Snitch

I felt Iggi’s eyes bore into me before I was even aware of her walking into the main lobby. It was Saturday, there were no classes, but we still had an appointed time to wake up so we could sign in to let staff know we were still present on campus. I had woken up earlier that morning so frightened of all that was probably going to happen to me I signed my name and stayed posted up on one of the couches nearest the door. Her glare felt like fiery ice on my skin. The very second I felt it, my whole entire body stiffened like a board. I was waiting for the same echoing insult from last night, but it never came. She did stare at me from the time she walked out of her wing, to her signing her fancy signature on the paper, to her walking back to her wing. I didn’t return her stare, my peripheral did pick up on how she stared at me, how her usual walk looked more predatory in a way, looking like she was a wildcat of some kind and she was circling a kill that she knew was going to be all too easy for her. I was definitely her prey, she was going to rip me apart if she ever got me alone. I was too paralyzed to move from the couch and go back to hiding in my room. Then again, my roommates were probably up by now and would probably still be looking at me funny and stuff because of last night.
Iggi emerged again from her wing about thiry minutes later. Again, she glared. Again, I didn’t meet her eyes. Still, out the corner of my eye I saw she was dressed now and I didn’t like what she was wearing. It was often commented by many that not only did Iggi dress down right guy-like at times, she could sometimes just come off so intimidating and tough, some guys were scared to get on her bad side. She had made it a habit of wearing bandanas on her head, tied up in a unique way where they trailed down her back, I guess to make-up for the short hair, her jacket was the combo of a black leather jacket with a matching hoody underneath it, but it was open so I could see the white tank top she sported, along with her baggy sweat pants, and skater sneakers. She was dressed like a girl ready to fight. Though there were a lot of times where she just dressed like that casually, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was preparing to deliver a smack down on me if she gets the chance today.
She left out of the dorm, into the bright, sunny fall afternoon outside. I stayed glued in my spot for a few more hours until I decided that it was only forty-five minutes until noon, which was lunch. Deciding that I was going to be brave, I got up and went outside. I won’t lie, at least not this time, I did a quick search of the area around to check for Iggi or anybody else who might still be sore about last night. There were a few people in the smoking area, but nobody from last night so I made my way towards the main building. I got to the last hallway that led into the cafeteria and sat down in front of the glass doors that were the entrance.
Then to my utter horror, I heard the door leading to the hallway swing open. Only allowing myself a glance that lasted less than a second all I got was the image of a bandana and a black jacket and I already knew that somehow she had seen me and followed me here. I was completely trapped, to try to get out was just a stupid thought on my part. I would have to go past her and there was no way that was happening without a confrontation that I wasn’t ready for. I pulled out my phone and started fidgeting with it just so it would appear as though I hadn’t acknowledged her coming in. However, the usually light-footed Iggi seemed to have developed a heavier step overnight because her footsteps were echoing in the empty hall.
She stopped only a few inches of me and the only thing that I could manage to look at was her feet.
“Hey Trizda, how are you this morning?” she crouched down next to me and asked in such an exaggeratedly nice tone I knew that there was no good will behind her polite statement.
She waited for a moment which made me think that she was actually waiting for me to answer. However, when I parted my lips to say anything she quickly cut me off with this, “That’s all well and good, I don’t really care. Say, um, you don’t know me very well do you?” She asked me, again in the same exaggerated nice tone. She waited like she wanted an answer from me, but again when I went to open my mouth, she cut me off again. “Surely, you can’t because I know barely anything about you. So I know, that if I don’t know you, you really shouldn’t know me either. Am I right?” she gave me a smile that looked almost convincing enough for me to think that for a moment there, maybe all she really wanted to do was just talk and not slaughter me with hurtful words or fists, whichever weapon she chose to fight me with.
Yet I still knew better, and instead of trying to answer her question with words, I just nodded my head. The very moment I did that was when the whole entire façade finally fell. Iggi’s face went into a still mask of angry hate and her eyes looked like somebody had set the night sky on fire.
“So why is my name in that mouth of yours?” she all but growled at me. Similar to the cat yowl she had hurled at me last night.
Thinking only on my feet, I quickly felt like I had to pass the buck or this girl was going to beat my ass right here in this hallway where nobody could do anything about it, “It wasn’t me who told.” I exclaimed quickly.
“Who did then?” she fired just as loudly and quickly.
Thinking off the top of my head I blurted out, “It was Mitchell that told on everyone. Not me.”
Mitchell was there at the festival that night with us and he was in the security trade here on campus. There was always a joke here that if you went into security, you were a snitch. I hope Iggi was one of the people who believed that.
“Oh really?” she asked tilting her head to the side, “Because that’s not what Taysia told me awhile ago.”
