“That’s amazing,” I say, a little breathless. Emery’s love of art is probably the reason we’ve managed to stay friends for the last four years. That and our shared experience of having parents who don’t let us invite friends over. “Where are you getting it?”
“On my side. I think it’s going to be really painful. Will you be my emotional support?” She pushes out her bottom lip.
“Yeah, I’ll go with you.”
Her voice goes up an octave. “You could get one too, you know.”
“You want to see my mother actually murder me, don’t you?”
Emery laughs. “Okay, but at least come to the party tonight?”
And because I feel like saying no will ruin her good mood, I say, “I’ll think about it.”
Tracing my finger against the edge of the orange card, I tighten my mouth. I don’t have it in me to be rebellious. I should—in the course material for Overbearing Mothers 101, I’m probably the perfect example of a person most likely to rebel. But I hate confrontation. And disappointing people. And drawing attention to myself.
Besides, what would I do at a party?
People terrify me. I’d probably spend the whole night wishing I had the superpower to make myself invisible. I don’t know how to be any other way. Having fun with lots of other people isn’t an easy thing for me to do, especially when it’s with people I don’t feel comfortable around.
That’s why I need Prism.
I want to get away. I want to start over, so I can figure out who I really am and where I fit into the world.
Someday I’d like to feel comfortable enough around people to actually say the things I want to say. I’d like to look around and not feel like I’m the outsider. I’d like a life that just feels calm.
And I need to get away, so I can stop feeling guilty about what happened between my parents. So I don’t have to feel like the dark smudge in somebody else’s life.
I stuff the card between the pages of my yearbook and replace it with my sketchbook.
• • •
I draw a girl with arms that reach up to the clouds, but all the clouds avoid her because she’s made of night and not day.
CHAPTER THREE
Shoji is sitting on the edge of a low wall when I pick him up from tae kwon do. He’s still wearing all his gear, but he has a thin book in his hands. I have to honk to get his attention, even though I’m only a few yards away from him.
He perks his head up and pushes his black hair from his eyes. Unlike Taro’s almost-military cut, Shoji keeps his hair long and straight, like he belongs in an Asian boy band.
When we were kids, we would fight about who looked the most Asian. We weren’t fitting in at school because we were consistently one of the token minority kids. It was something the teachers seemed to appreciate when casting pilgrims and Native Americans in the school Thanksgiving plays, but it came in a lot less handy when we were trying to make friends. We thought we were just like all the other white kids, but how a person feels on the inside apparently has nothing to do with how they look on the outside.
And I guess if we couldn’t feel white in school, we wanted to at home. So the three of us fought for the title of “Most Caucasian-looking of the Himura Children.”
Mom always found our game amusing. Sometimes she’d even play along and point out which of our features looked more Asian and which were—as she’d often call it—more “normal-looking.”
Dad didn’t want to play. I think our contests hurt him more than he ever wanted to admit, but Dad doesn’t complain. He’s a peacekeeper—he endures. Maybe that’s part of the reason I have such a hard time speaking up. I feel like I’m not supposed to.
Shoji always had the blackest hair, the smallest eyes, and the roundest nose. He hated it when he was little.
But something changed since then. Now he embraces it.
Even if I asked him, I don’t think he’d ever explain why. We aren’t like other siblings—we’re strangers living under the same roof. And talking about anything too personal feels like we’re opening doors we shouldn’t.
But sometimes—when the angle is right and Shoji doesn’t notice I’m looking at him—I can see our dad and none of our mom at all.
And maybe that’s all the explanation I’ll ever need.
“Hey,” I say when he climbs into the car.
He pulls the door shut and splits his book open with his thumb. “Hey.”
It’s quiet, but it’s always quiet with Shoji. Or maybe it’s me—I can never tell. Neither of us are good conversationalists. Sometimes I worry when we grow up we’ll never talk to each other again, and it will be because we didn’t practice enough as kids.
Some people don’t have to practice at speaking—it just comes naturally to them. My brothers and I aren’t like that. For us, speaking is hard.
I look down at his book. It’s a manga.
When we were little, Dad bought us some Japanese anime DVDs for Christmas. I loved them because they were like moving artwork—Taro and Shoji just liked them because they were cool.
But Mom hated them. She said all the voices gave her a headache. Dad never bought any more of them after that.
After a while, Taro and I found other things to be interested in, but Shoji missed the stories. He said he could see himself in Japanese cartoons in a way he couldn’t with American ones, so he started collecting Japanese comics.
Manga doesn’t give Mom a headache. At least not one she could admit to.
I glance down at the open page. The writing is all in Japanese.
“Can you read that?” I ask him.
Shoji doesn’t move. “Most of it. I’m still practicing.”
I’m not embarrassed to admit I think Shoji is a lot cooler than I am, even if he is younger than me. He’s always so calm—bordering on mysterious, even. He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve; he keeps it in a locked box with all of his dreams and expressions because he doesn’t want to share them with the rest of the world.
