It was raining outside. Or at least that's what Giselle assumed as she stared at the puddles underneath the subway seats. The rubbery flooring was warped with age and filth, and she wondered if it had ever been cleaned. A drop of mysterious ceiling water dribbled perfectly in between the collar of her jacket and her hair, rolling down the nape of her neck.

“Great,” she thought. “As if I didn’t feel dirty enough.”

The subway car was cold and moist at the same time. It was like it had its own weather, its own ecosystem. Giselle imagined the car was filled with animals. The old lady sitting across from her looked like a tortoise with lipstick on and jowls shrunk back into her fur coat shell. A man standing by the car doors had a wide smile on his face and his scruffy long hair reached his collar. He reminded Giselle of a hyena in a suit. The boy sitting next to her was some kind of lizard.

“Are you good?” Lizard boy whispered.  

“What.”

“I mean, you look kinda sad. Did I do something wrong?”

Giselle turned to him. She half-heartedly smiled and focused on the scaly freckle in the middle of his forehead.

“I just...We shouldn’t have done that. Please don’t tell anyone,” she said to the freckle.

The lizard boy’s eyes narrowed. For a second Giselle could swear that his tongue flickered out to taste the regret that lingered in the stale air. The train doors opened a woman in a fluffy down coat stepped inside, followed by her three little ducklings, clad in their soccer uniforms.

“Uh ok...This is my stop,” he hissed.

Giselle got up to hug him goodbye, but he had already slithered out of the car and disappeared into the jungle of people beyond. She stared down back at the puddle. It looked like a black hole, one that could pull her into it and out of her own world. The doors closed and as the train left the station she could feel a weight lift off her chest.

On the walk back home, Giselle didn’t have an umbrella. The raindrops on her glasses blurred the faces that flooded the sidewalk. But it didn’t matter, because she wasn’t paying attention now anyway.

The image of the lizard boy’s scaly hands running through her hair, clawing at her body, kept replaying in her mind. It was like she was watching herself from the third person. The lizard boy was on top of her, peering down with a toothy grin. His back was hollow, but his fleshy stomach dropped down onto her, pinning her in place. Feeling his bare skin next to hers made her cold like he was sucking all of the warmth out of her with every kiss.

It was almost as if he was the predator and she was the prey, except Giselle knew what she had been getting herself into on the way back to his house. She went willingly. She knew could have turned around at any time during the walk to from school to the subway, but didn’t. In fact, it was her idea in the first place that they do their homework in his bedroom, with the door closed.

At first, they talked about the mundane things people talk about when they don’t really have anything to say, like school or the weather. But their substance-less conversation quickly drew to a close when the lizard boy began rummaging through the plethora of records underneath his twin bed.

“How’s this?” he said before blowing the dust off the Hotel California album cover.

Giselle shrugged, smiling curiously. She had never gotten around to listening to the Eagles.

The music wasn’t bad. Giselle was surprised actually liked it. Maybe when the lizard boy made the first move it was the music that had made Giselle go along with it. It was the music coursing through her veins and moving her muscles towards him. It was the music that had made her take her shirt off...Or had the lizard boy taken upon himself to do that?

He was too eager. But it was only when the boy’s face was pressed up against her own that she could feel he was cold-blooded. Only when he told her that they “Had to go because his dad was coming home real soon,” did Giselle realize that she was merely his catch of the day. He was done kissing her. She was no one important to him, and they both knew it.

When Giselle got home, she went to the bathroom without taking her converse off. They squeaked with every step. No one was home, so she left the door open while she showered. There was a huge window in the bathroom that broadcasted Giselle to her neighbors. Normally, she made sure to pull down the shades, but this time she didn’t. She had already stood vulnerable in front of someone who felt like a stranger that day, so what was the difference?

As Giselle waited for the water to reach a scalding temperature, steam rose up from behind the shower curtain and sheltered her from watching eyes. Beads of water trickled down her back while she combed the rain out of her stringy hair. There was something wrong about her reflection. Before stepping into the tub, Giselle wiped her hand across the foggy mirror, catching a glimpse of a lizard girl staring back at her.