Day 2085

Friday is my second-favorite day of the week; I do have to go to school, but I always put off my homework until Sunday, ‘cause I’ll have to stay home anyway, so I can do whatever I want in the afternoons and in my study hall. Well, it’s not really a study hall, it’s a computer class, but after about ten minutes the teacher just lets us do whatever the hell we want.

The class is pretty much segregated by gender, so the girls get in a group and talk, and the boys get into smaller groups and hack past the internet block to watch porn, with the headphones on so the teacher can’t hear. And miraculously, no one gives them any s**t about it, not even the girls, who will flip out if you so much as make an innuendo in their presence.

I stay away from them; some of them have beaten me up before, and most of them make fun of me whenever I catch their attention, so it’s best if I never do. I sit at my own computer and use their trick for getting around the block to explore the internet as I please. It’s a luxury I’m not used to. At home, Dad’s computer is locked with a bunch of passwords, and I have to ask his permission to use it, and I’m never allowed to use the internet. He doesn’t even want me using it here, but they don’t really care about the permission form he refused to sign, and he knows about the blocks but not about everyone getting around them. So he lets that slide. How else am I supposed to do some of my homework?

But even though I usually do try and get my homework done in this class, so I have more time to spend with Kylie later, it’s Friday, so f**k that bullshit. I’m exploring the internet for stuff that isn’t so boring and dry, just looking around, searching random stuff on Google, following a chain of endless links, looking at everything I can that doesn’t need a username, email address, or credit card number. And there’s a surprising amount of it, too. Music, videos, blogs, articles, pages and pages of information…and, as the other guys have discovered, more porn than you could ever watch in a lifetime, and depicting enough disturbing s**t to make even other porn actors say, “Wow, that’s fucked up.”

Since the only way I could look at that stuff without drawing attention is to try and watch whatever the other guys are watching, I usually pass, though I’m kind of curious. Instead, I look at all the other stuff. My favorite is music. There’s about a hundred different kinds of it, and it’s really fun to just listen to people’s playlists, or all the songs from one artist, and find out what I like and what I don’t. I keep a list of my favorites on a piece of paper that I use as a bookmark, but I’m adding to it almost every day, and even though I discovered the internet like two weeks ago, it’s already taken up half a page.

Right now, I’m looking at classical stuff. I never really thought it was boring, but I kind of shrugged it off�"but once you get over the ADD impulse to have words stuffed in there, you realize that it’s great just the way it is�"it doesn’t need words. It’s not better or worse, just different. And the best part is that while most popular songs sound the same, and a whole bunch of alternative rock songs could pretty much be switched out without anyone noticing, every classical composer makes music with a completely different sound, even if all their compositions sound very similar. Even the two most popular composers (so I’ve heard anyway), Mozart and Beethoven, sound like day and night when you play their stuff back-to-back. Mozart stuff is way busier, more complicated and a lot faster, but Beethoven’s stuff seems to have a lot of emotion behind it…you find yourself feeling things you can’t explain, just because of the music….

Something jerks at my headphones until they come on, the wire catching at my ear and under my chin, the plastic tearing at my hair; I twist free of them, grabbing for them automatically, frowning up at the boy who took them. It hurt, but I refuse to let him know how much. “Quit it,” I snap at him. I don’t really know who he is, only that his name is Jason, and that he’s never messed with me before. But it’s not really surprising.

He shoves at my chair, making it rock; I catch myself, glaring at him as he listens through the headphones, snorts, mutters, “Gay,” then turns to his friends and says loudly, “Hey, Moore’s looking up sex tips.”

“Ooooh,” one of the guys says dramatically, and they all laugh.

“No I’m not,” I snarl. “Leave me alone.”

“Really?” another guy asks, craning his neck to look.

“Nah,” Jason shrugs, rolling his eyes. “Just some gay piano s**t.”

“P***y,” someone jeers.

Through all of this, the teacher is resting his feet on the desk, talking on the phone, paying no attention to us whatsoever.

