The Knockout

by Sajni Patel

  I slid down into the corner of the tub and crouched below the cascading water, my hands on top of my head, my fingers laced.

  It took ten minutes to shower and about another ten just to cry it out. Water muffled the sobs and disguised the tears, but nothing repaired breaking hearts.

  After what seemed like forever, I turned the faucet off, letting the steam dissipate. I dried off, dressed, blow-dried my hair, and then slipped into warm, comfy sweats—the same shade of dark-green as the school colors. My top was thick but worn, faded pink. My socks were striped red and white. Who cared if my outfit was mismatched?

  The vacuum had been turned off and put back into the utility closet beside the laundry room. The gentle thrum of the washer played and so did the dryer from an earlier load left in the wash.

  I walked through my parents’ room, now spotless, and even my own room had been tidied. The living room was pristine and the kitchen shinier than my best cleaning days.

  I took in a deep breath filled with something mouthwatering. Amit and Lily sat at the small dining table, hunched over food.

  “There you are!” Lily exclaimed. “I’m starving here.”

  I slipped into a chair in between them. “You should’ve eaten. What is this?”

  “Chef Amit insisted that we wait. I guess . . .”

  Amit grinned. “It’s nothing special, just soup.”

  “We had stuff for this?”

  “Yeah. Some broth, noodles, and frozen veggies. Hope it’s not too bland.”

  I blew on a spoonful and chewed on a piece of spinach. “Nah, this is amazing. Simple but perfect.” Nothing like comfort food.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Lily muttered around her bite. She inhaled the contents and went for seconds, but Amit and I stopped when we finished and watched her.

  “What?” she asked. “You’re not hungry?”

  “Good for now,” I replied.

  When she finished, Amit packed the leftovers and washed dishes while Lily and I started the second dryer load and folded laundry from the load Mama must’ve started earlier today.

  “He’s amazing,” she said.

  I side-eyed her.

  “And totally into you.”

  “Now’s not the best time to get googly over a boy, ya know?”

  “Just saying. More support doesn’t hurt. Distractions don’t hurt.”

  “I don’t want to associate either of you with what might be the worst time of my life.”

  “You got it wrong. You’ll see us and find both happiness and sadness, support and relief. We’re the shoulders you cry on so your mom can cry on yours. You got that?”

  “You’re demanding, aren’t you?”

  “Like you didn’t know that.” She winked. “Don’t even try to push us away. We’re on you like white on rice.”

  I laughed. “Original.”

  “Like Amit on Kareena?”

  My face burned. “Shh. If he’s a good friend, he won’t use this situation to his advantage. In fact, if I feel like he’s even leaning that way, I’ll push him out of my life like that.”

  “It would be horrible if he did that, but he doesn’t seem like that sort of guy.”

  “You never know these days. Dev didn’t seem like the type of guy to sit around and let his sister rip me apart, but here we are.”

  She scowled. “You should’ve punched both of them.”

  “I will not use my power for evil.”

  “Did Amit tell you that he’s been going with me to find sponsors to raise money for the Open?”

  I stared so hard at her as the words realigned themselves in my brain. They still didn’t make sense. I shook my head and stuttered, “Wait, what? You’ve been going out sponsor-hunting without me? And with Amit?”

  She smiled a little shadily. “He asked me about it a while back. You’d mentioned it to him.”

  Had I? Oh! That night when we first kissed. Was that why he said things would work out? Because he had planned on helping out?

  I could not stop from smiling as Lily nudged me. “See?” she said. “He’s a good guy. Not many boys out there willing to make time and actually walk business to business asking random and total strangers to give up some money.”

  My chest fluttered. God. I wanted to . . . I wanted to march into the kitchen and just kiss him for this. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Nothing. You don’t have to say anything. This is what friends do.”

  I pressed my lips together, almost biting them. Wow. I had some freaking amazing friends then, didn’t I?

  “You don’t need to worry about fundraising right now. It’s not the type of distraction you need.”

  I groaned. “There is nothing that could distract me right now.”

  “You know what is a distraction? Prom.”

  Ugh. Really? That thing was coming up. Dances weren’t for me. One, I couldn’t dance well. Two, it was weird trying to find a date. Three, it was weird showing up without a date. Four, I’d rather just go to the movies or a friend’s house. Five, the list could literally go on and on. “Never.”

  “You’ve never been to a school dance.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable dancing in front of other people. And dates. My mom wouldn’t let me have a date, and you’re going with Jared.”

  “Jared can go solo, then.”

  “You won him in the auction. And if memory serves correctly, you’ve had a thing for him since last summer.”

  “Which is why me cutting him loose should prompt you to go, if nothing else, rather than feeling bad for me.”

  “I’ll think about it. It’s not on my mind at the moment.”

  “That’s the point. The Open is stressful. Your dad, your grades, college, all that is stress. Plan for something that has no meaning to you, like prom, and let that fill your head.”

  “Maybe.”

  We each took stacks of laundry and put away the clothes into their respective places. The three of us met in the living room where Amit patted wet hands against his jeans.

