by Malinda Lo
Mr. Hernandez closed the door. His shoes clicked across the floor as he pulled one of the desks out to face the two of them. She heard the beep as he turned on the audio recorder. “All right,” he said. “What happened on Saturday?”
“Dr. Brand officially invited us to go to the UN with them,” David answered.
“Interesting. What did you tell her?”
“That I’d think about it.”
“I assume you’re not going.”
“Of course not.” David’s voice was clipped.
Have you already decided? Reese asked him silently. His answer came back shortly: No.
“Reese, what about you?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, still gazing down at the desk. Someone had carved RIP MR. C into the upper right corner. “I’m not going.” She waited for David to ask if she was lying, but he didn’t.
“What about the adaptation chamber? Did you get photos?”
“Not yet,” David said. “But I asked about it.”
Reese lifted her head now and looked at him. He hadn’t told her that, and she wondered if he was fabricating this for Mr. Hernandez’s benefit.
“It’s on the ship,” David said. “There was no time for us to look at it, but when we go back on Saturday—”
“The General Debate begins on Monday. We need that info before then.” Mr. Hernandez did not look happy.
“I know,” David said. “You’ll have it on Saturday, I promise.”
Mr. Hernandez considered David for a long moment. “You seem to have turned a corner, David. I can see that you’re now fully on our side.”
“I was always on your side. On our side.”
Reese felt like she was going to be sick. What are you doing? she thought at David. He didn’t answer her. Mr. Hernandez went to his desk, where he took a large envelope out of his briefcase. He removed several glossy photos and returned to lay them on the desks in front of Reese and David. As Reese looked at the images, she began to sweat.
“As you can see, it is not only the paparazzi who are capable of photographing private moments,” Mr. Hernandez said.
One of the photos showed Reese’s mom at home in the kitchen. The picture had been taken through the back window. There was another photo of her dad at a restaurant. It must have been at lunch, because he was seated at a table near a window and daylight was pouring over the place setting. Her mom was seated across from him. They were holding hands.
“Saturday night, I will meet the two of you here at school,” Mr. Hernandez said. “The front doors will be unlocked at six PM to let people in for a theatrical production. You will bring me the photos of the adaptation chamber at six fifteen. Is that clear?”
Reese looked at Mr. Hernandez and made herself swallow the rage that burned in her throat. “It’s clear,” she said. She couldn’t see the photos on David’s desk but from the set of his shoulders, she guessed he had gotten the message too. If they didn’t bring CASS what they wanted, their families would be in danger.
“Yes,” David said. “We’ll have the photos.”
Mr. Hernandez nodded. “Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow in class.”
They were dismissed. Reese stood up and saw one of the pictures in front of David before he swept them into a pile: his younger sister, Chloe, laughing. He put the photos in his backpack and headed out of the classroom. Reese turned to grab the pictures of her parents before following David into the hall.
“David!” she called. He couldn’t ignore her if she spoke out loud.
He was already fifteen feet ahead of her, but he slowed, turning. “I have to go to practice.”
“Can I talk to you?” she pleaded, hating how desperate she sounded.
“I have to go to practice,” he said again, beginning to walk backward. “I’ll call you tonight.” And then he left her standing there, the photos of her parents clutched in her hands.
*
Reese went to the school library, alone, to do her homework and wait for her mom to pick her up. After those pictures of her and Amber had been posted online, the paparazzi had swarmed Reese’s street with their long-range cameras, and leaving the house that morning had involved Reese ducking down in the passenger seat of the car while her mom honked the horn and screamed at the photographers.
“Don’t go outside until I call you,” her mom had told her right before dropping her off at school. “I can’t get there till after five but you’ll just have to wait. Your dad has a meeting in Palo Alto.”
Reese had no intention of stepping outside the school’s front doors until she knew her mom had arrived, but she was restless and couldn’t concentrate on her homework. She thought about those pictures of her parents, together. She thought about the photos of her and Amber. Students came in and out of the library, passing her and whispering behind their hands. They didn’t bother to keep their voices down, and she had to put in her earbuds so that she didn’t hear them judge her. She pulled out her phone, but there were no messages. She wondered if David really was going to call her after soccer practice. With a sinking feeling, she realized she didn’t believe he would.
She stared down at her physics textbook, the words blurring as her eyes grew hot. She blinked furiously. Not here, she told herself. If David wasn’t going to call her, she would have to put herself in a place where he couldn’t ignore her. They had to talk. This was all a misunderstanding. She could show him her memories of what had happened, and he would understand. He had to understand.
She glanced at the clock. It was still early, but that was good. She wouldn’t miss him. She loaded up her backpack and left the library, heading downstairs toward the gym. The hallway outside the boys’ locker room was empty, smelling faintly of cleaning fumes. She dropped her backpack on the floor and slid down the wall to the linoleum, drawing her knees up. She’d wait for him.
