Luka, page 5
I catch her wrist.
She looks up through her eyelashes, her lips slightly parted.
And my mind cuts to Tess. On her back deck. The wind catching her hair. I imagine what it would feel like—silk between my fingers—and a wave of desire swells. I blink the image away. Summer’s standing in front of me. Not Tess.
And judging by the coy smile playing on her lips, she’s completely misreading the situation. “Do you want a distraction?” she asks.
Revulsion gathers in my throat.
I move her wrist away from my bare upper half and let go. “I’m not interested.”
Color pours into her cheeks—hot and angry as her expression goes from seductive kitten to ill-tempered housecat on the verge of a hiss. “Who are you interested in, Luka?”
Tess.
I’m interested in Tess.
So acutely, I ache.
Summer peers at me like the answer is written in my eyes.
I step past her before she can read it, then politely request privacy so I can get changed.
At dinner, Summer has gone from hissing house cat to quiet mouse. The perfect combination of sweet, innocent, and hurt that has my mother wrapped around her finger, shooting daggers in my direction, like keeping my pants on upstairs was a direct affront to her parenting.
8
An Unpopular Opinion
On Monday, I head to Lotsam’s class as soon as I arrive at school. My head pounds and I’m in no mood to hang out in the locker bay, acting normal while everyone talks about the upcoming weekend—the last football game of the season on Friday and Bobbi’s Halloween party on Saturday, which Summer not-so-casually mentioned over dinner. My mom has been making not-so-subtle hints about taking her ever since. All of it gives me a headache, especially after last night’s dream.
It’s the first one I’ve had since Tess showed up in Lotsam’s class back in September. Somehow, her emergence in my waking life booted her from my sleep and I haven’t objected. I much prefer her paired up with Leela in school or lounging solo on her deck than marching into battle. For some reason though, the dream returned last night. With crystal, technicolored clarity. So intense, I woke up soaked in sweat, the fierce look on her face seared into my brain. Now a sense of foreboding gnaws at my stomach as I take a seat, afraid she’ll be gone. Convinced I can’t have both—dream Tess and real Tess. Now that the dreams are back, real Tess must no longer be. I keep telling myself this isn’t logical, but it’s hard to find reassurance in logic when nothing about any of this has ever made sense.
I feel her presence before I see her.
As soon as she walks into the room, something comes to life inside me.
Crazy, I know. More evidence in a long list that I should resume my clandestine appointments with Dr. Roth. But this is how it is with Tess. This gravitational pull that doesn’t require a visual to feel. I look toward the door and sure enough, there she is, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, jeans with holes in the knees, and a pair of Converse All-Stars. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Her bangs have grown longer, but not quite long enough to tuck behind her ears. Whenever she tries, they fall loose.
I exhale my first proper breath since waking up in a cold sweat this morning.
Tess and Leela snag seats across the room. Tess hangs her backpack on the chair and pulls out a notebook. She looks paler than usual. Like she slept as poorly as I did.
“Hey, you.” Summer slides into the seat beside mine, all sweetness and smiles. Like my rejection on Friday never happened.
The bell rings.
Lotsam grabs a thick stack of magazines off his desk and begins passing them out, one for each student. Then he goes to the board and writes two words.
Fetal Modification.
For the first time since September, thoughts of Tess slide completely out of my head.
Lotsam turns on the television.
A morning news story plays on the screen. Apparently, there was another clinic bombing. This time, two people died—a doctor with the last name of Chang and a nurse named Mindy Lucas. It’s not right, these deaths. But neither are the pregnancy screenings or the government-mandated slaughtering of innocent lives.
All of it is wrong.
The way they cover it up with sterile-sounding words makes my skin crawl. The way the public swallows it so readily makes my skin crawl even more. Nothing can convince me that what is happening is good. Not popular opinion. Or the media. Or pop star sensation and pregnancy screening advocate, B-Trix. Even before I knew my own personal history with fetal modification, I didn’t agree with it. The world is trying to make something clearly wrong into something conveniently right. And sadly, everyone’s falling for it.
Everyone but me.
“This is the fifth fetal modification clinic bombing this year.” Lotsam turns off the television. “I think it’s time we engage in a healthy discussion.”
The class shifts uneasily.
And I hear the echo of my mother—crying in the bathroom.
For the longest time, I didn’t understand why.
Until I eavesdropped on a conversation not meant for my ears. Suddenly, her mysterious bouts of grief—the ones that came at the same time every year—made sense.
“If you ask me,” Jared says, “It’s smart.”
Lotsam scratches his soul patch. “Elaborate.”
“The pregnancy screenings. I mean, these kids would be born with severe birth defects. How is that fair to them or their parents? They wouldn’t have any quality of life. Their parents would be wiping their butts when they’re fifty years old.”
Blood pounds in my ears at his words, drowning out the snickers that follow. Several classmates raise their hands, Leela among them. Lotsam calls on her as she squirms in her seat. “That’s discrimination. Who’s to determine the quality of life?”
