by Wendy Mills
I let out a small breath, because this is good, better than I expected. My mother and father were never happy with my choice of schools. They thought I should go to a more academic school, not one that focused almost exclusively on the creative arts.
“But,” he says, “you will come home directly every day after school for the next three months.”
My heart stops.
“You’re grounding me?” I ask, my voice shaking. “You know what this means?”
He gazes at me steadily. “I know you are disappointed, Alia.”
“Only fifteen people made it into the program, Ayah. I was one of them. If I’m grounded, I’m going to lose the best opportunity I’ve ever had.”
He shakes his head. “You are only sixteen. There will be other opportunities, other chances. This is not the end of the world.”
“But it is,” I say, and turn around and walk out before I can say anything else, because all the words in me are hurtful and angry.
I don’t say good-bye to him, and he doesn’t mention the scarf on my head.
Chapter Two
Jesse
Up until that bitter-cold February morning when he comes in late to class, Nick Roberts was just the skinny kid with dark hair who always sat in the back, the kid people made fun of for being too quiet, too weird, too unwilling to fit in.
It’s the first day of Entrepreneurship, a semester-long block, so you always wonder who you’re going to be stuck with for the rest of the year. I’m a little surprised to see him, because I never thought of Nick Roberts as the type of guy who says, “Hell yeah, I want to start a million-dollar company someday.”
Not that I’d ever thought about him much at all, but when he comes in ten minutes late and heads for the back of the room, which is my favorite territory, I see his face. I give him a sideways glance, and then again, because he looks the way I feel lately, bottled up and trying not to explode like a can of shaken soda.
He sits in the empty seat next to mine and drops his backpack onto the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I take in the silver hoop winking in his eyebrow, and his eyes the color of a cold winter sky. He’s dressed all in black, including clunky black boots, and he’s got plugs through both of his ears.
Something else: Nick Roberts is hot. I don’t know why I’d never noticed this before.
Mr. Laramore, who is passing out syllabuses, looks at Nick. “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Roberts,” he says, and his voice is a just-right mixture of friendly and edgy. A couple of girls behind me sigh, and I can just imagine the hearts they are doodling all over their notebooks.
That’s when I see the tattoo snuggled up under the arm of Nick’s black T-shirt. It’s hidden by his sleeve, but I can see it is a word. What is it?
A muscle twitches in Nick’s neck before he leans back in his seat, but he doesn’t say anything. I’m still staring at his tattoo. I can make out an N and an O. “No” something? But it is all one word. My fingers itch to slide the sleeve up so I can see the rest of it.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. Roberts?” Mr. Laramore is not going to let it go.
Nick stares at our teacher for a long moment. “My dog was sick.”
If there was one thing I had noticed about him before, it was this. He says things in a low voice, most of the time so the teacher never hears, which are so blatantly eff you that you don’t know whether to laugh or be horrified. He usually says it so quiet you wouldn’t hear him unless you’re really listening.
This time we all heard him. I don’t think any of us knew why we broke into giggles because his dog was sick. Mr. Laramore continues passing out the syllabuses, and there’s a general murmur of disappointment, because school is a contact sport and some people get a kick out of seeing blood on the field.
Nick leans his arm down to his backpack, and for just a moment I see the word tattooed on his bicep. It says “Nothing.”
All righty, then.
He sits back up, and pulls his sleeve down, covering the tattoo entirely.
“I trust he has recovered,” Mr. Laramore says, stopping in front of Nick and putting the syllabus square in the middle of his desk. Nick stares at him with no expression; you can see the anger coming off him in waves, but maybe only if you’re a pro at surfing anger like I am.
I twine my blond ponytail around my finger, pulling and pulling until it hurts my head.
“She,” Nick says, and it takes me a minute to realize that he’s still talking about the dog. And then he shrugs, an extravagant whatever, dude, and says, “She’ll either be kicking or stone cold dead when I get home.”
Nobody laughs this time.
