Brielle Branson isn’t even human. She’s a monster. She doesn’t have any feelings inside.
“So YOU’RE obviously dieting,” she said. She turned around and said that to me, today, right here in language arts.
“No,” I spat back. What was she even talking about? It doesn’t make sense. Her life is all so perfect, so she obsesses over other people’s everything.
Honestly, though, my shorts, they have been a little loose around the waist.
“This is just water weight, that’s all.” Brielle pressed her hands into her cheekbones.
I hadn’t noticed at all till she said that, but I guess her face is a little fuller. She was still the most beautiful girl at school. But she had completely changed her look: long white shirt, loose over low-rise khakis. A blowout had replaced her ponytail. She had probably gotten bored with herself, like she did with everything else.
“I’m just bloated,” she added, turning back around.
We were friends. Once. Not so long ago. Brielle gave me the Lipglass and told me her secret and said I could borrow her Stuart Weitzmans. And now I would trade all that for math homework and pale pink nail polish and malasadas. But it’s too late.
And Henley, I was friends with him, too. Maybe there wasn’t anyone better for him at the time, either. Sometimes he looks and I look, and when we see each other looking, we both turn away fast, too.
Before winter break, I’d look up from these quick writes and see him resting his chin on his fist, looking at me like I was a crossword answer he couldn’t get. And when he caught me staring back, his eyebrows would shoot up, and he’d smile.
Then we started talking. One day into winter break, he had gotten my number from Brielle. She texted me snarky stuff about it, like i hope u 2 R happy together, and backstabber, and whatever, until she finally texted she never really liked him anyway. But by then the game was over, and Brielle and I had already imploded.
Write words.
During break, Henley was in Italy with his family, and all they were doing was waiting in long lines to see naked statues at museums. But the white beans with sage in olive oil were amazing, he had texted. And on the flight over, he’d read The Art of Simple Food. It was old-school, he told me. And I remembered. Somehow I remembered that.
One day when the mynah birds were extra loud and woke me up early, I texted him and asked what was outside his window in Lake Como, and he said buses and a bridge and a dirty canal. He asked what was outside my window, and I told him about the birds.
Henley asked me what kind of birds they were, and I told him they’d been brought here from India to eat the mosquitos that had been brought by a ship from Mexico. We learned that in Hawaiian studies. But the birds ended up being more of a pest than the actual bugs. They still are.
I asked Henley if the Italian girls were all dressed up in short skirts and scarves and flat-top sunglasses and statement earrings all the time, like I saw in Vogue and Elle, and he said he hadn’t noticed. He said he was ranking gelato flavors, and when I asked what was number one and he texted back a coffee cup emoji, I was pretty sure I’d found my soul mate.
Do u kno the Aquabats? I asked him. He didn’t, so I sent him a link to “Luck Dragon Lady.” If he were my soul mate, he would have to know the Aquabats.
After a few minutes, Henley texted back cool, which was a huge relief.
Then he sent the word enchiladas and picture of a small black cat with yellow eyes, her face in a plate of red sauce.
I wrote: is that ur cat?
And he sent back a smiley face.
Henley sent a lot of emojis. He liked gelato. He had a cat and liked old-school cooking.
But a lot of times, Henley seemed sad, like something in him was missing. Was it what he left behind when he came here? His mom? His friends? A girlfriend? He got to go to Italy and stuff like that, but he wrote slowly in his notebook, and he thought a lot about stuff. I wondered if that had to do with him getting kicked out of his old school. For possession, some people were saying. For computer hacking, other people said.
Two days before school started back up, Henley texted that he bought me something from Italy—and we were going to hang out at the mall or the beach or at Starbucks maybe. And then the whole thing happened. So I’ll never know what we could have been or even what he brought me.
At one point, in the hall, right when I came back, Henley seemed like he was going to say something to me, but I didn’t want to know what it was. I didn’t want to be even more wrecked. So I walked right past. I saved myself.
And now, Henley looks at me like Brielle just did. The same way everyone does—everyone here at school, and Koa’s mom, and probably Tate’s mom, even the checkers at Safeway. They see me the way I see myself. Toxic. The sister of the boy who erased his friends.
FALL
Prompt: You should have seen it …
At first, it was just Brielle and me at lunch. The lunchroom was hot—there are STILL no winds—and we were talking about Survivor. The new season premieres in nine days, and Miss Teen USA is one of the castaways! I hope she stays in the tribe till the end. It’s all about making alliances.
“What do you know about Colin Silva?” Brielle asked out of nowhere. At first, I thought that was random.
“Colin is … boring,” I told her. He sits in front of me in math and gets an A on every test, every time. He seems too smart to be there, like he could be in precalc, easy, even though he never raises his hand. When Mr. Peterson calls on him, he always has the right answer. And he does all his homework, too. Sometimes before class starts, I try to scribble out the last few answers. Colin doesn’t mind. He pushes his homework to the side so I can see. It isn’t cheating. It was a few problems, a few times, and Colin let me do it.
“Why?” I asked, correcting myself, telling myself nothing Brielle Branson ever does is random. She always has some kind of agenda. Even about Colin Silva.
“He’s a creeper,” Brielle said.
I had never thought of Colin as a creeper. Last year, he brought in malasadas for everyone on his birthday. No one does that in middle school anymore. I don’t know why not. Anyway, Colin was kind of embarrassed. Probably his mom forced him to do it or something. But it was amazing, having malasadas instead of working on ratios.
“Go ask him if he’s ready for the math test,” Brielle said.
“There isn’t a math test,” I told her. Our class had finished the unit last week. I got a B+!!! If I can keep going like this, I’ll get a B+ on my report card, and it will be the first B+ I’ve ever gotten in math and Dad will die of happiness, and maybe I’ll get placed in advanced math in high school like Li Lu.
Noelani and Li Lu sat down then, and Brielle said, “Taylor was just going to ask Colin if he’s ready for the math test.”
“Colin Silva?” Noelani asked.
Curly hair tucked into his collar, Colin was playing his Game Boy, just like he did whenever Mr. Peterson wasn’t looking.
“You don’t have a test?” Li Lu blurted, her chopsticks hovering over her bento box. “You had the unit test last week, you got a B+.”
Li Lu thought she knew my whole life. It was so irritating.
Brielle rolled her eyes. “Oh my god,” she told Li Lu. “That’s what’s funny about it. There isn’t an actual test.”