and trembling and she steps toward it and stops because to correct requires naming and naming would unseal something and she says nothing and the nothing is taken as confirmation and someone says lucky you and someone else says finally and the tileecho repeats finally finally finally until the word hollows.

  Water strikes tile and skin and she turns her back and the bruise throbs smallpulse under surface and she presses her palm against it not tender not theatrical just checking and the touch answers in electric syllables and she thinks if I laugh it becomes theirs if I deny it becomes spectacle and so she stands suspended between and the steam gathers and drips and a girl reaches to poke lightly not malicious just curious and the contact is quickbright and she startles and the startle is too sharp and the laughter falters halfsecond and then resumes thinner and she hears her own voice say yeah well and the rest dissolves into waternoise and the narrative cements itself without her.

  Afterward towelwrap and corridorwalk dampfoot and she feels eyes recalibrate toward her not hostile not yet but newly attentive and the bruise becomes biography and the biography incorrect and she moves through lockerslam and hallwayhum and hears her name coupled with his and the coupling clangs wrong and she thinks about grassflatten and redspiral and the word bruise begins to fracture into bruise-bruise bruise-us bruise-us until the language itself accuses and the rabbitmask reappears briefly in the convex mirror near the exit distortedcomic grotesque and she almost laughs because it looks absurd and absurdity offers a filament of relief and she grips it and it snaps.

  Evening and she studies her thigh in bedroomlamplight and the bruise has deepened darkviolet cloudshape and she traces its perimeter as if mapping a country she did not choose and she wonders how long until yellowing and fading and whether fading equals forgetting and outside someone’s music drifts faint and bassline low and harmless and she lies back carefulcareful and the laughter from the showers replays not cruel just misplaced and that misplacement wounds differently and she understands suddenly that humiliation can graft itself onto trauma and grow vines around it and she feels smaller and more visible at once and the fence hum returns faintfaint in memorytone and she tells herself bruiseonly bruiseonly and the word no longer holds.