I snatch the headphones back; they clatter to the desktop, catching Jason by surprise. “Leave me alone or I’ll f*****g kill you,” I hiss at him, loud enough for only him to hear.

He looks shocked; he opens his mouth, but can’t think of anything to say. He tries to shove me, but I knock his arm aside, staring right at him with enough force, I hope, to make his head explode. He backs away, trying to laugh it off, then goes back to his friends. No one but him notices anything; they just go back to what they were doing.

It won’t make him leave me alone. It’ll probably make him feel like he has to mess with me again and again until he shows me up somehow�"probably by beating me up. It’s happened before. But I won’t let them make me look like an idiot, push me around, embarrass me�"I get that enough at home. There’s no goddamn way I’m letting it happen here, too.

The bell rings, and I grab my stuff and head to lunch before anyone can stop me.

I don’t eat lunch. I get lunch money, but I don’t bring it to school with me, it’ll get stolen. So will any food I try to buy or bring. I decided a long time ago that it would be a lot easier to deal with Dad bullying me a little once a month, when he gives me the money, than risking a tangle that might end very, very badly when I tell him about the stealing. Not only will he be furious that I can’t stick up for myself, but then he’ll find out that I’ve been keeping the money the entire time, and spending a little of it, and he’ll kill me…no, it’s way better to keep it like this, so long as he doesn’t find out. I’m too used to living off one meal and one snack a day to care about it very much.

I don’t like to sit in the cafeteria�"it’s too noisy and crowded, and all the tables have people sitting at them already. So I usually just sneak outside, around the back, sitting against the wall facing the football field. You’re not allowed to take cafeteria trays outside the cafeteria, so no one really eats out here, especially when it starts getting cold; I’m usually by myself.

Well, almost by myself. There are a few stragglers, couples sneaking off to kiss, a boy here and there walking around with headphones in and glaring at everything, some people that want a quiet place to conduct various not-so-legal deals or to smoke. But never more than two or three at a time�"and if I don’t bother them, they don’t bother me.

But there’s this one girl that’s been sitting out here all week, and I can’t figure out what she’s doing here. She’s very pretty, Chinese or something, her hair very straight and dark, but her clothes today are the strangest I’ve ever seen; they look really nice, very expensive, and simple, but she seems to be trying to make them work like the stuff girls buy at Hot Topic: red sweater, black skirt, black tights and boots, but hers aren’t made of vinyl or polyester or plastic or whatever most clothes are made out of, despite how she tries to hide it with a bunch of accessories. She’s wearing red lipstick, but no other makeup. I wonder if she knew what she was doing, or if she was trying to do something completely different and failed miserably.

She’s sitting against the wall with her legs stuck out, showing no concern at all for her clothes though they’re obviously expensive. And she’s eating lunch, popping a grape into her mouth at random or taking a bite of her neat, crustless sandwich�"but she’s reading.

This is the weirdest part. No one ever reads in this place. Just me.

I keep looking up at her, distracted, to see what she’s reading, but she’s too far away; and then, as I glance up at her once more, she looks up too, and our eyes meet.

I look away at once, my face burning. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I bet she thinks I’m a total creep now�"it’s just eye contact�"but in some cultures, eye contact is a deadly insult, or a come-on, or�"

Ohhh s**t. She’s packing up her stuff. For a minute I think I’ve offended her, but then she heads over to me�"I keep my head down, hoping against hope that she’ll go away, but�"

“Hi. Can I sit here?”

Her voice is light and sweet and strangely accented�"not by any language, I don’t think, but rather emphasizing each syllable, very carefully, as if she pays a lot of attention to the words she uses and the order she uses them in.

“Um…sure,” I mutter.

She drops her stuff and sits next to me, imitating how I’m sitting�"elbow resting on one leg, pulled in, and the other leg stretched out. At this I blush and look away from her; her skirt is way too short for things like that.

“What are you reading?” she asks me, because of course I was reading out here too, like I always do at lunch.

I show her the book: The Count of Monte Cristo.

