After Jay got his breath back, he wiped his tears and looked at me again.
"I'm so sorry for everything that wedged its way between us, Nina. We could have had a lot of bonding time together if I wasn't much of a beef brain to you."
"A homophobic one, don't you forget that," I said.
"Yes, yes, I know!" He put his hands together like he was praying. "But please, you're my cousin. Let's rejoice and start over again. I will be more open-minded this time, and I swear, you won't regret it, please!"
I looked back at him. Jay tried to appear miserable and all sincere. I yanked the door close on his face. But after a few seconds, I opened it again.
"I'll think about your party invitation," I said to him. "Now, good night."
Jay, who had looked disappointed just a moment ago, lit up again.
"Thank you, Ni—"
I slammed the door shut.
~*~
Klara's email arrived this morning. It was more entertaining than a copy of People magazine, with all the juicy gossips from my old school. Not that I cared about that stuff, but then she also wrote that Yuliya and Erik were getting together. She even capitalized the headline. Well, Erik was my ex-boyfriend. He was nice at first, but when he started complaining to his friends that I didn't satisfy his needs, I right out dumped him in the face.
Yuliya's family was the world's professional old-fashion people. I guessed Erik would have to satisfy his needs all by himself again.
In biology, I handed my report to Ms. Peterson.
She looked at it and smiled at me.
"The Flaws of Evolution?" she said with a raised brow. "Sounds like an interesting topic. I'm looking forward to hearing your presentation, Nina."
"Wait, I have to present it?" I asked. Jordan giggled at the horrified look on my face.
"Don't worry. You're going to do great, Nina," the teacher said and turned away. Jordan patted my back.
"Didn't know you were shy," she said.
I wasn't shy, but sometimes people didn't know the difference between being shy and not wanting attentions.
"So what false image did you have of me?" I asked her.
"You have no false images, but you’re like a chameleon," she said. "You don't want people to know much about you. But my mom told me that quiet people are strong people."
Klara used to tell me the same thing when she first met me. On that day, when a cockroach crawled over her desk, she instantly turned opera singer. I found an empty plastic cup and covered the cockroach with it then inserted a paper underneath. She looked at me like I had single-handedly taken down a fire-breathing dragon. I was scared, too, but sometimes when you look past your fear, even if you are frightened down to your tail bone, you can do what is required of you.
Ms. Peterson was talking about female genes.
"Inside of each one of your cell, there are two meters of DNA— two meters in every single cell!" she said as if she had never heard anything as wonderful.
She rolled down a cut-out picture of the chromosome, showing twenty-two of them that found their matching pairs except for the twenty-third ones. Without a doubt, I knew what the pair was, the sex chromosome.
"It isn't lined up in order like what you see on the picture. In reality, your DNA gets tangled up worse than a headphone in your bags. You got twenty-three chromosomes from you mom mixed with twenty-three from you dad," she said, pointing at the image. "We learned that two Xs make you female and an X to a Y makes you male. For a male, sex chromosome is always active for life, but for female, one of her X chromosomes has to be deactivated for proper development."
"Why is that?" someone asked.
"It's just the natural thing for our species so that women can survive to adulthood," she said. "If you could look at a woman skin and really see where the X chromosome has been inactivated, you will see stripy patterns all over her body."
"Really? Why don’t I see any patterns on my skin then?" another girl said as she turned her hand over in front of her.
"Of course not! You couldn't see that on humans unless you’re like a Calico cat," the teacher said. "Haven't you noticed that only female Calico cats have more than one color on their coats?"
"If women really have patterns, then that's another way to link them to cat personality, mysterious and make no sense," Michael said and started laughing until one of the girls stuffed his mouth with a paper ball.
“Just shut up.”
And the whole class burst out laughing, including the teacher.
~*~
In science class, my heart raced again because I knew whom I was going to put up with. I walked in and took my seat by the window. Allecra hadn’t arrived yet. More students kept pouring in as the clock ticked away.
Without meaning to, I found myself glancing at the door more often than usual. To distract myself, I took out my notebook, but I wasn't in the mood to write anything, or that I just couldn't think straight (no pun intended). Instead, I started doodling an ugly little cartoon girl, wearing a black jacket with wild hair. A flock of seagulls flew over her head and a bubble that screamed, 'It doesn't make sense!'
I giggled to myself.
"What's that?" a voice said beside me. I jumped up with an uncharacteristic gasp and turned to see pools of stirring galaxies. Allecra’s eyes twinkled as she was peering over my shoulder. I could feel her breath on my heated cheek. My heart beat all the way to my throat.
How could I not sense her coming? I almost always sensed people when they invaded my personal space. It was like built-in radar for me, but Allecra Knight made all the functions in my body jumble like parched peas.
She leaned in closer to look at my doodles, and her perfect jawline distracted me for a minute. Before I could cover the page with my hands, Allecra scooped the book up faster than I could blink.
"That's me, isn't it?" she said, still looking at my cartoons. My face had gone from red to ghost color. She was going to kill me, wasn't she? Then the girl did something that surprised me. She pulled out her black ink pen and drew another bubble next to one of the seagulls then wrote, ‘Booo hooo hooo!’