  “Thanks for everything,” I told him.

  “No worries. You should get some sleep, though? It’s almost midnight.”

  “Yeah. I don’t sleep much, but I should try anyway.”

  He rubbed his palms together but kept his distance. He looked to Lily. “You’re staying over, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Okay. I’ll let you get some rest.” He walked past me and into the foyer. “Please, please, call or text if either of you need anything. Even if it’s five in the morning and you want milk and cereal.”

  I leaned against the wall beside the front door, my arms crossed at my chest. “Thanks. Um. You know, you can sleep over. If you want.”

  His cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink. “I think our parents would flip.”

  “Lily’s here.”

  He checked his watch, one of those smart watches that connected to his phone and updated him on texts, emails, phone calls, steps, and probably the current temperature of the moon. “I’m supposed to be working. That’s the whole arrangement with my parents. They don’t bother me about being home late or out all night because they know it’s how I work.”

  “Oh! Oh my god, are you going to get in trouble?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “My uncle knows. I told him I needed to drive around to think for a bit.”

  “Go. Lily’s here. It’s all good.”

  “Okay. But seriously, let me know if you need anything.”

  “We will.”

  He slipped on his shoes and I locked the door after him, watching him through the slit in the blinds as he walked to his car. The headlights blinked and the alarm beeped. The blinds sprang back together and I met Lily on the couch.

  “We can put on a movie and make popcorn until we f
all asleep?” she suggested.

  “That sounds nice.”

  Before we set out to look for a movie, we dragged blankets and pillows into the living room for our sleepover nest. We’d had lots of sleepovers when Papa was in the hospital, but we’d had even more for the fun of it. Lily had been right. I didn’t associate everything with Papa’s health negatively. Getting comfy in pajamas, building a blanket nest in the living room, and staying up all night with a movie was nostalgic and warm—all the good feels and none of the bad ones.

  Someone knocked on the door. We shot into battle mode. Even though Amit had left not even two minutes ago, one never knew.

  We crept to the foyer, where Lily grabbed the baseball bat from the coat closet beside the front door. I snuck a peak through the blinds and slouched. “It’s Amit.”

  “Still . . .” she joked, her grip rubbing around the handle of the bat like she was preparing to swing in a softball game.

  “Girl, put that away.”

  She groaned and lowered the bat. “Right, because you can defend us without a bat. I forgot.”

  She dragged the bat back to the closet and I opened the door.

  Amit, flushed and adjusting the backpack strap on his shoulder, said, “Hi.”

  “Hi. Did you forget something?” I looked behind me. I didn’t remember him bringing much inside.

  He replied in a rush, “I can do my work from my computer. You know, that is, if you want me to stay.”

  Lily grinned in my periphery.

  My heart palpitated. Of course I wanted him to stay.

  “I’ll leave before your mom gets home so she doesn’t freak. My parents think I’m at work. There will be no leakage of info for anyone to speculate or gossip, promise.”

  “What if they ask your uncle if you’re really there?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll deal with that if they ask.”

  “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”

  “It’s not a problem. Your name will never come up.”

  “I can’t believe your parents let you stay out all night.”

  “What am I doing? Wreaking havoc? Valedictorian while working? There’s no time to get into trouble. Is it okay with you if I stay too?”

  Lily pulled the door back as I said, “Okay, but only if you’re sure that you won’t get into trouble.”

  “Nah.” He stepped inside, locked the door, and promptly removed his shoes.

  “We were going to fall asleep watching a movie,” Lily said as she dug through the DVDs.

  “Will you be able to concentrate on work?” I asked, becoming more and more aware that an actual, factual boy was about to spend the night in my house.

  “Yeah. I can always go to the kitchen, but noise doesn’t bother me.”

  Lily held up a few DVDs, at which I nodded to the last one, a ridiculous comedy that made me laugh even on the worst days.

  Lily went to the kitchen and Amit dropped his bag beside the recliner.

  I jerked forward to stop him. “Wait. Don’t sit there.”

  “Oh, okay.” He moved to the couch beside me. “Sorry.”

  “That’s fine. It’s my dad’s chair,” I said softly, my gaze lingering on the recliner. It was just the right level of firmness, the right height, the most comfortable, and it let Papa lean back to nap so he didn’t have to go all the way to the bedroom. It was also situated perfectly in the living room where the glare of the sun couldn’t quite reach if the curtains were left open, where the vent wouldn’t push dust directly on him, where the breeze of the fan would still reach him, where he had a good view of the TV and easiest access to the kitchen and bathroom.

  Amit offered a sympathetic smile. “No worries.”

  Lily returned with two bowls of popcorn. She set the larger one on the coffee table and proceeded to plop down on the floor with a pillow and a throw blanket.

  “Do you want to sit on the couch? I can go to the table,” Amit said to her.

  “Nah. I like the floor for movies. I can’t stretch out up there.”