“Oh, so you like classics?” she guesses�"as if it’s so easy to tell what my favorite kind of book is, just because I’m reading one that is that kind. Dumb.

“Some of them,” I mumble back.

She settles back against the wall, and in an effort to be somewhat polite, but not stare at her legs (or her breasts, which look a lot rounder and a lot more inviting than most of the girls in my class) I look up at her face, though I can’t meet her eyes. She really is pretty: her features are delicate, her eyes almond-shaped and dark, dark brown, her smooth skin the color of milk and coffee, her lips waiting to be kissed. I swallow, hoping she doesn’t see.

“I know what you mean,” she says, nodding understandingly. “Some of them are just so dry and boring. I can’t understand what makes them so famous. And it can’t just be because they’re old, they must’ve had hundreds of books to read back then. They must’ve just been really popular. Like Harry Potter is now.”

I can think of about a dozen arguments for this�"like the fact that not all classics are that old, and most of them had a huge impact whether she liked them or not, and that she seems to be thinking of Jane Austen novels, which aren’t classics at all, and that Harry Potter should never, ever be spoken of like that because it should be a classic�"but they all sound kind of mean, so I keep my mouth shut.

“Yeah,” I agree with her instead. “Most of them…I think I’d like them if they were written differently. Um…what were you reading?”

She shows it to me: To Kill a Mockingbird.

I stare at it, surprised.

“It’s one of my favorites,” she informs me.

“Mine, too,” I say quietly. Actually, it’s my very favorite book�"at least, my favorite book that isn’t modern. One of the few books I own�"most I get from the library.

“Really?” She smiles at me. And though I can’t quite manage to smile back, something about that smile makes me want to make an extra effort for this conversation.

“Yeah,” I say, then add, haltingly, “Um, why d’you like it so much?”

“Man, are you joking? It’s like….” And then she’s off. I listen carefully, nodding and interjecting with a few words here and there, as she basically tells me what I already know: it’s a fantastic book because it totally absorbs you, pulls you back into that time, teaches you all about it so naturally and subtly that you don’t even notice, adds in little bits of humor that you can’t understand unless you’re really paying attention….

Yes. It’s a good book. I know that. But I wouldn’t interrupt her for the world. Something about her rambling on, and me listening, reminds me of Kylie, how she’s always trying to teach me stuff, or asking me questions….

This girl (her name is Victoria; doesn’t that sound nice? Very sophisticated) doesn’t ask me any questions (except stuff like, “Don’t you think so?” or “Right?”) but she’s very interesting�"very smart. She picks up on stuff that other people don’t.

The bell rings all too soon, but just when I’ve convinced myself that I’ll never see her again (accompanied by an unfathomable blend of disappointment and relief), I do, in my algebra class two hours later, when she comes right up to me and takes the desk behind me. She starts chattering away as soon as the teacher allows (she’s one of those “Here’s some problems, now go work on it” types), about how much she hates math, and I listen carefully while I do the work. It’s surprisingly easy to do both.

We’re done before everyone else is. This doesn’t surprise me, but it shocks her. “Wow,” she says, awed, as she looks over what I’ve done and I lean away from her, wishing she wouldn’t get so close. “D’you think you got ‘em right?”

“Of course I did,” I say, annoyed. I always get them right. Math is easy.

“Oh�"I didn’t mean it like�"” She stops, then skips the awkward apology. “So you like math a lot?”

“Yeah.” Duh.

“Oh. That’s weird,” she says bluntly, and innocently, as if that would cause no offense to anyone. “I hate math.”

“Yeah, lots of people do.” Weird, overemotional, boring people. And Kylie, I guess, but that’s just because she’s bad at it. I can’t pretend I understand though�"I don’t hate English, which isn’t exactly the opposite of math, all creative arts are, and I don’t hate those either�"math is half our brains, half our nature, and it doesn’t seem right to ignore it. Plus it makes a lot more sense than stuff like art. There’s always a right answer, and every question has an answer.