I glance over at him, and there’s something in his eyes that makes me want to smile, or cry, or say I’m sorry. Emi is frowning, and she rolls her eyes at me. She takes school very seriously and hates it when less-serious students disrupt her class zen.
I, however, am intrigued.
This all goes on for a week. Me, turning in my homework on time and acing Friday’s quiz like the good girl I’ve always been, and Nick Roberts baiting Mr. Laramore under his breath and nodding his head the rest of the time to the music playing in his earbuds.
I’ve started noticing the way his soft, dark hair sweeps over his eyes, that his long fingers are covered with paint and always in motion as he taps them on his thigh, twirls his pencil, or plays with the thick plugs in his ears.
I wonder what he sees when he looks at me, those fleeting glances out of the corner of his eye. A completely ordinary girl, not cute, not awful, just there. My blond hair is always pulled back in a long ponytail, and my pale blue eyes look like they’ve been through the wash too many times. Nothing special, so lusterless that I wonder sometimes if I could just fade away without anyone noticing.
But Nick has caught me staring at him more than once, and he’s nodded a couple of times, like, We’re the same, aren’t we? Even if you don’t show it on the outside, we’re alike, you and me, and I think that he sees me, even if no one else does.
I don’t know if it’s true, but it makes me feel good, when nothing has been feeling good lately. It’s as if every nerve in my body is shrieking and no one hears it but me.
The bell rings on a cold, shiny February day, and Emi and I rush with the others toward the hall after class.
Entrepreneurship counts for college credit, which is the reason Emi and a bunch of the smart kids are taking it. I’m taking it because I figure if anybody is going to take over my dad’s climbing shop one day, it’ll have to be me. Some girls take it just because Mr. Laramore is hipster hot, if you like angsty guys in their thirties with thick black glasses, skinny jeans, and high tops. It’s a pretty diverse crowd that battles for the doorway and the freedom of the hallway.
I’m watching Nick as he slips through the door, and Emi nudges me.
“Why are you so into him?” she asks as we jostle together, caught in a bottleneck at the doorway.
Emi Yamada has been my best friend since the sixth grade. She is dedicated and somber, skinny and gangly, with short, spiked black hair and a row of rings along her earlobes. Her narrow amber-colored eyes light up the most when she’s talking about apples, clouds, and streams, which might make you think she really likes nature, but only as wallpaper on her tablet screen.
“I was thinking I should mix it up, trade in my earrings for some plugs,” I say, fingering the small gold hoops in my ears. I’m not serious, but I really don’t know how to answer her.
She shakes her head. “They wouldn’t look good on you,” she says.
Because it’s Emi, I can’t tell if she really thinks I want a pair of ear plugs like Nick’s or if she’s trying to tell me something else.
As the jam breaks and we swirl out into the hallway, Emi and I get separated. I’m heading for Teeny’s locker when a group of mimes come down the middle of the hall, the drama kids doing live art. People laugh as they goof off, acting as if a windstorm is blowing them around the halls, and the
n walking a tightrope, with expressions of terror on their faces. I step to the side to let them pass.
But instead they surround me and start to pat the air all around me.
“Uh … ,” I say, because what the hell?
People are starting to gather around, and suddenly I realize that the mimes have me in a box. They are feeling along the side of it with their hands, and Jenny Knowles jumps up to feel the top of it, catching my eye and winking as she lands back on the ground.
I don’t have freaking time for this, but it seems rude to just walk away, so I stand there as they press their palms against the box that only they can see. The box is getting smaller, and I instinctively duck my head as Jenny pats the air above my head. Their palms are getting closer as the box shrinks and I pull my arms in tighter to my body.
I feel stupid as the crowd gets bigger and someone starts clapping as the box starts getting smaller and smaller. Soon I’m sitting on the floor, my face red as I half laugh with exasperation, and it’s then that I catch Nick’s eye.
He’s leaning up against a locker, and as I watch, meathead Lawrence Jenson catches him with his shoulder and laughs, but Nick just steps away, his eyes trained on me.
