by Ruby Vincent
“Manning.”
I jumped.
“It’s your turn. Tell us who you are and where you want to go.”
I twisted around to face the pair. Cameron was smiling, but Santiago looked like he was seconds away from putting his head on the desk and going to sleep.
“Alright.” I got to my feet and cleared my throat. “My name is Zeke Manning. My mom is a writer—”
“What does she write?”
“She writes...” The words stuck in my throat when I turned to see who spoke.
It was the eyes that struck me. A shocking blue that invoked visions of freshly skimmed swimming pools and powder blue jelly beans. They couldn’t be his real eye color, but as I traced his face, I could see it suited him. Conventional was a word I doubt people used to describe this boy.
He wore a skin-tight newsprint suit and leather shoes that gleamed. His olive-toned chest peeked through his open collar, and his thick, black hair was gelled back on the sides while the top hung down to his eyes. I didn’t know how it was possible that I hadn’t noticed him before, but he was all I could see now.
“What does she write?” he repeated, jarring me out of my fog.
“She writes women’s fiction.”
“Anything we would have heard about?”
I shrugged. “Do you guys read women’s fiction?”
I got a round of headshakes. “Then, no. Probably not. Anyway—”
“What about your dad?”
I stiffened.
I hated that question. I hated the way it followed me around my whole life. How it entered almost every single conversation I had. Four harmless words on their own, but together, they ripped me apart, because every time I had to say four words in reply.
“My dad is dead.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I didn’t have trouble looking away from him then. I shifted back to Cameron. “My mom is a writer and we just moved back into town. Before that, we traveled and she homeschooled me.”
“This your first time in a real school?”
“Yes. We’ve been on the road since I was a baby.”
“How many countries have you been to?”
“Twenty-six.”
A low whistle cut through the silence. I could hear murmurs of appreciation, but it was Cameron’s response that interested me. The smile melted away as his expression turned assessing.
“You know any other languages?” he asked.
“I’m fluent in three, not including English.”
“Which ones?”
“Spanish, French, and Afrikaans.”
“So language, geography, and world history. Are those your subjects?”
“No. I’m good at those, but math is my subject.”
Cameron lifted a brow. “You think so?”
“I know so,” I replied without skipping a beat. “I never had classmates to compare myself to, but... math is my subject.”
Cameron cut eyes to Santiago and that made me turn my attention to him. The guy did not look bored now. “Let’s see if that’s true,” said Cameron.
“What do you—”
Santiago climbed off the desk as if that was his cue. I watched in confusion as he walked up to the whiteboard and picked up a marker.
“If you’re that good,” said Santiago, “then you’ll have no problem answering this.” He scribbled out a problem as he spoke. “If x is more than zero, but less than pi over two. What is this expression equal to?”
Santiago wrote out an equation loaded with sines and cosines and all of them squared. My mind shot into gear before he wrote the last minus. I may not have known how to act like a boy or go to a regular school, but I knew this.
Trigonometry equations flashed across my vision, whirling and zipping through my mind’s eye as the numbers formed, multiplied, canceled themselves out, and then finally revealed their answer to me.
Santiago turned away from the board, holding out the marker. “You can work out the problem, but you can’t look up anything—”
“The answer is two.”
He stopped. “What?”
“I said the answer is two.”
Santiago looked between me and the board. “But you didn’t—” A scowl twisted his face. “You can’t just guess.”
“I didn’t guess. The square root of the value squared will cancel out and it will become the original value. The problem then becomes sine x over sine x plus cosine x over cosine x. That is one plus one, which equals two. The answer is two.”
Santiago said nothing. The disinterest in his gaze was long gone and replaced with an intensity that pierced through me. I’m not sure how, but it felt like I had done something wrong.
“Damn,” Zachary said. “I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, but it sounded good. Is he right?”
“Well, Santi,” Adam spoke up when he didn’t answer. “Is he right?”
“He’s right,” Cameron said smoothly. He peered at his friend. “Impressive, wouldn’t you say, Santi? Not even you got that problem right on the first try and he calculated it in his head.”
“Shut up,” Santiago snapped. “He probably answered it before. I’ll give him another one.”
“No need.” Cameron turned back to me. “You good at sports?”
“I was homeschooled,” I said simply. “I didn’t have PE class.”
“Shame, but I’d like to see you pull something out in the trials. We don’t have a multilingual or anyone else as good at math as Santi. We could use you in the Elite Class.”
“Use me?” My brows drew together. “But you’re going to be sophomores. We wouldn’t be in the same class.”
“Of course we’ll be in the same class. Us Elites stick together.”
I picked up something belying those words. Between Cameron’s grin and Santi’s glare, I knew something had changed, but I didn’t know what.
“Does that include the girl Elite Class?” The question was out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Do you stick with them?”
“Yes,” he replied. There was no hesitation.
“If you feel that way, why is it like this? Why are the boys and girls in separate classes and only allowed to mix at meal times?”
