by Joe Shine
I asked once more, “Seriously, what?”
He gave me a look of like “fine” and said, “I was thinking that when my roommate finds out you slept in his bed he’ll never wash his sheets again. Happy?”
I winced, the blood rushing to my face. “Ew.”
“You asked.”
Again, this whole suddenly good-looking thing had reared its ugly head. It was a factor I’d really have to start being more aware of. I had to break the mood, so I clapped my hands and said, “Well, I’m gonna go, you know, shower and stuff.”
I slipped off the bed and grabbed my shoes and socks off of the ground. When I reached the door he called out, “Hey.”
He was looking at me in a way I wished he wouldn’t. I could tell his mind was thinking, hoping, this could someday go somewhere. It wouldn’t. It couldn’t. He gave a sad little half-smile and quietly said, “Thanks again for everything. And for staying.”
“Sure thing.”
IN CASE THERE WAS a police APB out for a small, black-haired ninja with freckles wanted for snapping bones and slicing people open, I put on some baggy clothes. I even added a hat and some sunnies too. With the ensemble I pretty much looked like a fifteen-year-old boy. This new “look” would not only protect me from the swarms of police I was sure were combing the campus, but could also put an end to this now-attractive nonsense.
Dressed and ready, I took my seat on my bed waiting for Gareth to be ready. As was his usual routine, Gareth got dressed, ate a Pop-Tart, and hiked his backpack on before leaving his room. Now, usually he heads right, and once he starts down the stairs I follow. But this time he turned left.
Knock, knock went the door and so too my heart. What the hell was this?
“Yeah?” I said a little more harshly than I meant as I opened the door.
His eyes widened a bit before he got all flustered. “Oh, uh, sorry. I just, you know, we’re in the same classes and I figured we could, you know, walk together or something,” he stammered. He dropped his head. “Stupid, stupid idea. Sorry.” He turned to walk down the hallway.
I wanted to yell at him to keep going. Yeah, go all White Fang on him. Go! Get! Can’t you see I don’t want you? You’re not welcome here. And then I’d throw a rock at him for good measure. But I was fresh out of rocks, and the moment I opened the door and saw him I didn’t want to be anywhere but next to him. So when he started to walk away, I started to get that empty feeling again even though I knew I should let him go.
Out of pure selfishness, I called out, “Wait up.”
I grabbed my bag and bolted out of the door after him. He looked like a fat kid who’d won an eight-foot donut. He had done it. He’d won. We had become friendly, if not friends. Oh if Mr. S. could see me now, side-by-side and talking to my FIP.
“Nice look you got going there,” he commented. “That so the fuzz can’t recognize you?”
I nodded.
“I was gonna suggest something like that to you but forgot. The hat helps. You sorta look like a dude, though. Just FYI.”
“Kind of what I was going for,” I said flatly
When we reached our dorm exit he put his arm in front of me, stopping me from leaving.
“Wait here. I’ll go check it out.”
As sneakily as he could, and I use the term loosely since he looked like cartoon character, he crept outside and looked around. “All clear. Let’s go.”
It was cute. Even with the irony. In fact, the irony made it cuter.
We made our way down the all-too-familiar paths toward the engineering area, only this time together. Yes, I liked having the company. I was all too happy to let Gareth jabber on about how awesome last night was and how he’d like me to teach him how to (and I quote), “deliver ass-kickery.” All I had to do was occasionally nod to keep him thinking I was listening.
“… I mean, can you believe this, Julia, I mean, Ren? It’s like a real-life comic book or something. A hot, quiet girl who lives next door. Kind of nerdy. Big loner. You know, the girl you dream about hanging out with but since it’s been so long since you became neighbors it would be weird to introduce yourself now, so you fantasize about some exotic moment that finally brings you together. And then BAM! Suddenly it happens. This doesn’t happen in the real world.” He finished by gesturing toward me.
He was rambling on so excitedly I was having Lloyd flashbacks.