That’s what I’ve always liked about math, ever since I was little: it’s solid, dependable, and can solve any problems that aren’t caused by people being stupid and emotional and dramatic (and it can solve some of those too). Math is what most people’s problems are in the first place�"math is money, math is time, math is the relationship between time and space, math is gravity and inertia and chemistry and muscle strain and hunger and thirst and exhaustion and sexuality. Our whole bodies are math. And if math causes problems, it could solve it too.

Like anemia. Just an iron deficiency. You need 12 milligrams a day, but you only get seven, so just add five. 12-7=5. Math. Or my biggest problem, time management, but I can just solve that by being efficient, by multitasking, and by being aware of time so I don’t waste any. That’s math, too.

I don’t get why people hate it so much. It would solve pretty much everything (except bullshit like, “Hey, I hate you because you looked at my boyfriend and I’m insecure”, because that crap is just people being stupid). It could even solve problems way bigger than we are, like it solved relativity and energy-mass conversion. After all, science is just math used for a higher purpose.  

But I don’t say any of this to Victoria. People will never believe something if they don’t figure it out for themselves first. She’ll come around eventually.

The teacher lectures for another ten minutes, something about exponential functions, and I take careful notes, even though I get it right away. I’m good at math, and I was probably born that way, but you’re not born knowing the tools, or their names, to do something. You’re not born knowing that you can manipulate numbers in this way or that way, you find them out little by little, over time.

Then it’s time to practice again. This time Victoria watches me instead of trying to engage me in conversation; I feel self-conscious as I do the problems by myself, but not about the actual logic of the math, which I know is sound. I always seem to know when I’ve hit upon the right answer, somehow. But she’s really pretty, and well-dressed, and I’m…not. My hair gets dirty really fast, no matter how many times a day I wash it (I think; it looks and smells the same, but it doesn’t feel the same) and my clothes are either too big or too small (lately, too small, unless I borrow something of Dad’s�"my jeans are kind of starting to hurt, and my shoes are killing me) and always worn out and old, because it’s like pulling teeth to get Dad to buy me new ones. And, well, it’s not like they’re cheap clothes and shoes, they’re pretty nice ones, but I keep growing out of them…. 

And that’s not to mention scars or whatever, I never look in the mirror (I don’t even have one) so I never know if there’s anything embarrassing that I can’t cover with clothes. And my handwriting, too. It’s so girly. Dad makes fun of it all the time. It’s cursive, small and narrow and dark and begging not to be read….

But all Victoria says when I’m done is, “Wow. You’re good.”

“It’s easy,” I mumble back. I know you’re supposed to thank people for compliments, but how can I be sure it is one? She could just be making fun of me.

Thankfully, she immediately gets bored with my mathematical prowess and starts telling me about how she just moved here (which explains why I don’t know who she is; everyone knows everyone else around here, or at least their last names) and how she doesn’t know anyone, and she’s never been anywhere this small, even if it is pretty…. Her dad works for one of those companies that makes their employees travel a lot, and moving here had something to do with Lake Tahoe, but I’m not entirely sure what.

“You live here, right? In Zephyr Cove?” she asks me after awhile, and I look up from some practice math problems (which I do just because I can, and it’s fun), dismayed that she’s going to make me talk. I don’t know what to say to her. It would probably only take about two or three words to offend her (maybe just one if she’s diehard Christian�"that word would be “no”) and who knew which ones they would be? I don’t want to hurt her feelings.

“Yes,” I reply, because it’s true, and because that’s easy. “Well, in Skyland.”

“Oh, right�"small towns are so weird, but I guess it’s not that different from London, you know, where all the parts of town are called different things, but they’re really the same.” London. She’s been to London? “Have you always lived here?”

“Yes,” I say again, also because it’s true.

“Wow, how do you stand it?” she asks me, but I don’t answer; it’s clearly a rhetorical question, because she immediately asks me, “What kind of stuff do you do here? Like for fun?”