"That's more like it," she said after she finished. Was that her way of saying ‘sorry’ after brutally mocked my poem? My lips turned up into a betraying smile. Allecra turned around and handed my notebook back.
She gave me a small smile, which made me drop the book. It bounced off my chair and skidded on the floor under the desk.
We looked at each other and then wordlessly bent to retrieve the book at the same time. Our heads tilted. I didn't know how it all started, but the next thing I knew, my lips were brushing against Allecra's neck. We both froze with my lips rested there on her skin. My nose caught the unique scent of her fragrant blonde hair.
I jerked myself back from her. Allecra was staring at me. Her eyes seemed to get brighter than usual. My face reddened like ripe cherries.
Then she picked the book up and handed it to me again. We sat back on our chairs as if nothing had happened. No one in the class seemed to notice anything. They were laughing and chatting away among themselves. But my face was still hot.
Did I just kiss her neck? How the heck did I end up kissing her neck?
I had never found any real attraction towards a girl before even I was gay. It was unmistakable that something about Allecra bewitched me.
I didn't dare look at her again. We both sat in silence until Mrs. Cowell barged into the room and apologized for being a little late today.
As my mind kept rewinding the moment my lips were on Allecra's skin, she was just staring blankly ahead. When my eyes fell on the side of her neck, I got a glimpse of her strange tattoo peeping out of the collar of her jacket. Then a bright flash burst into my retinas out of nowhere. It was like when you look up at the sun and the brightness attacks your vision. I closed my eyes in pain, but behind them, I saw some glowing patterns on a smooth back of someone. I saw two pairs of glowing eyes and heard my own piercing scream. I dropped my head in my han
ds as a wave of dizziness hit me.
"Are you okay?" Allecra’s voice sounded close by. As soon as she said it, the scene began to clear away. I waved my hand to reassure her that I was fine.
“Just the headache,” I said. When I opened my eyes again, I found Allecra staring at me. There was a look on her face that I couldn't seem to understand. It wasn't just a concern but also something else.
When the bell rang at the end of the class, she simply stood up and walked away without another word.
CHAPTER 7
I went quietly downstairs to knock on Aunt Vikki's office. There was light under the door, and I heard my aunt approaching from the inside.
"Piper, is that you?" she said.
"No, it's me," I replied. When my aunt opened the door and saw me, she smiled.
"Oh, Nina, please come on in," she said and held the door wider for me. Aunt Vikki was her husband's personal accountant. She worked from home most of the time and only went out to meetings if need be.
Inside the room, there was a smaller fireplace, which didn't burn real fire. It was an electronic heating system.
"Sit down with me," she said, gesturing to the couch. "I haven't had any time alone with you much."
I huddled up close to the fire for it was freezing cold at night in this big house. Aunt Vikki put her work away.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you," I said, but she just shook her head.
"No worries. My work can wait." She smiled again. "How are you doing with school and everything?"
"I've caught up with most of my classes," I told her. "It's a bit easier here than back at home actually."
"I'm glad you don't feel too much pressure," she said and smoothed my hair. "If there is anything I can help you with, don't keep quiet."
I nodded back. I hadn't seen my aunt in person for many years, saved that one winter she visited us in Moscow. I was only twelve at that time. My aunt was a beautiful woman and so caring. When she saw I was shivering, she got up to grab a blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. Her arms were around me the whole time with a kind honest look. I felt like that was what my mother would do to me.
Before I knew it, Aunt Vikki started telling me about mom. It took me awhile to realize she understood how I must have felt. She told me things I never knew about her— how my mom was a total nerd and had set her heart to go to a university and study Russian Literature. But then she fell in love with my father and dropped her dream and married him.
I wondered what was so special about Pyotr Volkov.
From the top drawer of her desk, Aunt Vikki took out a framed picture of two young women in their sky gears and sleds.
"It was taken during a heavy winter in Moscow," she told me and handed me the photo to look. I stared at the beautiful woman beside my aunt, and I could feel my tears burning from the inside of my head. Aunt Vikki rubbed one hand across her eyes.
"I'm sorry if that saddens you, Nina," she apologized, but I shook my head.
"I'm glad you still have this picture."
"I will make a copy for you if you want," she offered.
"That's okay." I smiled back. "I have seen her pictures. It's just this one is not with my dad."
"Your father loves you, Nina," my aunt said in a rather pity tone. "He just has a lot on his plate right now, but I'm sure he thinks better of your future. That's why he sent you here."
I didn't say anything. I wished I could believe my aunt, but I just couldn't. I heard her sigh and got up from the couch again.
"It's late now. You better get back to bed."
I looked up from the picture and remembered why I was here.
"Actually, Aunt Vikki, I wanted to talk to you about something else," I said, causing her to raise an eyebrow.
"Oh, what is it?"
"Er...I just think that the cost to hire a cook is quite outrageous here," I started a little awkwardly. "I think during your absence, we don't need to spend much money on the cook. I’ve been pretty good at reading recipes, and I know how to cook quite well if I dare say so myself. I think if you allow me, I can make do with that."