The momentary pause cued me that it was time for my line. “Uh-huh.”
“I know, right …” And so he continued. Past the clock tower. Across drill field. Around the library.
There was police tape blocking the alley shortcut where the “incident” had taken place. So we went around it. A small part of me got scared a cop would stop us for questioning and recognize me from a security camera or something, but the few who were there drank their coffee and ignored us.
Either my disguise had worked, or, as was more likely, they had no idea who had done it.
Safely past the crime scene I toyed with the idea of what I would have done had the police seen me and shouted, “There she is!” I could easily have taken them all out, but then what? Could I return to the FATE Center? What would happen if the police caught me? Well, I knew that one. Actually, I think I knew the answer to both. The Hunters would come for me. I would eventually be found and killed, maybe even by Luka himself. And if the police caught me alive, well, I’m sure my first meal would be my last, laced with FATE-supplied poison.
There was another pause in the jabber coming from Gareth. I had totally zoned out and had absolutely no idea what he had said.
“So do you?” he repeated.
“Do I what?” I asked.
“Do you want to see that movie I was talking about tonight?” he asked.
“Oh, uh … well. I kind of have a …”
“You have a boyfriend,” he interrupted quietly.
I was actually going to say “project to finish” and was about to correct him on the boyfriend comment but stopped. Do I? Don’t I? This was another opportunity to fix the mess I’d created. Besides, what exactly was Junie to me if not that? There was the balcony, the emails every night. On the other hand, if odds were a million-to-one you’d never see the other person again, could you really consider him to be your boyfriend? I think I wanted Junie to be my boyfriend, but logically speaking how could he be? But he definitely was more than a friend, so I finally nodded. “Yeah, I do have a boyfriend.”
While the look on Gareth’s face made me want to take it back, I didn’t. It was true, at least as far as I figured it, and it would be better if Gareth didn’t fantasize about something that would never happen. We were friends. That was it. And if I could somehow tone it down, not even very close friends. Acquaintances perhaps.
“Well, that sucks,” he said before continuing, “Lemme guess. Tall. Good-looking. Athletic?”
That was Junie. “Pretty much spot-on.”
“Shocker.”
“What?” I asked defensively.
“Well, I mean, it’s almost cliché, isn’t it?”
And maybe it was. But I think if given the circumstances we’d met under, you could look past that.
As if grasping, Gareth asked, “Is he smart?”
I kind of cringed and lightly said, “He thinks he is?”
Gareth nodded at the small victory, but it didn’t seem to help much. We walked the final few blocks to class in silence. I expected Grumpy Pants to take his seat at the front of the class as always, so I was surprised to see him sit next to me.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You don’t sit back here.”
“I only sat up front because my folks told me to. Said it would be good for the professor to get to know me, recognize me.” He took a breath before adding, “Didn’t work. I ran into him a few weeks ago by the quad and he called me Walker. It’s not even close.”
I gave a snort, and he laughed too. The classroom quickly began to fill up around us as we talked crap about the Prof. Gareth was taking
the news of Junie like a challenge, and it had spurred him to lighten up and try to be cooler.
Lloyd took his customary seat on my other side and was a little annoyed at the level of attention I was paying to Gareth instead of him. Look at me: queen of the nerds! Not to be cast aside so easily, Lloyd joined in on the spirited Prof-bashing until Prof showed up—reminding me just how much I hated this class
As was my usual routine, the moment he started to lecture I made a big production of pulling out a newspaper and reading it instead of hanging on his every word. We seemed to have an unspoken agreement. I would ignore him altogether and he would do his best to flunk me. I would win this battle no matter how hard he tried. It was kind of sad if you were on his side, but a lot of fun if you were on mine.
“Do you do this every class?” Gareth asked me out of the corner of his mouth.
“Pretty much,” I said casually as I folded the paper.
“You are an impressive girl.”
I shrugged and gave him a wink. He went back to taking more than copious notes, literally writing down everything the Prof said or wrote on the board.