  While the movie played, Lily covered her mouth to keep from cackling. Maybe she did that because Amit was here or maybe because she didn’t want to laugh so hard under the circumstances. I kept my laughter down too. In part because Amit was sitting so close to me and working, but mainly because it felt wrong to laugh, all things considered.

  I pulled my legs to my chest, curled up beneath a comforter, and nonchalantly peered over at the computer screen. “What are you doing for work?”

  “The program,” he replied.

  “Says the guy who needed tutoring for computer science.”

  He kept his eyes downcast and forced a half smile. Inter-esting. Maybe he never needed tutoring, but was purposely failing? Or maybe he was embarrassed about the small things he didn’t understand in comp-sci when he was obviously so smart.

  He popped in a flash drive and worked some magic, then popped in a new one.

  The first movie ended and Lily had long since fallen asleep on the floor. Amit continued to work, quiet and in the zone as he fiercely typed and scribbled stuff into his notebook. I put in another DVD, the sequel and equally hilarious, and went to Papa’s chair. I reclined it and pulled the throw blanket to my chin. No one sat here except Papa. We bought this chair specifically for him. But sitting here made me feel like a little girl on his lap. It smelled like him, part dad smell and part medicine cabinet smell, combined and oddly comforting.

  I glanced at Amit to see if he was still fiercely working but caught him watching me thoughtfully. The corner of his mouth curled up, crooked and cute. I turned away from him, toward the TV, buried the lower part of my face under the blanket, and closed my eyes.

  I tried to sleep. I really did. My thoughts wandered but I forced them to follow along with the movie behind dark lids. Epic fail.

  Irritated, I decided to sit up and stretch, maybe go to my room and do some exercises.

  Lily had stretched out on the floor, no longer on her side. Amit had fallen asleep too. He lay on the couch, facing me, with the comforter to his waist. His laptop and notebook sat on the coffee table.

  It would be a gross invasion of privacy to log on, but I’d seen the notebook before. It was the same one from our first evening study session at Lily’s house.

  Carefully taking the notebook, I sank back into the recliner and read through the programming. It was massive, countless pages. They were the same scribbles I’d seen last time, but now there were also newer fragments and erased sections that had been scribbled over with different segments. I couldn’t figure out what the program was for unless I started from the beginning, and that was assuming this was the entire thing. It wasn’t. It was written in scraps, in either nonconsecutive intervals or portions that didn’t go to the same program. Maybe that was why he wrote it on paper.

  It took me the rest of the night to read through and piece it together, flipping back and forth. I watched Amit from over the ruffled lip of pages as it dawned on me. Amit wasn’t losing it or weirdly consumed by this ever-growing accumulation of coding fragments. He was a freaking genius. All these parts that had appeared in his head from thin air formed a cohesive program, one that could actually work if he knew how to align them. A long, winding, artistic compilation of strands and loops and variables led to a brilliant culmination that even I didn’t see coming. It was as if someone had written an intricate story in nonlinear fragments that was so comprehensive, they themselves didn’t know how to glue it together correctly.

  Morning light crested over the bent blind slats and soaked the room in warm light. Something about morning made everything better. A new day, a new hope, the fact that we made it through another night was nothing short of a miracle these days.

  Amit stirred, shifting onto his back and raising his hand above his head. His eyes opened into slits and our gazes met. His low
ered to the notebook in my hand and he lurched up.

  “Are you reading that again?” he asked, panicked.

  I quickly placed it onto the coffee table. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I don’t want anyone seeing that.” He stared at the notebook like he wanted to snatch it.

  “Is this about the work project that you said you’d tell me about?”

  If Amit had ever looked upset, now was definitely it. Those slightly furrowed brows and flaring nostrils and pressed lips. He was cute even when mad. But I didn’t want him to be mad, least of all at me. I swallowed hard and braced for his anger.

  He stuffed the notebook and laptop into his bag and muttered, “I better get going.”

  I hurried off the recliner and sat beside him, trapping him against the couch arm. “Not before you tell me about work.”

  He paused.

  “Because one, you told me you’d tell me. Two, I need to know why you were at the hospital and how you knew about my dad. You know so much about me, all these ups and downs, and I want to know what this huge thing is. You can’t tell me about it because you’ll get into trouble? Your parents let you stay out all night? Your uncle looks like he runs some major corp. And you’re a key component?”

  He sighed and thought for a moment, but I wasn’t going anywhere. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m working on coding something that several big companies are trying to break into. They’re trying to finish a similar program first, and there’s rumor that they would steal ours if they could. Most people at the company don’t know that I’m actually coding. They think it’s an internship. My parents think that too. I always had trouble sleeping at night, and my uncle offered to let me work behind the scenes at his company. My parents knew I wasn’t making a mess or slipping with my grades, so they agreed.

  “Actually, they pushed me into it. They thought it would make my college application look even better, and then my actual resume when I start working. My uncle realized I’m better at programming than his top people, and he asked me to write some things. But I kept writing. I couldn’t stop writing. And the project is so huge and life-changing, that it makes me feel like I’m losing my mind not figuring out the lost pieces.” He clenched his jaw.