She heard the boys’ soccer team approaching before she saw them. They were loud and boisterous, cracking jokes about the school they were going to play tomorrow. The double doors in the distance banged shut and then the team rounded the corner, the dozen or so boys dressed identically in maroon shorts, dirty shin guards, and gray KENNEDY SOCCER tees. They reminded her of a pack of puppies, rowdy and joyful, but as soon as they saw her their energy changed completely. They focused, becoming a coordinated group of muscle with their attention fixed on her, and in the center of them was David.
She suddenly realized this might have been a very bad idea. How could he listen to her when he was surrounded by his teammates? She pushed herself to her feet as the boys approached. David separated himself from the others and came toward her. His shirt was smeared with grass stains, his hair was damp with sweat, and his face was grimy, but the sight of him awoke a fierce ache inside her. She had never seen him this way: as someone she was on the verge of losing.
“Hey,” he said, his face expressionless.
“Hey,” she answered.
Some of his teammates continued toward the locker room, but a few hung back until David said, “I’ll be there in a minute.” They nodded to him—brief, masculine nods that made Reese aware of exactly how far outside of his world she was at that moment—and left them alone in the hallway.
She plunged ahead before she could lose her nerve. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what happened from the beginning. I should have. It just freaked me out so much and I couldn’t deal with it right then. I can show you what happened. Will you let me?” She held out her hand and he looked at it as if it contained a weapon. Her face burned, but she kept her hand out, her fingers curled up from her palm.
Just when she thought he was never going to accept her offer, he stepped forward. He took her hand.
She showed him everything. She made sure she left nothing out, and she was more open with him than she ever had been. In a way she felt as if she was stripping off all her clothes in the middle of the school hallway, and even though she was afraid he would hate what he saw, she did it anyway. Through his hand she sensed his emot
ions changing as she took him through her memories. At first he was tense and defensive, but gradually the tension was replaced with sadness. When it was over he let go of her and she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not angry that you didn’t tell me. Not anymore.”
“Really?” she said hopefully. “Then we’re okay?”
He sighed. “No.”
Her heart seemed to stop. “What? What do you mean?”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. His eyes seemed fixed on some point over her left shoulder. “I can’t do this. I can’t deal with the way people talk about us. About me.”
“You mean the assholes on the Internet? You can’t listen to them. You told me that yourself.”
He shook his head. “Not only them. People at school. Everywhere.” He finally looked at her, and he was wrecked. There was pain in his eyes, desperation in the set of his mouth. He took a step closer, lowering his voice into an intense whisper. “Those photos made you look like a cheater, but they made me look like an idiot. And I know you have feelings for her. Even if you didn’t kiss her last Saturday, you kissed her before. I remember how you felt about kissing her. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”
She flinched. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and it sounded ridiculously inadequate—like attempting to apply a Band-Aid over a chest wound.
“I can’t compete with her.” David rubbed a hand over his face and pushed his damp hair back. “I don’t want to. I shouldn’t have to.”
“You’re not competing with her,” she insisted. It came out sounding like a shriek. She moderated her voice. “I want to be with you.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that, but you have feelings for her too.” His jaw clenched.
Heat flushed her body, and suddenly she was angry—angry at herself, angry at David, angry at Amber. “Why can’t you hear me? I have feelings for you. I may be the most inarticulate person on the planet when it comes to telling you how I feel, but I don’t have to tell you. You know. I showed you everything, and you know that I want to be with you—not with her. I don’t trust her. I trust you. I’m in—” She stumbled over the words and tried again. “I’m in love with you.”
David’s cheeks darkened. “Reese…”
“Shouldn’t the way I feel about you be more important than what other people think?” She reached for his hands. He was a mess of conflicting emotions: anguish and hope and brittle self-doubt. She had never felt him like that before, his conscious self sharp as crystal. David, she thought. I’m in love with you.
I know, he told her.
Isn’t that enough?
“You’re in love with her too,” he said softly. “It’s not okay with me.”
She felt like she was about to fall off a tightrope. “Are you breaking up with me?” she asked in a small voice.
He looked somewhat startled. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
She pulled away from him, backing up until she hit the wall, the cinder blocks cool against her sweaty palms. She was dizzy. Everything felt unreal: the glare of the fluorescent overhead lights, the shadows they cast over David’s face, the dark doorway to the boys’ locker room down the hall.
His cleats clicked on the floor as he shifted in place. “It’s not like I don’t ever want to see you again. We have to do this—this thing on Saturday. We have to talk about all that. But maybe we should take a couple of days to think about how to handle it. Okay?”
The idea of having to continue their charade with Mr. Hernandez, of taking more lessons with Eres Tilhar, of being with David when she wasn’t with him at all—it made panic explode inside her. She couldn’t do it.
“I know we can still be friends,” he was saying. “Can’t we go back to that?”
She was about to start crying at any second. “Yeah,” she choked out. “Of course.” And then she turned so he wouldn’t see the tears spill from her eyes, and picked up her backpack and slung it awkwardly over one shoulder. She tried not to stumble as she walked away. He didn’t call her back.