“Um…I don’t know. There’s a movie place nearby.” At least, within ten miles. I’ve never been, though I’ve always wanted to take Kylie, so I’m not sure.

“That’s it?” She sighs, frowning. “What do your parents do?”

I’m not sure where this question came from, or how to answer it. Not at all sure. “Um,” I say slowly, “my dad has a law firm in Gardnerville. I don’t know what it’s for, though.” Something really boring, like insurance, I think. Or last wills and testaments. Something that gave him enough knowledge of the law to subvert it if he gets in trouble�"or if I do, I guess, though he’d kill me first.

“What about your mom?” she asks me.

I try not to cringe. “Um,” I say, thinking fast, finally deciding on something that’s not a total lie. “She doesn’t do anything.” I’m not sure she ever had a job, to be honest�"at least not after she got married. That was one of the problems.

“Yeah, nor does mine,” she informs me, and I relax slightly�"luckily my answer didn’t cause suspicion, and went unnoticed. “D’you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No.” I actually never thought about it before. If she’d give me a second, I could think it through a little better, though I wouldn’t tell her anyway.

“Really? Wow, you’re so lucky�"my little brother and sister�"”

No, I don’t think I would want one. Definitely not. I mean, it would be nice not to be by myself all the time, and to have someone else know, but if they were older they’d have to look out for me, and I’d have to lie for them when they wanted to do things, and I’d get them in trouble, and anyway I wouldn’t want them getting between me and Dad�"and if they were younger, I’d have to protect them, and stop Dad hurting them, and I don’t think I could. And an older brother might pick on me, too, be just as mean to me…. And I shudder to think what would happen if I had a sister, no matter what age. I wouldn’t want her around Dad at all. There’s something wrong with his brain, and he might hurt her….

“�"the twins, she won’t hear a word against them, she thinks they’re angels, but I think�"”

Twins? I forgot about twins. I think it would be fun to have a twin brother, but I can’t really imagine it…it would be like having a best friend and a brother, combined…like having a best friend that knows you inside and out, or a brother that’s exactly the same as you, but I’ve never had either one of those. Kylie doesn’t count, because she’s a girl, and I could never imagine her otherwise, and because she doesn’t know me very well�"or at least not as well as I know her. Which isn’t saying much: she’s transparent as glass, so easy to read.

But if I had a twin brother, we’d have to watch out for each other. What if one of us slipped up? I know that if anyone, even a brother, fucked up, and I got punished instead of them, and hurt really bad, I’d be pissed. I mean, it’s one thing to volunteer, and I would every time for a girl, but it’s another if someone just made a stupid mistake. And what if we got mad at each other, and started playing against each other? To be brutally honest, if I could get Dad to pick on someone else besides me, and if I didn’t like that person or if I were mad at them, I would do it, no hesitation. I might even be tempted to do it even if I liked them. There’s not a whole lot I wouldn’t do to get him to leave me alone.

Victoria chatters on, and I listen with one part of my brain, absorbing the little that I understand, but the other part is deep in thought. I’m so jealous of her…she loves both her parents, and even her siblings, though she complains about them endlessly. So what if they mess up her stuff? I don’t have anything to mess up, at least that hasn’t been messed up already. So what if she has to take care of them from time to time? I’d always be watching out for my little siblings, if I had any…keeping them away from Dad would eat up all my time, but I’d have to do it, I wouldn’t have a choice…it’s not fair to let him ruin their lives too, when he’s already ruined mine.

I have to force myself not to start thinking about what life would be like if I had a normal, loving family�"and it’s not like I’d know what one was like anyway. I don’t even know what normal parents do, with each other or with their kid�"well, maybe moms, but never dads. Other boys talk about Little League and football games and playing catch and fishing and things like that, but it’s like another world to me. I can’t even think of my dad as someone I could be friends with, or feel safe within a hundred yards of, or even trust not to kill me while I’m sleeping.