I don’t have that kind of control. My feelings tend to burst out of me like I’m a water balloon. Mom always says it’s because I’m overly sensitive, but I can’t help it. I don’t have a box to hide my emotions the way Shoji does.
And besides, everything breaks eventually if it’s put under enough strain. Even titanium. That’s not sensitivity—that’s science.
“Is that the one about demons?” I try again.
“Yeah.” He turns the page from left to right.
We don’t talk again until I pull into the driveway of our house.
Shoji wedges his index finger against the pages like a bookmark and presses the book against his chest. He grabs the handle of the car with his free hand just as I turn off the engine.
“Uncle Max is coming over tonight.”
The first thing I think of is my stuffed rabbit. The second is the feeling that something heavy and painful in the pit of my stomach is making me want to vomit.
“Oh.” My hands fall into my lap. “What time?”
Shoji shrugs. I’m not sure if he knows why I don’t like being around Uncle Max, but he’s not stupid. Neither is Taro, even though he acts like it sometimes. When Uncle Max and I are in the same room together, the tension is suffocating.
Mom says it’s all in my head, but I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have moved out in the first place if things hadn’t gotten so weird. My parents might even still be together.
Their divorce is my fault, after all.
Shoji gets out of the car, but I don’t follow him right away. I pull the key out of the ignition and squeeze the Batman key ring into my palm. I don’t even like Batman, but Jamie Merrick gave it to me when I was six years old, and sometimes holding it makes me feel safe.
Except it’s not working today.
My heart starts to race. My head throbs. I feel like I can’t breathe.
If Shoji knew Uncle Max was coming over, it means Mom did too. Why wouldn’t she tell me herself?
&nbs
p; I get out of the car because I feel like it’s eighty thousand degrees and I need the fresh air to stop my head from spinning.
When I walk inside the house, I can hear Mom trying to get Shoji to talk to her. She has even less luck than I do, and as soon as I step into the living room, Shoji turns for the stairs with his book still in his hand.
“Mom?” I start. I try to calm my voice. Maybe she’ll be reasonable if I stay calm.
She looks at me with the kind of excitement a child has on their birthday. “Did you get your yearbook?”
“Yeah, I did. But—”
“—I want to see it!” she says with huge, round eyes.
I pull my yearbook out of my bag and hand it to her. She makes a noise like someone seeing a magic trick for the first time. There’s so much awe and innocence and joy—over a yearbook. I wish just once she had that kind of reaction over my art. No wonder we have a hard time understanding each other.
“Mom,” I start again. “Is Uncle Max coming over tonight?”
“Let’s try to be positive today, okay?” Mom says, her eyes pinned to the pages of winter formal. “What a gorgeous yearbook. Beautiful.”
I don’t know what positivity has to do with Uncle Max, or what a beautiful yearbook has to do with anything. Staying calm is becoming less and less of a possibility.
I try again. “I’m not comfortable—”
“What is this?” Mom interrupts. She pulls out something from the yearbook and holds it up. It’s the orange invitation to Lauren Finch’s party.
“It’s just a graduation thing. I already know I can’t go,” I say dismissively. I want to talk about Uncle Max—why won’t she let me?
Mom looks over the card. She takes her time, mulling it over like she’s considering something important. “Why can’t you go?” Her voice sounds distant. Timid even.
My face scrunches. “It’s a party,” I say, like this should answer everything. Mom has always been strict about letting any of us go anywhere. It took more than a year before she’d let me go to the movies with Emery. She never has a good reason—I think she just likes to be in control.
Mom shrugs. “A party could be fun. You are about to graduate. It might be a good opportunity to say good-bye to all your friends.”
I press my lips together. Mom clearly doesn’t know me very well.
But she is giving me permission to go to a party—maybe I don’t know her very well either.
And then something clicks together. I raise my eyebrows. “Are you doing this because you don’t want to talk about Uncle Max?”
Mom laughs and turns another page of the yearbook. “You think there’s an ulterior motive for everything nice I do.”
That’s because there is, I want to say. But I don’t, because I’m not an idiot. I’m about to get out of having to face Uncle Max tonight. I would literally spend the entire weekend with a house full of strangers if it meant not having to see him again.
“Okay. Well, thanks,” I say.
Mom looks back at the colorful pages in her lap. “Just gorgeous.”
I leave her alone on the couch.
• • •
When I’m upstairs getting ready for a party I never in a million years thought I’d be going to, I hear someone knock at the bathroom door. It’s Mom.
“Do you need help with your hair?” she asks.
I scrunch my face. “Mom, you haven’t touched my hair since, like, the third grade.”
She shrugs. “Can’t I help now? I’m good at hair.”
I let her in because I’m starved of motherly interest, and it feels nice that she wants to help.
She pulls and brushes and tugs at my hair, and when she’s finished, it’s pulled back in a bun so tightly my eyes look even smaller and I can barely see any hair at all.
“I look bald,” I say blankly.
Mom clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “It looks good. It shows off your face.”
“That’s the problem,” I reply under my breath.
“This is how the celebrities wear their hair on the red carpet,” she adds.
