Chloe is a hole. That's what everyone says. Not that she vanished, or ran, or died. That she's a hole.
Last Friday, in the locker room after PE, Chloe folded like a bedsheet after a fever nap. Folded in, folded down, neat as a newspaper, like the fabric of her life had been pinched at the belly button and pulled straight into the earth. I was right there. I saw it happen.
She asked if I had gum. Scratched her neck. Looked down. And then she folded - spine, knees, chin - into herself. No sound. No blood. Just in and down. Leaving nothing but a round hole in the locker room floor, rimmed in clean paper-white tile.
People screamed. Not me.
I stepped closer. Looked down. I said something like, "It's not that deep." But it is. She's endless. Black as the chewed-up liquorice under my school desk. Black as burned milk. Black and deep and forever.
After the screaming, the teachers, the police, and the weekend, they tried to fill it with plaster. It all came back up. Sloughed around the rim of the hole in clotted grey chunks. Powdery and sopping wet all at once. Then, they put a cone with a sign over it - CAUTION: WET FLOOR. Someone drew eyes on the cone. Someone kicked the cone into the hole. Now, there's nothing. Just tape on the door, and the girls get changed in the ground-floor bathrooms instead. That was three weeks ago. Nobody says her name anymore, except me. I say it under my breath. I say it every night. Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. I write her name in biro on my thighs until it's raised and sore. Until I can feel it through my school tights. I whisper it into the vent under my bed. Once, I even tried to say it backwards, but it just sounds like choking.
The school counsellor asked if I was okay, and I said that I didn't know Chloe very well.
"She kept to herself," I said.
Which is true. She kept her nail clippings in a matchbox. Kept her baby teeth in a velvet bag. She ate the paper off every crayon before using it. She kissed me once, too, behind the bike shed. I'd just thrown up a banana milkshake, and she said my mouth tasted like fizzy candy. It was our secret, like the teeth and the nails and the crayons.
Last night I dreamed she climbed out of the hole, but she was inside-out. Her skin was slick and veined like a peeled grape. Her eyes were all pupils. She crouched at the end of my bed, and I whispered, "Come inside me. There's room."
She said yes. She said, always. She peeled back the duvet and crawled into my stomach like a sleeping bag. She opened me up, widened me, let the air whistle into my chest and made all of the wet bits feel cool and kissed. My hollow body vibrated like the belly of a guitar to the sound of her humming as she worked her way inside. Then I woke up.
I started feeding the hole last week. The coins I dropped were too fast. No sound. Gone in an instant, unsatisfying. Then I tried a shoelace. A pencil. A wet clod of toilet paper. Hair turned out to be the best. I cut it all off and fed it to the hole in fistfuls. Watched it curl as it vanished, like ribbon. Like smoke. Floating, singing its way down. There's not much of it left now, patchy and cropped close to my skull, so yesterday I gave it a tooth. Mine. It sighed, like a thank you. I sighed in relief.
The shape of the hole has been changing for a while. It's longer now. Curved like a girl lying down on her side. I curled up beside it, spine to tile. I matched my shape to hers. It hurt, but I fit. I think Chloe is reshaping it for me. I think she knows I'm still here. Still keeping our secrets.
Mum says I've been quiet, hasn't left me alone since the hair. I say I'm studying. She asks if I miss Chloe. I say, "Miss her how?" I don't miss her like a friend. I miss her like blood. I miss the way she smelled like wet printer ink and crumpled flowers. I miss the part of me that got warm when she laughed. Now I am cool, I am hollow, the air gets right inside me. I enjoy being empty. I think I feel... better.
I think I'll wait until after school. Hide in the locker rooms until everyone goes home. Light candles when it's dark. Crawl out across the tiles. The hole will be waiting. It will breathe. I will whisper to it the secrets only we shared:
– The nail clippings
– The teeth in the velvet bag
– The kiss
I think the hole will widen for me. Just a little. Just enough. And I will put my foot in first. It will be body-warm. And it will smell just like Chloe's locker: chewing gum, damp paper, fabric softener, secrets. I'll slide in slowly. Fold, just like she did. Like I've always known how. Fold right in. Wait for her in that endless blackness. In that deep throat. Feel her walls wrap around me and chew. I will taste delicious for her. I will sing to her. I will be swallowed by Chloe. Chloe is a hole, and I will become the sound she makes when she's satisfied.