Rated

by Melissa Grey

“I was five,” she said, with as much indignation as a twelve-year-old could muster, which was rather a lot.

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s on your permanent record, spark plug.” He ruffled her hair, smiling when she pulled away. With her hair all fluffed up, Noah finally noticed it was thinner than it had been.

  “What is it?” Cece asked, sorting the gummy sharks into an orderly rainbow.

  “I got tested,” Noah said. “For my bone marrow.”

  Her hands paused, one still holding a green shark, as she raised her eyes to meet his. There was such expectation in them. Noah’s chest constricted, like his rib cage was trying to crush his vital organs.

  “I’m not a match.”

  A moment of silence passed between them, heavy with all the possibilities that simple statement had just washed away. But then Cece sighed and popped the green shark into her mouth. When she spoke, her words came out muffled.

  “It was a long shot to begin with,” she said. She paused to swallow. “But thanks for trying.”

  That was … not the reaction Noah had expected. He’d braced himself for crying. Maybe even a little anger. But she barely looked flustered by the news. Already, her attention had drifted away from him and back to her candy hoard. She wiggled her fingers over the pile before she settled on a bar of chocolate.

  Might as well go all out, Noah thought to himself. He’d always told Cece everything. It would feel disingenuous to start hiding things from her now.

  “That’s not all,” he said.

  Cece didn’t even look up at him as she tore open the candy wrapper. “Oh?”

  “I’m adopted.”

  Cece looked at him, a handful of chocolate halfway to her mouth. “So?”

  So?

  So?

  “So?” Noah repeated, because it was one of those things that bore repeating. “Wait, did you know?”

  The idea that his twelve-year-old sister could have kept a secret of that magnitude was unthinkable. Once, years ago, she’d caught Noah pilfering five dollars from their mother’s purse during a particularly sweltering summer. He’d wanted to buy a vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles from the ice cream truck that drove through their neighborhood every day at two o’clock. She’d promised not to tell—provided he bought her one, too—and had lasted all of seven minutes before cracking. Their mother had simply asked if Cece had seen her car keys.

  Cece shook her head, biting into the chocolate bar with crispy rice. Those were her favorites. “No. I just don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

  “But it is!” Noah’s voice ticked up to an octave he hadn’t realized he could hit.

  A mere shrug was all Cece offered him. “I have a high threshold for big news.”

  “Oh my god, what twelve-year-old talks like that?”

  “All I do is read all day. My vocabulary is epic.”

  “So wait,” Noah said. He wasn’t quite done torturing himself. “This doesn’t bother you at all?”

  “No.” Cece looked at him like he was being exceptionally dense. “Why would it?

  “Because … that’s why I can’t be your donor.”

  Cece put down the chocolate bar and leveled him with an eerily intense stare. “Noah, it’s okay. It doesn’t change anything. You’re still my dumb brother and I’m still your exceptional sister. Everything is just like it was before, even if you are now burdened with a great and terrible knowledge that’s, honestly, not that great or terrible.”

  “It felt pretty terrible,” Noah muttered, pressing his thumb into the side of a pack of bubble gum.

  “If it bothers you so much, you should talk to Mom and Dad about it.”

  Noah shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Cece plucked the bubble gum away from him. “Plenty of people are adopted. Maybe you should just get over it. I know it sounds harsh, but I say that with love. Now stop messing with my candy.”

  That he could just get over it hadn’t really occurred to Noah until that moment. And it was possible she had a point. Being a blood relation wouldn’t have been a guarantee he’d have been a bone marrow match anyway. The odds would have been better, but by no means had it been a certainty. And it’s not like his parents weren’t his parents anymore. Javi had said as much at Lucky’s, but it hadn’t sunk in then. It still wasn’t quite sinking fully in, but it was starting to penetrate the thick layer of indignation in which he’d wrapped himself.

  “You’re smiling,” Cece said. “It’s a dumb smile. Like you’re thinking about a girl or something.”

  Noah blinked. Before he could stop himself, he said, “Not a girl.”