My aunt just stood there and looked sort of amused hearing my proposal.
"You remind me so much of your mother," she said at last. "She always tried make people's lives easier."
I felt a blush on my cheeks at her compliment. Aunt Vikki came forward to hug me. I held her back in my arms.
"When your mother called to tell me she was pregnant with you," my aunt said, "she sounded happier than she'd ever sounded in her whole life."
~*~
The next day, I gave a presentation on my bio II report. Everyone looked at me with hopeful eyes. I swallowed and began to speak. It was harder than when I did it in my own language, but I had no choice.
"My report is about the Flaws of Evolution," I started in a shortened breath and paused for a moment. "We all know that through evolution, humans can adapt to their environment and reproduce."
All eyes were on me, blinking and listening. Jordan gave me an encouraging nod.
"But my report is about the hidden imperfection of human race, mainly, of women," I said with a little more force of confidence after I had started.
A few girls sitting at the front exchanged a curious look, but I carried on.
"Now, we know why women would not survive ten months of pregnancy for they could die giving birth. The first stage of human development starts with the head, which has to grow big for intellectual and survival purposes. But the woman's pelvic bones are not well-developed enough to push anything with that size. That’s why it's extremely painful during labor." I clicked on the slide show that had a picture of a baby inside the womb. I glanced briefly at Ms. Peterson, who wore a slight smile on her lips.
"So babies have to be born even they actually need longer time to develop, it's why they're such a mess. Human mothers have not evolved enough to have an easy labor like most mammals. It's kind of a huge and secret flaw in our evolution that we don't really notice. So if a woman's body can't cope with this insane pain during childbirth, she can die. And if you think it's normal to give birth, it's actually not. It's natural, but it's not normal."
I finished my report. No one asked questions. Or they didn’t know what to ask.
"Well done, Nina," Ms. Peterson said after a while later.
I strode back to my desk and plopped down in my chair as if my energy was all drained.
"You did great," Jordan said, smiling sweetly.
"Thank you," I said.
"You sounded passionate about this," she added. "It's a very interesting topic."
"My mom died giving birth to me," I told her. Jordan's mouth fell open. She looked at me long and hard as if she didn't know what to say. I shouldn’t have said that, but it just came out. I gave her a weak smile and waved her look away. The last thing I wanted was sympathy.
In Language Arts, I didn't feel quite as snarky as I wanted to with Allecra Knight. I got to where she was sitting by the window and sat down. Allecra had always been like a stone, but now she seemed even more unresponsive. I still thought of the neck-kissing incident. I couldn't tell if she had minded and decided to ignore me for that.
Mrs. Smith started the class as soon as the bell rang.
"Listen, class!" she said. "You're supposed to give your editing partner your stuff to read and comment on with constructive criticism, alright? You are to write a personal creative essay. It's whatever you want to write about. Now, let's get to work."
I didn't quite know anything personal and creative to write about, so I just wrote things off the top of my head. Feet crossed, Allecra turned to work with her eyes half-shut as usual. I was dying to know what she was going to write about and ready to be one hell of a critic to her. The class went so silent with students concentrating on their writing.
It continued like that until the teacher said to give the writing to our partners. Allecra's long white hand reached for my pages unapologetically. But in turn, she handed me back her
s.
I started to read her writing but immediately put it down.
"What kind of language is this?" I said to her. I had to wave her papers to get her attention. "I can't read this."
"It's Arzurian," she said.
"What?" I blinked stupidly back, but Allecra didn't say anything and just turned her gaze back at my writing. I wrote about a man, who was trapped inside an acorn — sort of a brother to the girl in the coconut.
Then the bell went off.
"Alright class, give your partners back their writing and we will come back to discuss it later," the teacher said.
Allecra and I hadn't even finished ours. She just handed back my papers. I was still frowning at what she had said. Instead of leaving, as usual, she seemed to linger there. After I got my books in my bag and was ready to go to lunch. Allecra stood up, too. I lifted my face to see her staring back at me. I froze on my track.
"Come with me," she said and reached her hand out to take mine. The moment our skins touched it was like a million volts of electricity zapped through my body. If it was real electricity, I would be dead by now. Allecra towed me along without saying anything. I couldn't find a word to speak, let alone asking where she was taking me.
We weaved through the crowded hallways. Some students stared at us while other whispered to each other. Of course, it was Allecra Knight I was holding hand with. They must be surprised.
Not until I realized we were out of people's sight that I mustered up the courage to ask her.
"Where are you taking me?" I said in a panic.
"Somewhere you might know," she said and kept speed-walking. Allecra went past the baseball field and the gym, going towards the pool building. We went around it and climbed up the metal stairs to the rooftop.
I was having trouble catching my breath when she finally stopped.
Gosh, was she a mountain goat in her past life or what?
"Here," she said without a desperate gasp for air or anything. I noticed she was pointing to the small rusty door at a corner of the wall.
"Ye—yes?" I said, still breathing heavily. We were on the rooftop where I had come to sit and write on my notebook.
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