Still, though�"what if I had a family? Not just me and Dad, but someone else? Mom…no, that’s too painful to think about. I miss her too much. And she should be here, but she didn’t want to be…. But what about a brother or sister? No, no, no, that wouldn’t happen�"if I had a little sister I would call Child Protective Services the first chance I got, and get her away from him, and deal with him myself, and if I had an older sister I’d try to do the same thing, though it would be up to her in the end. I don’t know about an older brother…what if Dad made him as fucked up as he is, and they both hated me? And a little brother…well, I’d have to protect him, and I don’t know if I could….

I think I’d want an older brother, though. If I knew he would be on my side, not Dad’s. Or even if he weren’t on anyone’s side�"he’d be fun to hang out with, at least, and ask for advice, especially about girl stuff, or school stuff.

It’s too depressing to think about, though, so with difficulty I tune back into Victoria, mystified, as I listen, as to why she’s telling me all of this.

 

“Something really weird happened today,” I confide in Kylie after school.

We’re sitting in my backyard; she’s bouncing on my trampoline, trying to get her backflip-twist right, and I’m sitting on the swing, watching her, making sure she doesn’t split her head open and die. I’m not much use in an accident, really�"I can’t run and catch her, I’m too slow, and I’d drop her anyway; and if she started crying I’d get distracted, and if she started bleeding I’d probably pass out�"but I’m not going to tell her that. And I could at least call 911 for her, since I’m not one hundred percent sure that she knows how to use the telephone, no matter how many times I’ve showed her.

          “Really?” she asks me, coming to sit on the edge of the trampoline, watching me with more interest than the story really deserves. Luckily I make her wear shorts when she wants to use the trampoline, even though I think they’re for bikers, so they make me uncomfortable anyway.

“Yeah,” I tell her, not looking at her, dragging my feet on the grass, twisting myself this way and that. I hope it doesn’t break. Or that I don’t accidentally catch my neck in the chain and break it. My neck, not the chain. “This girl just started talking to me, for some reason. Like telling me her whole life story. During class and everything.”

“Oh�"she did?” For some reason, she’s more surprised than I am. “Why?”

“That’s just it, I don’t know. She was sitting outside like me at lunch, and I’d seen her there for awhile, but she saw me looking and just walked up to me and wouldn’t shut up for anything.”

“You were looking at her?” I can’t understand her tone�"it’s like I told her I was eating bugs, or playing with snakes. Or something else completely out of character.

“Well�"yeah. If you saw her, you’d understand. She looked weird. Like her clothes were really weird.”

“They were?”

I glance up at her; all I can read in her expression is surprise, nothing else. But it occurs to me too late that I might have offended her�"she knows I think her clothes are weird, too. Not bad-weird, perfectly-fine-if-you’re-into-that-sort-of-thing-weird, but still.

“Yeah, like�"all red and black, and expensive. But she had on a bunch of cheap jewelry to go with it.”

“Oh.”

“And she was reading my favorite book, and so she was talking about that, and�"”

“You mean Harry Potter?” she interrupts, with the air of someone trying to inject some sense into the conversation.

“No�"that’s my favorite series�"she was reading To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“But that’s�"you said that other book was your favorite book. The one about shadows, that you wouldn’t let me read.”

She means The Shadow of the Wind, which is one of my favorite books, and it’s not that I won’t let her read it, because she couldn’t anyway; it’s that I refuse to read it to her. It’s way too dark for her to understand.

“Yeah�"but To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite classic. I mean, it doesn’t matter that much, though,” I add, because I hate to sound like I’m correcting her. “I have a lot of favorites. But this girl�"she just started going on and on about classics, and how much they suck, and how we shouldn’t have to read them�"”

“You have to?”

“Well, some of them. And some of them do suck, but�"”

“Why?”

“’Cause they’re old, and boring, and you can’t understand what they’re saying,” I say impatiently. She doesn’t usually interrupt this much. “And sometimes you don’t know what they’re talking about, because it’s something that people who lived like two hundred years ago would know, not you. But she thought classics included Jane Austen novels and stuff like that�"”

“What are those?”