“I think the doctors are able to determine that, Leela.” Jared’s tone oozes sarcasm.
Beside me, Summer sets her elbows on the table, the bangles on her wrist sliding down her forearm as she pins her attention on Leela. “You’re just saying that because you’re Catholic.”
She says the word like a curse. In a way, it is. Religion is as taboo as mental illness. The world, after all, is a physical place with physical beings. Collections of atoms that exist and move and live in a way that can be intellectually explained. With everything supernatural so systematically disproven, religious institutions have fallen into the realm of wasted energy.
Leela blushes.
“You’re only regurgitating what your parents tell you,” Summer continues. “How about having an original thought for once?”
“Let me guess,” I say, my attention fixed on this girl I’m starting to loathe. “Your parents are pro screenings?”
My tone is even and calm.
Still, Summer shrinks back in her seat.
Predictably, Jared rises to her defense. “She brings up a good point, though. The religious people are the ones doing all the bombings. This is exactly why the government nixed all the religion. Isn’t killing killers a little ironic?”
Everyone chimes in.
Underneath the table, my hands ball into fists.
I should stay quiet. If I say anything more and this conversation gets back to my parents, they won’t be happy. Spouting off critical words over a government-mandated practice would be the opposite of staying under the radar. But I can’t resist. My classmates are idiots.
I raise my hand. Something every bit as rare as Matt Chesterson scoring touchdowns.
The room falls into a curious hush.
Lotsam nods at me.
“Doctors are human. They make mistakes. Screening pregnant women and aborting every baby they think may have a disability is genocide.”
The curious hush turns into a stunned silence.
Not only did I use the words aborting and baby, I made a radical accusation. One that aligns me with a small but fanatic minority toying with anarchy. But I don’t align with them. I think the fanatic minority is every bit as idiotic as the clueless majority.
“Genocide?” Lotsam raises his eyebrows.
I raise mine in return. “If you ask me, it’s a modern-day holocaust.”
The potent words cast a spell across the room.
“That’s a bold comparison,” Lotsam says.
I stare back at him, unrelenting.
Until a kid named Max speaks up. “The Nazis were killing people. These doctors are curing women of defective fetuses in the first trimester. That’s hardly murder.”
The class erupts in opinion.
I don’t join.
I’ve already said everything I have to say.
9
Partners
As soon as I walk into World History, Summer sits up straighter and motions to the empty seat beside her. All day she’s been walking around school like a kicked puppy, following me with her proverbial tail between her legs. My mom would be livid that I’m not being nicer.
Her parents are getting a divorce, Luka.
We raised you better than this.
But I don’t have the energy. My mom has never seen Summer sneer. And just because a person is hurting doesn’t give them the right to be mean. That’s all Summer can seem to be, at least to the people she deems beneath her.
I scan the room.
Tess sits with her back to me, writing in her notebook. I don’t usually let myself sit next to her. Being that close for such a prolonged period of time gets fairly … agonizing. And I don’t want to do anything stupid.
Today, I’m too irritable for caution.
Today, I throw care to the wind.
“Is anyone sitting here?” I ask.
She looks up from her notebook and the intricate patterns she’s doodling on the page. Her eyelids flutter. “Um. Go ahead.”
I pull out the chair and take a seat.
Jennalee takes the seat on my other side.
By second period, she already heard what happened in Current Events. She and the rest of the student body. Everyone wants to know if I’m mad at Summer. Everyone wants to know more about this unpopular opinion I hold regarding fetal modification. All of it burrows under my skin. If someone like Leela or Scott Shroud spoke the words I spoke today, they would be laughed out of the school. When I say them, people start changing their tune.
Thankfully the bell rings before Jennalee can bombard me with any more questions. I pull a wintergreen mint from the front pocket of my backpack and pop it into my mouth as Lotsam dives in, explaining a year-long project on genocides throughout history. A year-long project I suspect has been assigned because of my accusation in first period. But I’m not bothered. In fact, my mood has lifted significantly. This year-long project will be done with a partner and I’m sitting right beside Tess.
Lotsam claps his hands and tells us to partner up.
Jennalee turns to me with an eager smile but I turn to the girl on my other side—the girl who looks like she wants to tunnel into a hole. The girl who seems to be trying really hard to avoid looking in my direction.
Maybe she doesn’t want to be partners. Maybe she doesn’t agree with the things I said in Current Events. All I know is that I’m tired of tiptoeing. I’m tired of resisting. If Tess doesn’t want to be partners, she’s capable of saying so directly.
“Tess?” I say. “Do you want to be my partner?”
She points to herself like she’s not sure I’m talking to her. I bite the inside of my cheek, repressing a smile. She’s not playing coy. She’s not faking surprise. Everything about her is completely sincere. And one hundred percent refreshing.
“Uh. Sure.”
Just like that, the tension digging into my shoulders lets go. I no longer care about fetal modification or the brainless way my classmates accept the status quo or their lack of conviction or how much I don’t want to deal with my mother should she catch wind of the things I said today. None of it bothers me anymore.
Tess has agreed to be my partner.