*
She pushed through the front doors of the school half-blinded by tears. She was assaulted by flashbulbs as the door slammed shut behind her.
She recoiled in shock, having forgotten that the photographers would be out there. But there were more than photographers; there were protesters. They shouted at her, their voices rising in a barrage of demands, and she remembered at that instant that she was supposed to wait inside the school for her mom’s phone call. She backed away and reached for the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. She tugged at it, but it didn’t budge. She turned her back to the crowd and tried the other door. It was locked too.
Of course. The school doors were locked after 5:00 PM. She banged on the door frantically as the shouts of the protesters rose, but nobody came. Could they not hear her?
She turned around slowly. Down on the sidewalk, police barricades kept the people back on two sides. Paparazzi were jammed in at the front. On the right were demonstrators she vaguely recognized from the pier: men and women holding signs about the new world order. New signs had been added too, and as she read the words her stomach seemed to shrink into a tight fist.
TRAITOR.
HUMAN RACE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?
HOMOSEXUALS ARE POSSESSED BY ALIENS!
GOD HATES FAGS. FAGS = IMRIA. GOD HATES IMRIA.
On the left side were the Imria supporters with their WELCOME TO EARTH signs, but a new group had joined them. They waved rainbow flags and carried signs that declared GAY RIGHTS DON’T STOP WITH HUMANITY. One was done up with glitter and neon paint and stated ALIENS ARE FABULOUS!
Reese’s phone rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket in relief. “Mom, are you here?”
“I’m across the street by the café. I can’t turn. There’s too much police presence. Where are you?”
“I’m on the school steps. I’ll come to you.” She hung up and repocketed her phone before heading down the steps. As she approached the two mobs of demonstrators their chants grew louder, but she kept her gaze straight ahead, not looking directly at anyone. She focused on herself, pushing back the waves of ferocity on the right and the pressure of curiosity on the left. She was on the sidewalk now. She only had to cross the street, passing the police who were watching her with expressionless eyes. Her mom was barely a block away, but getting to the Prius felt like navigating through a mile-long obstacle course. By the time she reached the car and slid inside, she was wired and breathless.
“Are you okay?” her mom asked, pulling the car around the corner onto Eighteenth Street.
“Yeah,” she said, still clutching her backpack. “Some of those people are crazy.”
“You can’t pay any attention to what those homophobes are saying,” her mom said grimly. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing.”
Reese glanced at her mom in surprise. When they had parted that morning, they hadn’t been on the best of terms; Reese knew her mom was still mad at her about the argument she’d had with her dad. Her mom’s apparent change of heart startled a question out of her that she hadn’t even known she wanted to ask. “You don’t think I’m a freak for dating an alien?”
Her mom shook her head decisively. “No, honey. I don’t.” Her mom pulled the car to a stop at the red light and turned to her, squeezing her knee. “You’re not a freak. You’re my daughter and I love you.”
Reese hugged her backpack closer, trying to swallow the tears that kept pricking at her eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”
Her mom sighed and turned back to the street. “But you’re still grounded for what you said to your dad.”
CHAPTER 26
Given the fact that David had just dumped her and paparazzi kept tailing her, Reese decided that being grounded wasn’t the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world was being forced to go to school.
In the hallways, students snickered at her behind their hands. The story of David breaking up with her outside the
boys’ locker room had spread quicker than wildfire. “She deserved it,” some people said loud enough for her to hear as she walked past. She tried to ignore them, but it was hard, because to some degree she agreed.
David made no attempt to talk to her about their potential trip to the UN or what they would do on Saturday when it came time to deliver those photos of the adaptation chamber to Mr. Hernandez. She had no idea if David had truly asked Eres Tilhar about the chamber or if he had been lying to Mr. Hernandez. She knew she should ask him. The situation with the Imria and CASS was much bigger than her breakup with David, but she couldn’t bring herself to face him yet. Not when he had responded to her revelation that she was in love with him by telling her I know. That hurt more than anything else.
On Wednesday night she overheard her parents on the phone with David’s parents, discussing Dr. Brand’s invitation to bring them all to New York. Reese was in the living room watching a DVD of a zombie movie instead of doing her homework, but as soon as she realized what her parents were talking about, she fled upstairs to her room. She loaded the same movie onto her laptop and plugged in her headphones so she could drown out any sound of the phone call. There was something soothing about the fake mayhem: the hordes of zombies lurching across fields and parking lots; the heroes with their makeshift weapons fighting them back. It was black-and-white, survival of the fittest. There was nothing debatable about it.
She fell asleep with the movie playing, only to awaken with a start several hours later. A high-pitched, ear-popping alarm was beeping over and over. The smoke detector. She sat up, heart pounding as she blinked in the light of her bedside lamp. Her headphones fell out of her ears, making the noise even louder. The computer screen was blank.
She smelled something burning.
She scrambled to her feet and ran to the door, pulling it open. Across the hall her mom rushed out of her room.
“Reese, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Where’s Dad?” They looked down the stairwell at the same time, and at the bottom there was an orange flickering light.
