Katie walking through the school corridors

Katie was pressed tightly against herself, her arms clamped over her chest and other vital areas like she was trying to win a game of human Twister. This frantic, full-body hug was her pathetic attempt to conserve the last remaining shred of dignity and a tiny bit of warmth. Her bare feet were not so much walking as they were squelching, leaving a trail on the linoleum that looked less like a discreet puddle and more like a poorly mopped mess following a flash flood.

What made this private disaster a public spectacle waiting to happen was the fact that she was not only completely and utterly naked, but soaked. Every movement sent a fresh trickle of cold water down her skin. Worse, the static from her wet hair made the small hairs on her body stand up, giving her goosebumps that were visible from three feet away—the ultimate siren song of shame. When she crouched to peer under a door window, she slipped, nearly performing an impromptu split before catching herself with a loud, wet smack against the locker metal.

She scurried low, resembling a terrified, very pale crab, toward the safety of her locker. Her brain had one mission: clothes, towel, anything that isn't air.

That brief, strained silence was obliterated by the school’s deafening bell. It wasn't a warning; it was a detonation. Next period. The student body was about to flood the main artery of the school, and she was the equivalent of a traffic obstruction made of clammy shame.

“Crap, crap, crap, crap!” she whimpered, the water in her lungs adding a wheezing soprano quality to her panic. Her eyes, wide and manic, tracked the far end of the hall as the first wave of students appeared. She began rushing around, a slippery blur of desperation. In a moment of sheer panic, she tried to duck behind a trash can, only to realize the can was too short. She was left awkwardly hovering behind the bin, knees bent, like a naked person trying to impersonate a small shrub.

She abandoned the trash can and broke into a full sprint. The sloshing sound of her run was amplified tenfold by the hallway acoustics, a rhythmic, humiliating slosh-slosh-slosh that promised to draw every eye. She could hear the confident, oblivious footsteps of the approaching crowd getting louder.

Her gaze whipped back and forth, from the ceiling tiles to the floor tiles, her face burning hotter than any fever. Katie, a walking, streaming water hazard, searched frantically for an impossible sanctuary until, inevitably, her eyes locked onto something just around the corner…