Authors: Fabio Bueno
“Hey, nice
tat
,” I say.
Skye turns, startled, touching
her
side
instinctively, but she recover
s
soon
. “Oh, that. Haven’t you seen this before?”
I’m about to point out I was the only one at school who didn’t see it, but I don’t want to be indelicate.
I didn’t even notice it when I was performing CPR on her.
Instead,
I move my hands close to her and say, “May I?”
She nods, but her eyes are trained on me. I raise her shirt a bit and
caress
her tattoo with my fingertips. It gives her goose bumps. “It’s silver. Isn’t it rare?”
“It’s a tradition amongst my kind,” she says.
With my index finger, I lower the hem of her jeans just an inch.
The bird’s tail continues even further down.
“
Is it a phoenix
?” I
ask, prolonging the moment. I wo
n’t lie
:
I enjoy
touching her skin.
“
Yes
,” she answers.
“Love the artwork. I’d love to see the whole design,
” I
whisper, half-joking
.
She
squints playfully and
d
elicately brushes my hand away.
“Sure you
would
. Come on, we have to go.”
I let out a
deep,
theatrical sigh
and give the tattoo
one
last longing stare.
When I open the bedroom door for her, we find out that
Aunt Gemma is waiting for us at the end of the stairs. And she doesn’t look happy.
“Wait until I tell your mother about you bringing boys to your room,” Aunt Gemma says.
It doesn’t
faze
Skye. “I talked to her earlier this morning. I
should have
mentioned it
, actually. Knowi
ng her, she’d be so proud of me.
”
“Young lady—”
“Aunt Gemma, we’re behaving,”
Skye
says, friendly. “Besides, we’ve only been there for five minutes. If we were doing something,
that would
have been…
a letdo
w
n
.”
Bad Skye.
***
I arrive at school as a conqueror. I have a glimpse of Jane’s life, with all eyes on
Skye and me
. We leave the Volvo, our
royal
carriage, and make
our
way to
the entrance
, cutting through the gossip and the incredulous stares. It’s a little sad to
realize
I’m
as
shallow as
everybody
else, but
it feels so good to be dating her
.
As if to reinforce the image, I put my arm over Skye’s shoulders, and she welcome
s
it. She
seems to be
enjoying it, but she tenses a
little
and looks at her right in a sudden motion.
Following her gaze, I see Jane and
Brianna
talking to each other, away from us.
Brianna
is the
first
girl I
’ve
ever kissed.
The one
who
created
my
good-kisser
reputation.
It doesn
’t surprise me that Jane and
she
were o
n speaking terms (I mean, if
Brianna
was capable of kissing me when I was a pariah, she
is
capable of anything).
But I find it weird
when
Brianna
nods, then walks
in the direction of
the
school entrance, her path on a collision course with ours.
Skye and I don’t stop,
but
we keep staring at
Brianna
. When
Brianna
is close to us, she whispers, “Blinding potion, bitch.”
“Hey! Watch yourself,” I warn her.
I release Skye and put myself between the two of them. Brianna turns and starts walking back to Jane.
But
Skye takes two quick steps toward
Brianna
and touches my first
make-
out
partner on the back of her neck. It’s a soft touch—not a slap,
or
a shove
.
Somehow,
that startles
Brianna
even more.
Brianna
panics
,
yelling and
rubbing
her
neck repeatedly
where Skye touched her.
Skye retreats to my side, giving
Brianna
a triumphant look. Which only makes
Brianna
even more freaked out. She runs to Jane, who holds her, and tells her something. But
Brianna
won’t
calm
down, and Jane slaps her on the face, in the only way Jane knows
it
: hard.
Brianna
is stunned but stops her crazy act. Jane grabs her
by the
arm and drags her to the back of the parking lot.
When they leave, everyone’s stares turn to Skye and
me
. Nobody understands what just happened, least of all me.
Skye
holds
my hand and
leads
me through
the school
gates, smiling as if we had
never been interrupted. “She’s not the Singularity,” she whispers to me. “Who
i
s she?”
“My past,” I say, as if I have a past.
Skye
’s
eyebrow
s
go up
. “The gossip girl you kissed, huh? Interesting.”