“Really, guys?” I say to the mimes, but they ignore me, and the box just keeps shrinking. I duck my head down between my shoulders. When I look back up, Nick turns his hand palm up and brings his fingers together. As I watch, he snaps his fingers back and then mouths four words at me.
I don’t get it, but then I do.
Blow up the box.
When he sees that I understand, he turns and disappears into the crowd.
“What on earth are you doing to my girl?” Teeny cries, and suddenly she and Emi and Myra are there, and they catch me by the arms while Teeny scolds Jenny and the other mimes. I let them fuss over me, but in my mind all I can see is Nick as he walked away.
Chapter Three
Alia
I resist the urge to slam the double doors behind me as I go into my room. I’ve never been able to be like that with my father, even though Mama and I slam doors on each other on an almost-daily basis.
I wait until I’m inside the safety of my bedroom before I let myself cry. I unwind the coil of silk from around my head and hold it to my face, feeling my tears wet the scarf that Nenek made for me.
Lia wouldn’t be sitting here crying. Lia would force her parents to understand, save the world on the way to Starbucks, and make it to school on time with her deodorant and her saucy smile intact.
I look over at my desk where Lia’s life is laid out in half-inked panels of pencil drawings and bubbles of gutsy dialogue. Having a superhero for a friend doesn’t do anybody any good when that friend is only real on paper.
I put the scarf on the bed and look at the permission slip that sits prominently beside my panels, pencils, and ink. If I don’t turn in the slip today, I won’t be able to go to the highly selective eight-week program at NYU for talented high school artists. My portfolio beat out hundreds of others, and I was over the moon when I received the acceptance. But though I’ve had the permission slip for two weeks, it still remains unsigned. My parents needed to talk about it, they said.
I know what they were thinking. They were thinking that they wished I would focus more on my studies instead of sketching. They wished their daughter wanted to be a doctor, or a lawyer like her mother, not a comic book artist. At least my parents are progressive enough that they aren’t using the Quran as an excuse to keep me from drawing comic books, but in the end it amounts to the same thing.
And now I gave them the perfect opportunity to say no. They never had to say, No, Alia, we think your dream is stupid and juvenile. Instead, I handed them the perfect excuse on a silver platter.
Yesterday afternoon, in the girls’ bathroom.
I knew I’d have to run into Carla eventually. I hadn’t seen her since the end of tenth grade, and it was already the second week of my junior year. Maybe a part of me even wanted to run into her, wanted to yell, How could you do it? I thought you were my friend!
“Hey, Alia, you want a hit?” Carla says when I come into the bathroom. Her voice sounds all squished, and smoke trickles from her nose as she holds the joint out to me.
Inside my head Lia shouts, “Pot is for losers, Carla!” and gives a roundhouse kick that knocks the joint out of Carla’s hand and fries it to a smoldering heap with one point of a lightning-tipped finger.
I go to the sink and stare at my plain, non-superhuman face in the mirror.
The bathroom is empty except for us, which is rare in a school with thousands of people, but this bathroom was always Carla’s and my favorite. It’s tucked down a dead-end hall on the third floor, and it’s always cold, even when it’s warm and sunny outside. The sound of faraway clanging pipes always used to make us jump, thinking it was the clickety-clack of a teacher’s heels in the hallway, and we’d giggle and make fun of each other for being scared.
“Are you serious, Carla?” I ask. “Are you trying to get kicked out?” I look back at myself in the mirror: too-round face, skin the color of lightly stained wood, and brown eyes with thick, dark lashes, which I thank God for every day. I sigh when I see my hair. It’s gone positively Medusa, despite the coconut cream I smoothed into it this morning.
“Who cares if they kick me out?” Carla exhales sharply from the corner of her mouth, a big, nasty bubble of smoke rolling toward me.
“Grow up, Carla.” I run my fingers through my hair, watching in disgust as the curls bounce back up and say, Why, hello there! It’s hopeless. I’m hopeless. If nothing else, wearing the hijab would save me from bad-hair days for the rest of my life. But I wasn’t brave enough to wear it today, just as I’m not brave enough to tell Carla what I really think about what she did to me.