  Cece’s grin widened. “A boy, then?”

  So this was a conversation they were going to have now, too.

  Great.

  “Yeah,” Noah said, and left it at that.

  “Are you gay?” Cece asked. She had no filter. When she wanted to know something, she never wasted time fretting about it. She simply asked.

  Noah picked at the edge of her bedspread. It was one from home that their grandmother had crocheted long before either of them were born. “I don’t think so. I’ve liked girls before.” And he had; his attraction to Javi didn’t negate that. “I think I might be bi.”

  “Dude. You’re just hitting me with all the revelations today,” Cece said. “Maybe you should’ve spread them out a bit, saved some for slow news days.”

  Noah let out a small laugh. “Yeah, maybe I should have. I’ll just have to come up with something even more outlandish next time.”

  “You better.” Cece leaned in, her grin going slightly maniacal. “So, tell me everything about this boy. His name, his favorite color, his thoughts on how you pronounce ‘GIF.’ ”

  She said it with a hard g, like gift. Noah preferred a soft g, like giraffe. On this, they would never agree.

  “Have you always been this nosy?” he asked as he watched her tear into another candy bar. “Or is this a new development?”

  “There’s not a lot of juicy gossip on the ward,” she said, mouth full of half-chewed chocolate. It was gross, but also cute, because Cece was his little sister and she could do no wrong. “Do you like him? What are his intentions?”

  “I don’t know,” Noah said.

  “Which one?”

  “Either.”

  Cece shoved another piece into her mouth as she mulled over his obviously inadequate answer. “How do you not know if you like a person? Isn’t that the kind of thing where you either do or you don’t?”

  Noah shrugged and slowly moved his hand toward the diminishing bar of chocolate. Cece smacked him away. It was fine. He didn’t really want it anyway.

  He kind of did, but he wouldn’t admit that.

  “I barely know him,” Noah said.

  “So? I barely know the cute nurse who reads my vitals every morning, but I’m madly in love with him.”

  Cece was madly in love with a new person every week. Last week it had been the guitar player who came in every Friday to perform for the kids on her ward. The week before that it had been a med school student who was so nervous reading her chart that he’d dropped it twice.

  “Oh, yeah?” Noah asked. “And what are his intentions?”

  “To read my vitals. You’re changing the subject.”

  Now Noah did steal a piece of her chocolate, purely out of spite. “Am not.”

  “Are, too.” Cece’s sigh sounded far older than it had any right to. “Listen. Life is short, bro.”

  Noah frowned. “I don’t like it when you say things like that.”

  “Too bad. I’m not saying it because I’m sick. I’m saying it because it’s true. And also, I’m smarter than you. If you find a cute boy, you should kiss him.”

  It wasn’t terrible advice, Noah had to admit. He managed to ruffle her hair again before she could slap his hand away. “How did you get so wise?”

  She blew a raspberry at him. “All the wisdom Mom and Dad tried to teach their children skipped you and landed on me. I am concentrated
wisdom. I’m too powerful. Look upon me and despair.”

  “I’m your big brother. You’re supposed to be nice to me.”

  “That is factually incorrect.”

  “Well, you should be nice to me,” Noah said, “or I won’t bring you forbidden snacks anymore.”

  They both knew it was a lie.

  * * *

  Noah’s steps slowed as he neared his house. There was a person sitting on his porch. A person wearing large, noise-canceling headphones, typing fervently on his phone, designer sneakers tapping out a beat on the steps.

  Javi. Javi was sitting on his front porch. Javi knew where he lived.

  Noah walked closer, stopping at the base of the stairs. Javi’s head jerked up when Noah’s shadow fell across his phone.

  That smile—the one that had haunted Noah’s dreams since the first time he saw it—flashed across Javi’s face. He whipped the headphones off, resting them against his neck in a way that made him look effortlessly cool. Noah could never look like that if he tried. Trying, he supposed, defeated the point of effortlessness in the first place.

  “Hey,” said Javi. “I was wondering when you’d get home. I was about to give up hope.”

  “Are you stalking me?” It was perhaps not the smoothest greeting.