Instead of leading me through the doors, Skye makes a
sharp
detour, and we arrive at a picnic table behind the cafeteria. “What did she
mean
?” I ask, seeing we’re alone.
“The cream. It wasn’t an allergic reaction.
Jane and
that girl
put a
blinding concoction in my moisturizer. And your ex
led
me outside and yanked
off
my towel. I recognized
her
voice.”
It’s like one of those blurry pictures that suddenly snap
s
into focus.
“She still likes you,” Skye says.
Afraid to say anything, I realize that every girl I have ever kissed is a psycho of some sort.
Maybe magic
is
real: I must have some curse or something.
After
the incident with
Drake’s ex,
the
school
has
a few
more
smaller surprises for us
. At different times, both Drake and I are summoned to the principal’s office to account for our days off. We give our versions (mine: invented Mum’s health complications; his: invented returning headaches)
. The principal is
very understanding.
Drake and I are
becoming expert liars.
When we’re at our lockers, Priscilla asks me what happened with
Brianna
.
“She’s jealous,” I reply.
“
Okay. What about
you?” she asks me. When she see
s my puzzled expression, she adds, “You went after her! I th
ought you were going to hit her.
”
I try to think of a
good explanation
, but the best I can come up is
,
“I just wanted to let her know Drake’s with me now.”
Priscilla chu
ckles. “You
a
re
into him!”
I smile slyly, but I don’t answer.
The whole
day I sense Jane around school. She’s like a
shark circling me. She never gets close, but the constant reminder takes a toll on my nerves. When the final bell rings, I can’t wait to leave the grounds. Drake
gives me a ride. We stop at a deli and go eat
the
subs
(mine vegetarian)
at the Gas Works
Park
.
He
shivers and
says,
“It never gets
this
cold
in
November.
Can’t your kind slow down global warming?”
“We already did. This—” I point up “—is us slowing it down!”
He stares at me, hoping to detect a lie, but I keep my
poker
face. This
is fun.
“
Seattle is growing on me
,” I say, gazing over to the boats cruising Lake
Union
. Even on a
cloudy
Thursday afternoon, the waters are busy. “Have you lived here all your life?”
“Yep,
”
he says, relaxed.
I reach for his plate and take a carrot stick. “In the same house?”
“Same neighborhood. We had to
move
after our first house burned down.”
The stick stops halfway to my mouth. “Your house burned down? How come you never told me this?”
“Well, it’s not something I volunteer
o
n the first few dates.
Hi, I’m Drake
.
I set fire to my house
.
”
“
You
did it?”
“Not intentionally.
I’m not an arsonist.”
I finally eat the carrot.
But this heavy silence is upon us.
Drake
probably notices it too. He
has more to say
. “Okay, I’ll tell you. I
stole
a cigarette from my father and went to the basement to smoke it. I coughed a lot, my first time, you know, and dropped the butt. I went for a glass of water in the kitchen
, then outside for some air,
and completely forgot about it
. Next thing I know, the walls we
re hot, the curtains
on fire
, and I…”
H
is voice trails.
“What?”
“I rush
ed upstairs and fou
nd Mona
. She was unconscious—the
smoke. I almost killed her, Skye.”
My hand reaches for him. I
stroke
his hair,
his face, and he holds my hand i
n his, pressing
it
against his cheek.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” he mumbles.
“It was an accident, Drake,” I say.
He nods, but
he
looks away to
ward
the lake.
I move behind him, sit on the grass with my legs
around
hi
m
, and embrace him. He leans back on me. I kiss the side of his neck softly, once. We stay quiet for a while, but this time the silence is comfortable.
I touch his messed-up hair.
“Are you going to do something about your hair?” I ask.
“Nah. I’m just having a bad hair year
,
”
he says softly.
That’s the last thing he says for a long time.
I just keep running my fingers through his hair.
The
cold
wind
makes us get even closer
.
The cuddling is so simple but so satisfying. I forgot how nice it’s to… be together
.
“Where are you going to college?” His voice
is
distant.
That’s an odd question. “I’m not. At least, I don’t have plans yet. You?”
“Don’t know. Don’t have the money. Yet.”
“Did you even apply?”
I ask him.
“Nah. It’s no use. Mona is the future of the family. If only one
of us
goes to college, it should be her.”