Finally, I have an excuse to spend time with her.
Lotsam elaborates on the assignment, then assigns us a chapter to read from our textbook with permission to talk quietly with our partner once we’re finished.
I’ve never read a chapter faster in my life.
As soon as I’m done, I close the book and bite my thumbnail. Tess takes her sweet time. When she finally puts her stuff away, she does so reluctantly.
I spin my pencil around my thumb. “You’ve been coming to the football games.”
Her eyes widen.
“I waved at you last Friday but you ignored me.” A grin tugs the corner of my mouth again. I’m not used to being ignored. Especially not by girls. This one seems dead set on doing just that.
“I didn’t see you,” she says.
“You were very into the game. Very focused. I was impressed.” I give my pencil another twirl, aware of the fact that Summer is side-eying us across the room. I catch Jennalee peeking, too. “Most girls don’t watch.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
To girls like Jennalee? No. The point is flirting and gossiping and making plans for after the game. To girls like Summer, the point is making as many spectators as possible admire her. I set my elbow on the table and take a conversational pivot, hoping to hit on something that might get her talking with me as easily as she talks with Leela. “So … you read a lot.”
“What?”
“I see you out on your deck. You’re usually reading.” Like on Friday. Was she reading then? Did I only just think she was watching me surf? “Sometimes you write, though.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“What do you write about?”
“Nothing really.”
I lean closer, determined to pull her out of her shell. Learn something new about this classmate who is—quite literally—the girl of my dreams. “Do you like your new home?”
“Sure.” She attempts to tuck her bangs behind her ear. They fall loose. “It’s fine.”
“You don’t sound very convincing.”
“Thornsdale is as good as any other place to live, I guess.”
I fold my arms over my backpack. “Have you lived in many places?”
“Nine.”
There it is. Something new. “Really?”
The bell rings.
An aggravating sound.
An hour ago, I wanted nothing more than the day to end. I wanted to go home, grab my board, and paddle out into the ocean, away from the noise of Thornsdale High. Now, I want this final period to extend into infinity. I hitch my backpack over my shoulder, inhaling the scent of strawberries as we walk out of the classroom. “That can’t be easy on you and your brother, moving so much.”
“You know I have a brother?”
Not only do I know she has a brother, I’ve stalked him on social media. “Pete, right? Sophomore? Perpetual scowl? Kind of a loner?”
“He’s really not.”
“No?”
She shakes her head. “I think he misses his girlfriend.”
Ah, so glowering Pete has a girlfriend. Perhaps it’s SydneynotAustralia. “Yeah, I guess that would be hard.” I keep our pace slow, not at all eager to get to the locker bay. The way she matches it has this ridiculously euphoric feeling inflating in my chest. Maybe she’s un-eager, too. “Did you have to leave anyone behind?”
“You mean like a boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
She snorts like the idea is preposterous, then quickly looks away.
“No?”
“I don’t think I’m girlfriend material.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
Her cheeks go pink—this flushed rosy color that makes her eyes bright and her appeal skyrocket. Then she says in a tumble of breathlessness, “I think he’s still angry at me for the move. Pete—I mean. Not my boyfriend. Because I don’t have a boyfriend.”
It’s the most I’ve ever heard her speak at one time.
“Angry at you?” I say.
“Huh?”
“Why would your brother be angry at you for moving?”
“I mean, not at me. He’s just … looking for somebody to blame, I guess.”
I cock my head, impossibly curious. She’s not telling the truth. I’ve caught on to something significant. Something she wants to keep hidden. Something that makes me want to dig deeper.
“You seemed upset during first period today,” she blurts out.
And now it’s her turn to snag on to something significant.
I step in front of her. She stops. I lean against the wall, close enough to count the freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. Close enough to notice the fullness of her bottom lip. To see the fan of each individual eyelash. “Sore subject.”
“Wh-why?”
I have my own secrets. Things I’m not supposed to share. Things that are dangerous to share. But maybe if I open up, maybe if I let her in, she will reciprocate. Or maybe this attraction I feel is just making me reckless.
“Are your parents against it?” she asks.
It.
Fetal modification.
I glance over my shoulder. The hallway is empty. Tess and I are alone. A wrestling match ensues—the devil on my right shoulder going to war with the angel on my left. I’m being pulled in two opposite directions. The reasonable side—the side that sounds a whole lot like my dad—insists I keep my mouth shut. This is nobody’s business but our own. The infatuated side wants to give a piece of myself to this girl in front of me. “I’m an only child, but I wasn’t my mother’s only pregnancy.”
Her already-big eyes go round as my words sink in.
“What happened?” she finally asks.
“She failed her pregnancy screening.”
“So she …?”
Tess doesn’t have to finish the question.
I don’t have to confirm the answer.
According to the screening, the fetus my mother carried was defective. Per the doctor’s urging, she took medicine that fixed the problem. A procedure that—while standard—grieved her greatly. Especially given the curse of hindsight. I lean in a little closer. “Eight months later she got pregnant again and the same thing happened.”