“She’s this author that wrote romance novels ages ago. They’re crap. They’re not classics.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“No,” I admit, shrugging. “I didn’t want to be mean to her, so I agreed with her.”

She’s still sitting on the trampoline, which is unusual; normally she can’t ever sit still, unless her attention is captured by something; and it probably isn’t, because she isn’t coming to sit next to me or in front of me like she always does when she wants me to tell her something, and anyway she definitely isn’t following this conversation. She doesn’t know anything about books.

“Why not?” she asks me. “If she was wrong….”

“Well, it’s her opinion, so I guess it’s not wrong to say that.”

“But why’d you say she was right?”

“’Cause…I don’t know. It didn’t seem very nice.”

“Oh.”

There’s a short silence, while Kylie, I guess, tries to think of what to say; I keep my eyes on the ground, studying the grass.

“I thought you said people at school were mean to you?” Kylie asks me carefully.

I shrug. “They usually are. That’s what’s so weird about her.”

“So…she’s your friend now, right?”

I look up, frowning at her. “I don’t know…I just met her.”

“Still. She’s nice to you. That counts, right?”

“I guess,” I mumble. Kylie’s got this obsession with friendship�"she thinks that if you know someone’s name, they’re your friend, unless they make yourself your enemy. It’s best not to challenge it.

“So you’ve got a friend at school,” she tells me, smiling. “So now you can’t say you don’t have any.”

“I guess,” I say again, bewildered. “But,” I add, a bit desperately, “she’s a girl, and…it’s….”

“Why’s it matter if she’s a girl?” Kylie demands, looking a bit crestfallen.

I understand her concern, and say quickly, “It doesn’t�"it’s just that it�"it might matter to her. ‘Cause usually guys and girls don’t want to be friends, they want to date.”

“Date? What’s that mean?”

Ohhh boy. “Um…they…it’s like they want to kiss each other,” I say hastily, embarrassed. Why should I have to tell her this stuff? It’s way too weird. “And you’re�"well, a date is when two people go do something, on their own, but�"if they like each other, then they go on dates all the time�"”

“Wait�"is it ‘like’ or ‘special like’?”

I resist the urge to groan, and to slap my own forehead. “Special like,” I say grudgingly. It was easier to explain than the word “crush” or the concept of sexual chemistry. But really, people should come up with another word for that, even just to make Kylie less confused. I wish I could convince her not to use the word “special” when she’s talking about relationships, but then I’d have to tell her why, and I’d rather not. That’s her mother’s job.

“Oh. So they go do stuff together?”

“Yes. Alone. You’d have to be alone.”

Kylie mulls this over for a minute. “But,” she argues after a minute, “then�"if only people like that can go on dates�"then we’re doing something wrong,” she points out, uncomfortably. “’Cause we do that all the time�"”

“Oh�"no, it’s not like that,” I say quickly. “You’d have to tell someone that you like them�"”

“Special like.”

“Yeah, that. Whatever. You’d have to both feel that way for it to be a date.”

“So…so if you wanted to date that…that Victoria girl,” Kylie says slowly, “then you’d have to tell her that you spec�"I mean, that you want to kiss her?”

“Yes�"sort of�"but I didn’t say I wanted to date Victoria,” I protest.

“Well, do you?” she asks me, frowning.

I look away from her, making patterns in the grass with my feet. “I don’t know,” I mumble. “I never thought about it. She wouldn’t want to anyway,” I add quickly, hoping to close the subject for good.

No such luck. “Why wouldn’t she?” Kylie says angrily. “You’re really nice!”

I feel my cheeks grow hot at her compliment. “Because,” I stammer, “girls like her�"they don’t�"well, they think that they can do better. Like find someone who’s�"who looks different. Or something like that,” I add in a mumble, because it’s not like I ever really know what the hell girls are thinking. What do they want, someone who’s handsome? Strong? Tall? Or is there something mental that I’m lacking?

