God, I’m an idiot.
I decide to survey the members of my household. Isaac and Samara, my two oldest younger siblings, are dutifully doing their homework at the puzzle table. I think their schoolwork ethic has been drilled into them by our mother, the teacher, but even more so by watching our dad spiral into a jobless, basement-dwelling, online DVD seller. Ava and Asher wrestle on the kitchen floor. Dad is holed up in the basement, per usual.
The sibs barely acknowledge me as I sit down and deftly fill in two barren sections of the tin-can puzzle. I get right to it. “Let’s say you’re in a new class, and the guy next to you won’t shut up. What do you do?”
Isaac answers with his obvious “Raise my hand and tell the teacher.”
“It’s not that kind of talking, Isaac. It’s more like he’s talking to you, and he won’t stop even when you act like you care what the teacher is saying.”
“So, like, he’s flirting with you?” Samara, all dramatic black hair, black eyes, and black soul, asks incredulously. If she weren’t my sister, I might be afraid of her. I might be a little anyway.
“If that’s what it sounds like. I’m just trying to get a feel for what a normal person would think if this were happening to them,” I agree pathetically.
“Meaning, not you.” Samara fills in the gap.
“I set you up for that one, I realize, but yes.”
“He could like you. It depends on what words he says, too. Was he just asking to borrow a pencil?”
“Noooo,” I draw out defensively. “I don’t actually remember what he was saying. It wasn’t really anything. I was trying too hard not to listen, frankly. I didn’t really realize until I made him fall on top of a bunch of people in gym class that maybe he was talking to me for reasons, and by then he was too busy hating me for making him fall, for him to probably even consider liking me anymore, so never mind.”
“What are you even talking about?” Samara glares at me. One can see why I’ve moved into the closet of our bedroom.
“Forget it, Sam. Go back to your innocent algebra. And keep one eye open when you sleep tonight.” I dole out a helping of evil-eye fingers.
What is the point of having four brothers and sisters if I can glean no advice from any of them? Being first in the birth order sucks. Does Samara ever acknowledge how I helped her when she got her first period and Mom wasn’t home? No. See if I help her when she has questions about losing her virginity. Although, chances are, she’ll probably get there before me.
Ava and Asher continue to roll around on the kitchen floor. “You know, it would be a lot more comfortable to attack each other on carpeting,” I suggest, trying to budge my way into the refrigerator for an apple and a mini Babybel cheese. I barely miss slamming Asher’s head into the fridge door and make my way out of the kitchen and up to my room.
Curled up on my futon, I text Janina.
ME: I think I may have killed the cute boy from my film class.
JANINA: So he is cute?
ME: AND possibly dead
JANINA: Doubtful. It’s not as easy to die from gym class as you think. What did you do to him?
ME: This sounds so stupid, but I just looked at him.
JANINA: I knew you were Carrie!
ME: That’s what I said!
JANINA: I was kidding.
ME: Me too. Of course.
JANINA: So you looked at him, and he died?
ME: Well, he fell. On top of a bunch of other people. It was … awkward.
JANINA: OMG that was you?
ME: I think so? He turned around, and there was some tripping action and then they all went down.
JANINA: They all went down, huh?
ME: Is there a pervert emoji on here?
JANINA: Ha. Time will tell. If he lives.
ME: Tell what, exactly?
JANINA: Don’t pretend that you aren’t adorable and that you don’t have the world’s perkiest butt from walking everywhere.
ME: My butt is blushing.
JANINA: I have volleyball. Later.
I don’t want to get my hopes up. In fact, I hate myself for even thinking of the possibility that someone may have been looking at me in a non-annoyed/disgusted/pitying way. It’s too much reality to think of, so I turn on Goblet of Fire. Then I decide to mix it up a little and put on Order of the Phoenix because I like the way Ron looks longingly at Hermione by the fireplace. I consider whether or not I would like the boy from film and gym class to look at me that way and decide that I would definitely be very okay with that.
If he doesn’t completely hate me at this point.
Dmitri
Reggie Reynolds is a total badass. Short spiky hair; dog chain collar; sleeveless shirts with things like “The Sex Pistols” or “The Dead Boys” on them; and chiseled biceps that make me, as a drummer, kind of jealous. And the best part is Reggie’s a girl.
We’ve known each other since preschool, and even then she was all attitude. My first memory of Reggie was the day I created a skyscraper out of cardboard bricks. I was admiring my architectural masterpiece when this girl with a mop of black curly hair came screaming toward me on a tricycle. I leapt out of the way just before she crashed into my building, scattering the blocks everywhere. She skidded to a stop—I’m not kidding, she actually drifted the trike—and looked me dead in the eye.
“Sorry,” she said, “but your little wall was in my way.” What four-year-old talks like that?
I was not the kind of kid to take things personally (I’m still not), so I laughed. Reggie was so put off her game she was frozen. Her little trick was supposed to make me cry, but that’s not me. After a long pause she laughed, too, and we’ve been friends ever since.
Reggie does gymnastics, and like those gymnasts you see on TV during the Olympics, her body is freakishly strong. She’s barely five feet tall, and her neck and shoulders are a knot of pure muscle. So are her thighs. From what she tells me—and I believe her—the other gymnasts are afraid of her. “I like the tumbles, jumps, and spins, and it makes me strong. All the other little Debbies like the sequined bodysuits. Sometimes I hide their hair scrunchies just for fun. If I wasn’t so good, I think the coach would kick me off the team.”
Reggie comes to a lot of our gigs, and we eat lunch together sometimes, but it’s not like that. I have no idea if Reggie is straight or gay. She has the sharpest tongue of anyone I know, and, the thing that matters today, she always seems to be up on everyone else’s business.
REGGIE: Eliana?
ME: Yeah. She’s in our grade. We take film class together.
REGGIE: Wait, is this girl the reason you tried to kill the whole gym class?
I’m lying on my stomach on the bed in my room, my phone in my hand, my laptop open in front of me. Reggie can’t see me, but I roll my eyes anyway.
ME: Do you know her?
REGGIE: Dude. The whole school was talking about that. Seriously. What did you do, try to kiss her and there was a brawl?
ME: No. I was just looking at her. So do you know her?
REGGIE: Course I do.
Good old Reggie. She never disappoints.
ME: And?
Reggie waits a long enough time before answering that I wonder if she had to leave.
REGGIE: Since when do you like girls anyway?