“Taysia who?” I asked stupidly, knowing I was only digging myself a deep grave here. There was really another Taysia on campus but she went by the nickname of Rica and everyone knew that.
She must have been getting fed up with my lies because Iggi answered through her slightly gritted teeth, “Your roommate Taysia, who happens to be an acquaintance of mine’s from back home Taysia.”
At this, I tried to stop revealing how scared and caught I was right now. So I said in what I hoped was the most nonchalant of tones I could muster, “I didn’t tell her shit.”
“Oh, you didn’t.” she spat, “You see, I know Taysia wouldn’t lie to me.”She leaned in closer to my face which I had to turn away from, “You, I know you would. So I’m just going to say it like this for you. Back where I’m from we have a saying for people, just like you. Mind your own business and you live a lot longer. See, back where I’m from snitches get no love. You would’ve been put in the ground for less back where I’m at.” Then she takes her forefinger and drives it into my temple, making sure that her thick, oval shaped nail digs in, “Keep people’s name out of your mouth. I’m serious.”
With that she stood up and huffed off like the bitch she had just shown me that she was capable of being. I knew Iggi had it in her to be dark but I felt like what she just did to me was personally evil. She left me hoping and praying that this was the end of whatever wrath that she is willing to unleash on me.

I sat by myself at lunch. There was no point in ignoring the stares, the whispers, the thinly veiled insults because everyone made sure that I knew about them. Being at this place, with only limited accesses to the outside world, stuff travels fast here. By the middle of the afternoon, everyone on campus is going to know that I ratted out their beloved Iggi. Then to make matters worse, more than a few times I caught myself staring at Barto, only to see him with Iggi. The first time we were all standing in the lunch line. She had pulled him off to the side and they were talking in whispered voices. The conversation seemed to be cut short after Barto had said something and the two returned to the line without saying much to each other. However, they still sat together with the rest of their group. That was until Iggi got up to go sit at the same table as Ciro once he had walked in. Yet still, I couldn’t help but notice that Barto stared after her for a few seconds before he continued about his group discussion with the other guys at the table. Fuck my life.
Once I was finished eating I went back to my room, and thank goodness it was empty. I plugged in my cell phone and took out some fresh sheets to start making my bed. A few minutes later the room door opened. I turned around to see Taysia coming in, but right behind like a shadow was Iggi, giving me that same hateful glare. My heart dropped into my bladder because it had skipped a beat and suddenly I felt myself having to pee really bad. Taysia came in and went over to her bed, while Iggi waited at the door, her eyes on me the entire time. I found it kind of weird how the two of them never really seemed all that cool with each other before. Hell, I didn’t even think they knew each other until they both got here despite being from the same place. Now as of what Iggi said this morning, they’re now just the best of friends.
“Did you unplug my DVD player?” Taysia snapped at me.
I turned to see what she was talking about. Taysia had a personal DVD player and a stack of DVDs that she liked watching before she went to sleep at night. She had left the thing charging this morning and now it was unplugged. I don’t recall unplugging her stuff so I could plug in my phone, but I tend to be absentminded at times. I probably did it and didn’t notice what I was doing.
“I had to charge my phone and the other outlet was taken.” I said, looking at her.
She looked as if she was going to lay into me, but instead just flagged me off with her hand, gritted her teeth, and just unplugged my phone charger and plugged her DVD player back in.
“I gotta go to the bathroom. I’ll be back Iggz.” Taysia told her as she set her purse on the bed and went to the bathroom.
Iggi crossed the room to sit on Taysia’s bed. The whole time her eyes never left me for a moment. As it seems to be my routine with her, she stares and I try my damndest not to look back at her so she could see just how much she really scared me.
“You really just unplugged her stuff, so you could plug yours up? You’re rude as fuck.” She said in a flat tone but her look was just downright sinister. There was no way she was leaving this room before she made me feel an inch tall like she did in the hallway earlier.
Taysia soon came out of the bathroom and came over to Iggi who jumped off her bed and started to make her way back to the door. However, Taysia must have thought about the whole my unplugging her DVD player because she said this, “You know I would have very much been upset if I had came in here, thinking that my DVD player was charging and then went to watch a movie, just to have it die on me. Why did you unplug it?”
“She probably did it on purpose because she was mad you told me all she said about her snitching on me and Ciro last night.” Iggi interjected and this was the first time that my fear of her turned to anger.
She was really pushing my buttons already. She already threatened me, what else did she want? Just to cause trouble amongst me and my roommates so when she can’t get on my nerves, they could because they live with me?
“Did you, Trizda? Did you do it on purpose?” Taysia asked, a tad bit of hurt leaking into her tone.
“No, I didn’t.” I defended quickly.
Taysia looked over at the outlets. Besides her DVD player, her phone charge took up the other slot, however it wasn’t connected to anything, “Why didn’t you unplug my phone charger? It wasn’t charging anything.”