“You used to be fun,” Carla says. “What happened to you, Alia?”
I turn back to her. “And you used to be my friend,” I say evenly. “I guess we both changed.”
“Aw, girlie, you can’t take stuff like that seriously. Mike? He didn’t mean anything.”
“He meant something to me.” Or I thought he did anyway.
Carla takes another big hit off the joint, and her voice comes out all squeaky. “Remember how much fun we had last year? What changed?”
“Me,” I say, because I hope that it’s actually true.
Carla and I started hanging out the beginning of our sophomore year when I’d just moved to Brooklyn from California. She was cool and fun, which is exactly what I needed at the time. We laughed at the tourists on the promenade as they sighed over the view of Manhattan, hung out under the bridge at night and watched the strobing headlights of the cars, and snuck over to Times Square to see our favorite bands on TRL at MTV Studios.
I had a blast with her until she totally betrayed me, and my parents grounded me all summer except for two weeks of camp. I wish it were easy to write the real Carla out of my life, the way I’d written her twin out of Lia’s story.
I glance at my watch and see that it’s time for Anatomical Drawing. There are no bells—my school is big on personal responsibility—so it’s up to me to make sure I get to my next band on time. At first that freedom felt too big, like I was a pet bird bursting out of its cage for the boundless sky.
“Come on, girl,” Carla is saying. “You’re like me, you know you are. I’m sorry about all that before, I really am.”
I stare at her face in the reflection of the mirror, and see that she probably is sorry, but that doesn’t change anything, does it? Do I want to be friends with her again and go back to being like I was last year?
“Look, Carla, it just doesn’t matter anymore. Here.” I take the joint from her, which is about to drop ash all over the bathroom floor. We both hear the familiar clickety-clack of the pipes and sort of smile, like old times. I put the joint out in the sink with a hiss and go to hand it back to her.
Ms. Donaldson walks in.
Of course she does. This is me we
’re talking about, where Lia lives only in my head, and my actions spill like dark ink across my hastily drawn life.
She takes in the swirling cloud of smoke, and me holding the joint. “Ms. Susanto, Ms. Sanchez. Go to Ms. Julio’s office. Now.”
Chapter Four
Jesse
“I’ve seen the way Nick looks at you,” Teeny says, shoving her Health book into Emi’s locker a day after the me-versus-mimes incident. “I suppose he is cute, in a kick-ass nerd-boy kind of way.”
I’m not sure whether to be offended or not, so I shrug. It’s not surprising that Teeny picked up on the vibe between me and Nick; she’s always been good at seeing the complicated webs of connections between people and groups. She laughingly says she plans to use her powers for good when she becomes a psychologist. Pretty and curvy, her real name is Christina—which she hates—and though she claims to have hit five foot even, no one believes her.
“I heard Hailey Brinson is all into him,” she continues. “You know, Hook-Up-Hailey?”
“Teeny,” Emi says disapprovingly.
“What?” Teeny shrugs. “If she doesn’t want to be called that, she shouldn’t get drunk and try to hook up with every guy she meets.”
Hailey isn’t in any of my blocks, but she’s one of those girls everyone knows about. She arrived at our school last year and immediately made herself notorious—you know the type: flashing Mr. Johnson’s tenth-grade Algebra 2 class when he had his back turned, kissing Michael Higgins with full-tongue when he won class president.
“Are they going out?” I ask, and Teeny bursts out laughing.
“Jealous?” she hoots, and nudges me with her hip.
“Me, jealous of Hailey Brinson? Right,” I say, but I can’t help but grin as I hip-bump her back. Because, yes. Yes, I am.
I don’t tell them that I have Nick’s number in my pocket, that right before we left class he slid it across my desk with an expression of feigned indifference, though the number burns against my leg for the rest of the day. Emi, Teeny, and Myra are my best friends, but this is something I’m not sure they would understand, because I’m not sure I understand it myself.