“They wouldn’t wear their hair like this if they weren’t wearing any makeup. Can I at least borrow some mascara or something?”
“Absolutely not.” Mom sniffs. “It’s way more impressive to be beautiful without makeup.”
I stiffen. She’s never called me beautiful before. Ever. I wonder when she—
“Girls were always jealous of me when I was in high school because I never wore makeup and I was the prettiest girl in the school.”
I sigh. She’s not talking about me—she’s talking about herself. Of course she is.
“I don’t look like you, Mom. This hairdo doesn’t look good on me. It makes my face look too round.”
I don’t know how Mom doesn’t see it, especially since she’s been talking about my big round circle face for as long as I can remember. The round face I got from Dad and not her. The face she’s constantly reminding me doesn’t look anything like hers.
Hair like this might be flattering on celebrities and Mom, but not on me.
“I’ll get some hair spray—don’t touch it.” She swats my hand away.
I start to tell her people stopped using this much hair spray in the nineties, but she doesn’t listen. She smothers me in a cloud of chemicals that makes me cough, and the next time I touch my hair it’s so stiff it feels like plastic.
• • •
I draw a girl without a face, drawing somebody else’s face onto her own reflection.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lauren’s house is beautiful. It’s three stories and made up of perfect red brick, and it’s surrounded by grass and hedges. A constant regurgitation of the top-twenty pop songs bursts from the open door, and a giant, inflatable unicorn is resting its plastic horn against the living room window.
Three girls about my age spill out of the front door, bright red cups in hand. A husky guy wearing a maroon college sweatshirt follows after them and tries to persuade them back inside. The girls giggle dizzily. I’m pretty sure they’ll go with him—I’ve been watching them do this weird dance of should-I-stay-or-shouldn’t-I for the past hour.
Because I am still in my car.
I’m creepily parked across the street behind a shiny white pickup truck, staring at Lauren’s house like I’m about to walk into a job interview.
Emery keeps texting to ask if I’m here yet, which is making me feel even more paranoid. I feel like someone is depending on me. It’s so much pressure.
My heart thuds. When I swallow, I feel my throat close up. I’m so jittery and squeamish and cold that I feel like I’m going to die. Literally, the best thing that could happen right now is that my body could just evaporate into the air and I would never have to face so many people.
I’m worried people are going to stare at me and I won’t know what to do or say.
The three girls disappear back into the house, and they are replaced by Adam Walker, a tall blond with questionable balance. I recognize him because he’s on the lacrosse team and looks like he stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. And also because we’ve averaged about two classes together every year since the sixth grade.
He stumbles across the driveway with a goofy half smirk frozen onto his face, and before long he’s joined by more people. Eddie Greene, Caitlyn Barrow, and Marc Sherwood, to be exact. They aren’t on the lacrosse team—they’re just popular.
They all laugh and nudge each other. They’re so comfortable in these situations. Not like me.
My phone rings. It’s Emery.
“Hey,” I say meekly.
“Why are you still in your car?”
“There’s a lot of people, and—”
“—I’m coming to get you.” She hangs up.
I sink into the driver’s seat and tell myself this is a good thing. Being around Emery will make all of this so much easier. I can fake being normal, as long as Emery doesn’t leave me alone.
She taps he
r fingers on the window and pulls the door open. She doesn’t hide her confusion when she sees my hair.
“My mom did it,” I say lamely.
She gives an abrupt laugh. “Oh my God. Do you think she genuinely thought she was being helpful, or do you think she’s afraid if you look nice, people will think you’re prettier than her?” I don’t say anything because I honestly don’t know the answer. She shakes her head and motions me closer to her.
Without waiting for permission, Emery pulls the band out of my hair and scratches her fingers through all the hair spray, shaking my hair like she’s trying to bring it back to life. Eventually she knots it back up, looser this time, so that the bun sits on top of my head instead of somewhere near my neck.
“Fixed,” she says, giving me an encouraging smile.
Emery leads me across the street. I try to remind myself it’s okay. This is what people my age do—going to parties is completely normal.
Adam seems to be walking closer to us as we near the door, his eyes falling on me curiously. “Hey, don’t I know you?”
I feel myself flinch, and I inhale his cologne. It smells like spice and pepper.
“Government, right?” Marc says, pointing a finger at me.
Caitlyn shoves him with a hand decorated with too many bracelets. “Like you’ve ever actually managed to show up to government.”
Adam snaps his fingers. “Ah, I remember you now. Kelly! You used to let me copy your math homework on the bus.” He reaches for me like he’s trying to give me a hug.
“That’s not her name,” Emery growls, tugging at my arm like she’s helping me escape. She leans in to my ear. “He is literally always the drunkest person at every party. Just ignore him.”
Before I know it, we’re walking into Lauren’s house, and a mash-up of different sounds floods my ears. A girl wearing a fedora hat is singing “Skinny Love” and strumming her guitar in the dining room. Next to her is an intense game of beer pong. And to the right of them is a group of people playing a video game in the living room.
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