“Yeah. Why is that?” Owen piped up. “It straight up sucks. What do they think we’re going to do?”
“It’s not about sex,” Cameron said bluntly. “The school used to be mixed. Everything was fine for a while, but it became obvious it wasn’t going to work.”
“Why?” I pressed. I was different from my mother in many ways, but while the question of the gender separation disgusted her, it had defined me. It had brought me here, forced me into this role, and burned beneath the decisions I would have to make and the things that I would have to do.
I balled my fists behind my back. My heart beat against my chest, pumping blood that boiled beneath my skin. Everything had changed that day. One moment I had been Zela Manning—a content fifteen-year-old girl who was looking forward to going to high school with her cousin.
But then he changed everything and now I won’t be Zela Manning for a long time... maybe never again.
“Because of the battle system,” Cameron continued, unaware of the war raging inside of me. “The point of the system is to make sure the best rise to the top and the others stay where they belong, but things got out of hand. Some of the guys saw the girls as easy targets so they exclusively challenged them to battles over and over again until they won. One year, there was a girl in the B Class who ended up having over ten battles a week because the guys singled her out.
“She had excellent grades but wasn’t as good at sports, so they figured they would just keep challenging her until one of them managed to beat her at the academic test. She couldn’t say no without hurting her grade, but all the battles, extra tests, and constant running around wore her down. Her schoolwork started slipping, and by the end of the semester, she was a mess.”
The room was deadly silent as Cameron reveale
d the awful tale.
“She finally lost and ended up in the D Class. She wasn’t the only one. When the year ended, there were no girls in the Elite or A Class, and only two in the B Class. The girl’s parents got involved—both of them high-priced lawyers—and they threatened to sue the school for allowing their daughter to be bullied and harassed. The parents of the other girls promised to join in on the suit if Breakbattle didn’t do something about it.
“Breakbattle encourages competition, but not even they could defend what the boys were doing. Their solution to stop the targeting was to separate the classes. People are pissed about it, but no one else has come up with a better solution.”
“I have one,” I replied. “The school could cap the number of battles a student can be in each semester and, oh yeah, people can stop being assholes.”
A whoop sounded behind me. “I’m with Zeke,” Zachary cried. “Bring the girls back.”
Zachary kicked off a round of applause. Over the din, Cameron kept his attention fixed on me.
“Interesting idea, Manning. You should take it up with the vice principal.”
“Maybe I will.” After a few seconds, I broke our gaze and retook my seat.
“Keep the introductions going,” said Cameron, but I could still feel his eyes boring into me as another boy spoke up.
Chapter Three
“Today was...”
Adam laughed. “You don’t have to say. I know.”
The two of us were back in our dorm room, getting ready for the opening dinner. I said my goodbyes to Mom, Jordan, and Aunt Bev at lunch, but unlucky for me, the affable Adam rolled up and introduced himself to my family as my new friend and roommate.
Jordan and Aunt Bev took one look at him and the look in their eyes said it all. I was in for it the moment he left.
“Zee, you better behave yourself,” Auntie hissed.
I flushed hotly. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not going to do anything.”
“You better not. You keep those drawers on and that chest wrapped up, young lady.” She made sure her voice didn’t carry, but I was straight up mortified nonetheless.
“Honestly, Beverly,” Mom cut in, rising to my defense. “This is not about boys. This is about enacting change and tearing down a discriminatory system.”
“That’s what it’ll be about until she waddles home pregnant.”
I edged away from them, praying no one figured out I was with those people. I thought I couldn’t be more embarrassed until Jordan came after me.
“Forget my mom. That Adam guy is hot as hell. If you don’t climb that like a tree, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I’m not climbing anything!”
She rose up, looking over my head. “Can I have him, then? I’m not finding anything like that in Chesterfield High.”
I grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. “Goodbye, Jordan. Take your mother and your aunt and go.”
Laughing, she skipped away and dragged our arguing mothers out. I felt a moment of relief when they were gone, but only for a moment. That peace was soon broken by the realization that I was on my own in a school full of boys with everything to lose.
I pushed my anxiety down and locked it away as I straightened my bow tie. I looked pretty good. Jordan had hooked me up with dark blue pants and a matching shirt and tie. Adam was already dressed and waiting by the door. He looked great in black slacks and a striped green shirt. His hair he allowed to do what it wanted and the curls flopped down in front of his eyes.
“Adam.”
“What’s up?”
“I want to apologize for my family.”
“What? Why? They were nice.”
I pulled my head out of the wardrobe and gave him a look. “Trust me. I promise I’ll never subject you to them again.”
He threw his head back, laughing. “You’re a weird guy, but I like you. How about I even the score and introduce you to my mother? She’ll be at the dinner tonight.”
“Really? Okay, cool.”
I finished getting dressed and we left. I snuck glances at Adam while we headed down the stairs.
“So,” I began. “I heard you say earlier about your mom and dads—plural.”