I went to back my paper and almost started laughing out loud when I read the front-page headline: POLICE SEARCHING FOR SUPERHERO.
Apparently, my story about the random person coming to save us and chasing after the imaginary third attacker had stuck. The group of kids from the fountain had eaten it up and told anyone who would listen. One of the girls even “swore” she saw a cloaked figure scale one of the campus buildings. Right. The cloaked figure of embellishment, maybe. But the police had bought it, every word. They and the school were convinced that it was all the work of some local vigilante. They wanted to bring him in for questioning. The Editorial Board on the Opinion Page wanted to give him a medal. Shocking how it’s always a him, huh?
The police were also looking for the girl and boy who were saved by the amazing superhero. But all that witnesses were able to tell the police about the victims was that they were of college age and wearing jeans. So it was more of a plea by the police for the two victims to come forward. Like your little brother begging for you to let him play with you. Come on, pleeease. Pleeease come in for questioning? Not gonna happen. I looked at my outfit and the absurdity of it. I was more than in the clear, yet here I was dressed like a fifteen-year-old white rapper.
I finished the crossword as class ended. I would normally leave and wait for Gareth to make his way out, so I’d never seen what exactly he did between the moment I boogied out of class and the moment he followed. It was one of the only parts of day I didn’t have my eyes on him. I could finally put this mystery to bed.
He had taken about eight full pages of notes, front and back. Page by page he read them to himself. So this is why it takes him so long to get outside. Finished, he folded them up, picked up his bag, and stood up.
“Ready?”
I nodded. We moved down the row toward the door. When we reached the exit he dropped his folded-up notes into the trash.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
I took the papers out of the trash. “You don’t have to try and impress me or anything, Gareth. Here, keep your notes.”
I handed the pages back to him and he grinned. “I never keep notes. Ever.” And he tossed the pages right back in the garbage. He gave a wry smile, pointed to his forehead and said, “I keep it all up here.”
“Don’t let me be a bad influence on you, please don’t do this,” I said seriously.
“I have a photographic memory, Ren. Once I read it, I have it forever.” He laughed to himself. “You thought I did that to impress you? Man, you and your ego. Think all three of us can fit through the door at once?” Still grinning, he left me to follow.
I was stunned. More than that, I was impressed. “You really have a photographic memory?” I asked as I caught up.
“Yup.”
“Cool. What’s it like?”
“You mean to remember everything?”
I nodded.
He shrugged. “Handy.”
CHAPTER 21
BREAKTHROUGHS AND BREAKUPS
Over the next few weeks I spent more time with Gareth, in spite of my daily resolution to cool off toward him. We developed what he called a fake relationship, with me being his fake girlfriend. As he said, oozing with sarcasm: “You know, the one you buy dinner and gifts for, and spill your guts to, but never sleep with. Love it.”
Hey, it gave me more reasons to be with him, which I wasn’t going to turn down. Was I worried about getting in the way of what he did or became? Kind of, but judging by his attitude, and the fact that he still spent most of his waking hours in a lab, it was pretty easy to guess he would become some kind of great scientist or something. So with that in mind, I figured as long as I never kept him from his work, how bad could hanging out with him be? He even told me that spending time with me cleared his mind. His words, I swear: he was able to get more work done knowing he’d get to see me after. So really, by breaking the rules I was actually helping, you know? Convinced yet? Me neither.
Was this better than obeying orders and leaving him alone? Hell, no. But who’s perfect, right? After what I’d gone through I could be a little selfish for a bit.
As it turned out Gareth wasn’t so much a nerd by choice but by circumstance. It was something he felt obligated to be. As I got to know him more, he told me that he understood that the gift he had came with a responsibility to do something with it. He wanted to spend all day at the pool goofing off. He wished he was good at sports. But he wouldn’t, and he wasn’t. While it seemed like everyone else our age was trying their best to be on a reality show or score a touchdown or make crappy pop music, he was trying to do something good, something that could change the world. Or at the very least provide the stepping-stone for someone else to do it. And there was something honorable in that. Attractive, even.