“I didn’t want to touch your phone charger.” I blurted out stupidly, I cringed inwardly at my own dumb excuse.
Iggi hopped on it too, to make me feel all the more worse, “So wait,” she giggled, “You don’t want to touch her phone charger that wasn’t charging anything, but you’ll touch the DVD charger that was charging? You’re an idiot.”
Did that bitch really just call me an idiot?!
“Iggi, stop. We’re not trying to be mean or anything…” Taysia said, trying to sound reasonable.
“I am.” Iggi snorted obnoxiously.
“I know you are. We all know you’re pissed. Trizda, tell me why you didn’t unplug the phone charger and use that outlet, okay? Go.” She instructed.
At that moment my mind went so blank that the excuse was so pathetic and sorry I couldn’t even remember what it was the minute the words left my mouth. I had forgotten the moment the thought left my mind. Taysia and Iggi were both looking at me like I was a fucking retard and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Taysia shook her head in disbelief and Iggi just laughed before saying smugly, “You know, if I was like a portion of retarded I would have believed that, even if I didn’t understand what you were saying.”
“Trizda, what the hell are you even talking about? Just tell me what was your reason for touching my shit?” Taysia said impatiently now.
“Why are you asking her? She’s not going to tell you the truth. She’s gonna lie to you like she did to me earlier.” Iggi interjected.
“I didn’t lie. It was Mitchell that told you.” I instantly defended, even though I had lied and was lying still.
“But Tay told me that you told her and all your roommates that you told on everyone that drank at the festival. So are you saying that she lied to me? Are you calling Tay a liar?” Iggi said in a tone that I knew she was trying to instigate something between me and Taysia.
She was trying to turn Taysia even more against than she already was.
“No, I’m not a liar.” Taysia said to heatedly. “You can ask Nini and you can ask Kara. You said that you saw Iggi and her boyfriend, Ciro drinking on the back of the bus. Right before you showed us those cum stains on your pants that you said you got back from Barto.”
Shit, they were catching me, again I tried to recover, “I told you that, but I didn’t tell you I told on them.”
“Yes the fuck you did, Trizda.” Taysia all but started to pull her hair out of her head.
“Don’t worry, Tay. I got this.” Iggi reassured her before she turned to me.
I had got up and sat on my bed now and for the first time since she been in the room, I met Iggi’s eyes. I swear if I had never seen a more evil pair of eyes in my life. Before I used to think that they were pretty for them being so dark. They were so dark they reflected absolutely everything the girl looked at. Now they were just two evil black pits that reflected how small and terrified I looked curled up on my bed, shying away from her hard gaze.
“You want to know how I know you’re lying, by the way if you’re gonna lie at least be good at it. After I went out to see Ciro during the late night break, he told me that Suwie came up to him and had asked him why did he put that bag in the back of the truck. At first Ciro didn’t know what he was talking about, but I reminded him that he put the bag with the bottles in the back of that white pick-up truck. The only person who saw us do that was you, Trizda. Remember I had asked you not…to…say…anything.” She growled the last few words at me.
Suwie was short for the last name of our Indonesian bus driver, Suwandi. I guess the guards had told him what I had said last night, which could be the only way he would have known to ask Ciro about that.
“If Mitch is the one who snitched, like you keep saying, how could he had known to let it get back to Suwie about Ciro and the bag if he was nowhere around? The only person who saw us was you. Well?” she cocked her head to the side again.
It took everything in me not to cry at this point. This girl had officially made me feel the lowest and the stupidest I ever felt in my life. It takes a lot to get me that low.
“Unless you told Mitchell.” Taysia suggested.
Before I could think up another lie, my mouth acted faster than my brain by blurting out, “No.”
“So who else could’ve told but you, Trizda?! After I asked you not to tell, you told anyway. Why?!!” Iggi exclaimed at me in the same wildcat yowl from last night. I’m growing to really hate that sound from her.
“I just…wanted to protect myself and make it so no trips will be canceled…” I started but Iggi again broke me off.
“The staff wouldn’t have known anything if you had kept your fucking mouth shut. You just wanted something to say.” Iggi growled through gritted teeth, “Mind your business and you live longer. Keep people names out your mouth. I better not hear “Ignacia Harrah” come out your mouth, I better not hear “Ciro Madrigal” come out of your mouth. Anybody that I care about, if you say anything about them, You…are…mine’s.” she growled before finally stalking out of my room, being followed by Taysia who cast one more disgusted look at me.
After they had left, I just curled up on my bed and wished that I could die. I hated Iggi and she’s only officially started speaking to me yesterday. I really, really hoped that that was going to be the end of it all, but it wasn’t. This was hardly the end of Iggi’s wrath towards me.