“What’s that matter?” Kylie retorts, outraged�"because of me? Seriously? “It doesn’t matter what you look like! You’re fine just how you are�"and not just what you look like either�"you’re really nice, girls should want to be with you all alone! They’re stupid if they don’t,” she adds stubbornly.

I’m so confused�"flattered, but confused. Why would Kylie say all this about me? Does she really think that? But my brain feels numb trying to understand it�"and it doesn’t help that I want to laugh at her for the accidental “being all alone” innuendo. You wouldn’t believe how often that kind of thing happens with her.

“W-well,” I try to explain, “um�"thanks�"but�"but girls are�"I mean, I never thought about�"about dating the girls from school. They’ve always been really�"really rude to me�"well, if they notice me at all�"”

“Rude? How?” Kylie demands.

I look away, trying to hide my burning face. “They…they just…they make fun of me. Laugh at me,” I add quietly. “Because�"well, I don’t know why, actually,” I admit. It could be what I look like�"but that feels too obvious. It must be something else: girls always make me feel like they know something about me that I never told them, and that they laugh about it when I’m not around. Stupid b*****s.

“That’s stupid,” says Kylie fervently. “That’s just�"”

“It’s fine,” I sigh, closing my eyes and wishing she would shut up. It’s not like I don’t agree with her, or that I don’t like what she’s saying�"actually, it’s really nice of her to say things like that. But I don’t want to hear anymore. It just makes my head hurt. “It doesn’t matter.”

Kylie starts to argue, but then she changes her mind. After a long pause, she tells me, quietly, “Well…that girl wants to talk to you.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I mutter. “She could just be bored. Trust me, there’s not a chance in hell that she’d want to date me, Kylie,” I add bitterly.

Another lengthy pause.

“Did you…do you want her to�"to want to?”

I look up at Kylie, confused by her tone of voice�"she sounds…scared, almost. There’s no reason for that…. But when I see her expression, I decide that she’s just confused. I can totally relate. How do you even know if you like someone like that? I guess if you want to�"to kiss her�"and I kind of�"I do, it’s weird, but�"but it’s just because she’s pretty. And maybe because�"because she talks too much�"and it’ll shut her up�"

But she says interesting things. And I like that too. And that’s got nothing to do with kissing her.

“Well,” I say, truthfully and awkwardly, “I never thought about it before… but…maybe.” I turn away again, thinking it over. “It’d be…I don’t know.” And I don’t. I have no idea how I’d pull off having a girlfriend. But it would be nice to have a choice. “I’ve never…no one’s ever liked me like that before.”

“Really?”

I nod, suppressing a bitter laugh. Surely she can’t be that surprised.

“Well…well what if they did?” she blurts out, clearly struggling with the words. I look up at her, startled. “And you just didn’t know?”

“Um…then they’d have to tell me, right?” I guess.

“But you wouldn’t tell them. Would you?”

“Well…no.”

“’Cause you’re worried they don’t like you back,” she surmises. Accurately. I nod slowly, confused.

“So what? Either they say so or I do, that’s all there is to it….”

“But you’ve got to let them know somehow,” she insists�"and I think for a moment that, in my opinion, she’s taking this a little too seriously. But I’m interested in spite of myself. Why didn’t I ever think about asking Kylie about my girl problems? Stupid move, Evan. She is a girl.

“What? Like how?” I demand. “I can’t just�"just say something like that�"”

“Then don’t say it,” she says triumphantly. “Just show it. Like…make her feel special, you know. Important. Be nice. You know.”

“That’s it?” So simple?

“Yep,” says Kylie proudly. “That’s it. Just do that, and then�"and then girls’ll know you like them,” she adds, but with a considerable decrease in confidence; she looks away from me, shifting awkwardly.

“Yeah,” I say slowly. “Yeah, I think…I can do that. Just be nice?”

“Yep…” she says again. But she’s staring off at something else�"not sure what�"so I can’t tell how confident she is about this. Still. Worth a shot, right?

“I’ll try it, then,” I say firmly, as much to myself as to her.