IT HAD BEEN ABOUT three weeks since the back alley slice-and-stomp, and not so surprisingly three weeks since the “superhero” was last spotted.
I’d lied when he’d called. I’d said I was working on a project too and would meet him outside the labs after for a burger. He’d asked when, all weirdly out of breath. Per my rule not to get in the way of his work, I told him whenever he was done because I had more than enough work to keep me busy. He’d bought it. It’s great how infatuation can blind someone. Or maybe I’m really good at lying. Probably a good mix of both.
Anyway, here I was, waiting as always on a sofa. I had been given a wide smile and thumbs-up from the old security guard.
Now Gareth was late. A text had come a little over ten minutes ago saying he’d be done in a few minutes, so now I was anxious. I was watching the elevator waiting for him. When the doors slid open, the anxiety evaporated. He jog-walked over to me, beyond giddy, and grabbed my hand as he said, “Come on!”
I let him pull me from the building and outside, all to the security guard’s amusement, of course. When he tried to drag me down the stairs I pulled my arm away and stopped.
“What’s going on?”
He kept grinning stupidly. “I did it.”
“Did what?” I responded.
He looked around as if looking for spies before saying, “Not here. Come on.”
He reached for my hand.
“I’m not holding your hand,” I said flatly. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the dorm.”
He slowly started to leave but kept looking at me, making sure I was going to follow him. Little did he know.
Lawrence was home and preoccupied with some video game in Gareth’s room, so we went into mine instead. (I always kept the weapons hidden in case of just such a surprise visit.) Once the door was closed Gareth dropped his bag and uttered, “I did it. I actually did it.”
And then he did his own version of a happy dance. It was a bit more macho then mine, more fist pumps, a few awkward leg kicks, some victorious arm raises too, and
a pelvic thrust, of course. I sat on the edge of my bed and waited for him to be done. Obviously, since he was this excited, that connection we shared made me feel overly so as well. I wanted to do a happy dance too but instead held it in. This was his moment.
A little out of breath and with his hair a mess, he stopped, turned toward me, and said, “Sorry.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I did it,” he said again.
“We’ve covered that part. What have you done?”
“I figured it out. Broke the code, so to speak. It’s not done and I’ll need who knows how long to perfect it, but I should be able to do it. Exciting, right?” When I didn’t answer he continued, “Oh, right, sorry. Okay, Ren, I think I’ve created a wheat seed that can grow without water.”
And … was my first reaction. Big deal … was my second. Then I thought about it. Holy hell! My eyes widened with recognition, as I fully understood the implications of it.
“It could grow anywhere,” I said. He nodded as I continued my out-loud thinking, “Deserts, droughts, wouldn’t matter.” I looked right at him as I said, “This could cure hunger. This will change the world.”
He nodded as our eyes locked. And then he did something I should have expected. He leaned in quickly and kissed me.
If the feeling I got being around him was a ten, then this was a gajillion. I felt like every nerve ending in my body were alive, exploding with pleasure. I wanted to live in that feeling for the rest of my life. But then my stupid brain got in the way.
What the hell are you doing?
Before I could stop it, Old Brain took over. It was like an out-of-body experience. I watched my hands shove him backward, hard. His back and head slammed into the wall at the foot of my bed, and he rolled onto the floor.
He got up quickly, his face a fiery red. “I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry. It was … I was excited, and you looked so …”
Little did he know I was currently in a be-all-end-all, battle royale with myself. I wanted nothing more than to grab him, slam him onto the bed, and get me a little more of whatever I had felt when he kissed me. But my brain, the one that calls the shots, was putting the kibosh on it. So I sat there staring at him, frozen like a broken-down robot. He grabbed his bag and when he reached the door said, “Really. I’m sorry. Say something. Oh, jeez. Please don’t … please don’t.” With no reaction or acknowledgment from me he slammed the door behind him, defeated, head down.