  Javi shrugged. “Maybe. Is that a problem?”

  Noah shook his head. “No. But … how do you know where I live?”

  Javi’s grin turned sheepish, which only made it more powerful.

  “I have my ways,” he said.

  Noah cocked his head to the side.

  “Okay, fine,” Javi sighed. “I sweet talked Mrs. Sullivan. Told her I needed to get to your place for a group assignment and couldn’t get hold of you.”

  Mrs. Sullivan was Headmaster Wood’s assistant. She was as much of a fixture at the school as the marble bust of the school’s founder, or the stone foundation on which the entire edifice sat. Sullivan predated Wood’s tenure as principal. She might have even predated Maplethorpe itself.

  Noah shifted his keys from hand to hand. “So what are you doing here?”

  Javi’s smile dimmed. “I … wanted to see you. Sorry, did I misread things? I thought it would be okay …”

  “It is,” Noah said in a rush. “And you didn’t.” Well, he was making a mess of this. And Javi was still sitting on the porch. “Do you wanna come in?”

  The wattage of Javi’s smile increased. “Yeah. It’s a nice porch, but my butt went numb like ten minutes ago.”

  Don’t think about his butt, Noah told himself.

  Noah led Javi into the Rainier home, trying to imagine what it looked like through a stranger’s eyes. It was comfortable but a bit sparse, like a showroom at a furniture store. A few years ago, the living room had been a riot of toys, both his and Cece’s. His parents had settled for a sort of ordered chaos. But with Cece sick and spending more and more time away, the house had become as sterile as the hospital. Noah’s mother couldn’t seem to bear the sight of her daughter’s things without Cece there to play with them. And Noah had retreated into his own spaces. His bedroom. The darkroom.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Noah asked. It seemed like what one ought to ask a guest.

  “Sure,” Javi said. “Coke, if you have it.”

  They did. Noah led Javi to the kitchen and poured them two glasses. The carbonation fizzed, so fresh it almost burned. The sensation was bracing enough to ground him, to get him to think of things besides Javier Lucero sitting on a stool in his kitchen.

  “I brought you something.” Javi reached into his backpack. Leaning down like that gave Noah a nice view of his neck. It was long and elegant, and until that moment, Noah hadn’t realized necks could be elegant.

  Javi righted himself. In one hand, he held a video game controller, and in the other a large, black headset that would completely cover one’s eyes. A logo of a leaping cat was stamped on the side of the headset.

  “It’s a virtual reality system,” Javi said. He placed it on the counter with great care. “Panthera, one of my sponsors, sent it to me. I thought maybe your sister might like it.”

  Javi worried his lower lip between his teeth as he waited for Noah to respond.

  “I … yeah. Yeah, Cece would love this,” Noah said. But it seemed like too much. “Are you sure? It looks really expensive.”

  Javi shrugged. “Like I said, Panthera sent it to me. Didn’t cost me a dime. They like it when I post about their stuff on social media. It boosts my rating and theirs. But honestly, VR isn’t my thing. It makes me kind of nauseous.”

  Noah trailed his hands along the sleek surface of the headset. He’d told Javi about his little sister cooped up in a hospital room, and so Javi sought Noah out with the most thoughtful gift he could’ve imagined. It was almost too much for Noah to handle.

  “Do you have flaws?” Noah asked, because Cece wasn’t the only one in the family without a filter.

  Javi smiled as he sipped at his Coke. “Oodles. But I like lulling people into a false sense of security before revealing them.”

  “That’s … oddly comforting,” Noah said. “But it doesn’t feel right accepting this without giving you something in return.”

  Javi’s laughter had a nice, warm sound about it. “That’s literally how gifts work.”

  “I know, but …”

  Javi canted his head to the side, studying Noah. “You’re a photographer, right?”

  Noah nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I like to think I am. I’m not a professional or anything, but yeah, I’ve been known to take a picture or two.”

  “Good,” said Javi. “You can repay me in art. Got anything good?”