“Yes, plural,” he said without breaking his stride. “I’ve got four dads.”
“Um... how?”
He chuckled. “They’re my mom’s boyfriends. She’s been with them since I was a baby, so I call them all Dad.”
“Oh. Okay.” I fell quiet. For a while, all you could hear was the echo of shoes on the concrete steps.
“Thank you.”
I raised my head. “Thank you? For what?”
“For restraining yourself and not saying it’s weird or gross. I’ve heard it all since I was a kid.”
“I would never say that. I don’t think it either.”
“Sure.”
“I’m serious.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him up short, halting on the third-floor landing. “I don’t think it’s weird. I’ve lived in a lot of places and experienced many cultures. I’ve met women with multiple partners. Guys with multiple partners too. We’re all just living our lives. Oooh.” I gave him a little shake. “I even lived in this one village where women are expected to raise their children with their brothers.”
He goggled at me. “Have children with their brothers?”
“No, they don’t reproduce with them. They go out, find some guy to lend his DNA and then when they get pregnant, they come back home and their brother or brothers will act as the children’s father. The idea is that the best people to raise a family with is your family.” I lifted my shoulders. “I’ve seen it all, man. There are plenty of families out there and I don’t judge.”
He cracked a smile. “You’re alright, Zeke Manning.”
“It’s true, I am.”
Laughing, we picked up our feet and kept going. I made it to the bottom floor before I opened my mouth again. “Do you mind if I ask another question?”
“Shoot.”
“You said they’ve been with your mom since you were a baby. What about your biological father?”
I braced myself for Adam to tell me to go to hell. I knew it was a personal question, but I couldn’t hold it back. There was a need in me that had existed my whole life. Something I could never talk about with Mom. If there was a chance that he knew what I had gone through, I needed to know. I needed someone to share it with.
“He died before I was born.” I saw him look at me out of the corner of my eyes. “And your dad...”
“I never knew him either.” The words were hard to say, but I forced them out. “He left before I was born too. Told my mom he wanted nothing to do with me and wouldn’t pay a cent of child support. Then when I was six, she told me he died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
We were quiet for a moment until Adam broke the silence.
He nudged my arm. “Tell me more about the places you’ve been. Where was that village you were talking about?”
“That was in...”
We chatted as we passed through the halls for the dining room. The doors were open when we arrived and I almost stopped in the entrance, not believing what I was seeing. The plain white and gray space I ate in earlier that day was transformed. The lunch benches had been swapped out for circular tables covered with reddish-gold linens. My new classmates weaved through the party dressed in their finest.
Adam and I moved over to the buffet line and loaded up a plate with finger foods. We would have a formal sit-down dinner later, but first, we were expected to mingle.
“I’m going to find my mom,” Adam said as he left the buffet. “You coming with?”
“I’ll—” Something caught my eye and I stopped. “I’ll catch up to you.”
Adam went on while I veered off. Cameron gestured to me again, inviting me over to the group assembled near the head table. There were five of them and none had changed their clothes. The
letter E blazed proudly on their chest. All eyes turned on me as I drew near and Cameron stepped out of the pack.
“This is the guy I was telling you about.” He put his arm around my shoulder and held me to his side like he thought I was going to run away. “A potential Elite.”
Santi scoffed. “He answered one question, Cam, and he admitted he sucks at sports. Don’t put the E on his blazer just yet.”
I bristled. I didn’t like Cameron showing me off like his newest prize, but I wasn’t cool with Santiago underestimating me either. “If I want that E on my blazer, I’ll get it.”
Cameron shook me. “I like that attitude, Manning. That’s what separates the Elites from the As. Your boy Moon has the ability, but he doesn’t have the hunger. He’s not willing to do whatever it takes, but if you want to be on top, you have to blow past the boundaries.”
The guys before me inclined their heads, agreeing as one. A niggle of unease unfurled in my gut as Cameron dropped his arm and moved in front of them, facing me.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Manning?”
The dim lights from the artificial candles flickered in his eyes. It enhanced the overwhelming sense I’ve had since I met him—the feeling that he was seeing right through me.
“Yes,” I rasped. “I understand.”
His smile told me I had said the right thing. “Boys, what do you think?”
“We need a multilingual.” I didn’t know the short, bespectacled guy who spoke, but Argyle had introduced him that day as Heath Dowell. “But Santi is right. Let’s see how he does on the first day of the trials.”
Cameron inclined his head. “Fair enough.”
Just like that, he turned his back on me. I was dismissed.
I wandered away from the group in search of Adam.
What was that about? It was like I was a fatted calf up for auction. Or like they were approving me for acceptance into their class, but it wasn’t like they decided who became Elite. How I scored on the placement test and in the trials did.
My mind spun with questions, but no answers. Maybe those dudes were just weirdos. It would explain Santi looking at me like I personally offended him for answering a math question, and Cameron going on about being better than everyone. Definitely weirdos.