  The thought that this seemingly flawless but allegedly flawed boy would want one of Noah’s photographs did strange and wonderful things to Noah’s stomach. “I have some stuff downstairs I just developed. In the darkroom.”

  Javi turned to him and smiled. “You have a darkroom? That’s awesome. I’d kinda like to see it, if that’s cool. Seems retro.”

  “Sure,” Noah said, even as the thought of inviting a near stranger into his most private of spaces made his heart beat so frantically he thought it might bruise his ribs. His photography had always been a private thing, something he did just for himself. It was an interest he shared with his father, but parts of it belonged solely to Noah.

  Unwelcome thoughts buzzed in his head like vengeful wasps as he led Javi to the basement. What if he wasn’t as good as he thought he was? What if Javi noticed himself in one or two or three of the pictures and thought Noah was a complete freak? What if Javi hated every single one and only pretended to like them?

  “Be careful with the lights,” Noah said when they reached the door. “And watch out for the chemicals. I haven’t put everything away.”

  “I’ll look with my eyes,” Javi promised, “not with my hands.”

  They entered the room. The red glow of the lights made the space feel a thousand times more intimate than the kitchen. Noah was suddenly aware that they were in a confined space. Unsupervised. With no school bells to save them.

  Javi didn’t seem to mind. He went straight to a series of photographs hanging from a cord strung from one wall to the other. His teeth gleamed in the dim light as he looked over his shoulder and smiled.

  “Noah, these are amazing.”

  Noah liked the way his name sounded in Javi’s mouth. He liked it a lot.

  He hooked his thumbs in his pockets. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. The darkroom felt so much smaller with Javi in it.

  Noah didn’t quite know what to make of Javi yet. Were they friends? At the start of the semester, he would have sworn that Javier Lucero hadn’t even known he existed. And he hadn’t even entertained the possibility that Javi would want to be friends with a notorious loner like Noah. The other boy radiated extroversion. Noah was as introverted as a human being could possibly be, while still doing things like leaving the house and interacting with other people. Even if he tried t
o keep the latter to a bare minimum.

  “Thanks,” Noah replied after he allowed the pause to stretch for too long. Javi didn’t appear to notice the awkward silence. If he did, he didn’t seem to mind.

  “I’m serious.” Javi turned to him, half of his face illuminated in red, the other half cloaked in sharp planes of shadow. “You’re a true artist.”

  Noah’s tongue felt oddly thick in his mouth. Had it always been that thick? And dry? He was pretty sure it was a new sensation.

  Javi cocked his head to the side. “You okay?”

  Nope.

  Noah had to clear his throat before his voice obeyed his brain’s command to answer. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Super good.”

  When Javi smiled at that, Noah suspected that the other boy was laughing at him. But so long as it was a polite, internal laughter, Noah didn’t much mind. His behavior was laughable, and he was powerless to stop it.

  Javi’s grin softened. “Thanks,” he said.

  “For what?” Noah croaked.

  “For bringing me down here.” Javi looked around the too-small space like Noah had shown him something precious. “I’m getting the feeling you don’t allow a lot of people into your den.”

  His den. Not an inaccurate term, Noah supposed.

  He shrugged, his hands kept firmly attached to his pockets. That way, he wouldn’t do anything stupid with them, like reach out and touch the one part of Javi’s face that wasn’t sharpened by the red lights of the darkroom. Or his lips, which were curved and soft. Noah needed to destroy that train of thought before it went any further.

  “Not really,” he admitted. “Photography’s always been my thing, you know? Something private.”

  “Well, in that case,” Javi said, closing the distance between them with a slow step, “I’m honored to have been granted the privilege.”

  Noah took a step back, colliding with a tray of instruments on the counter. They clattered to the ground, the noise deafening in the silence.

  Biting back a swear, he dropped to his knees to pick them up, glad that the semi-darkness was enough to mask his furious blush. Not enough to mask his utter stupidity, but it was something. A pair of hands reached out to help him gather the fallen tools. Noah kept his gaze down so he didn’t have to look at the owner of those hands and promptly die of embarrassment.