by Malinda Lo
The vein in his temple throbbed. “Yeah, I do trust you. Are you telling me I shouldn’t?”
The wind blew her hair into her face and she reached up with shaking fingers to drag it away. “No. Nothing happened. She apologized again for lying to me, that’s all.”
“Do you forgive her?”
She had never heard him speak like this before, his voice low and controlled—too controlled. Her stomach lurched as the ferry crested a wave. She grabbed on to the railing. “I don’t know,” she said finally.
His expression was hard as a mask. “She came to Eres Tilhar’s room to tell us you weren’t coming back.”
“She did?”
“She looked pretty upset.”
“Did she say why?”
Frustration flashed across David’s face. “No. She and Eres had a moment. They did some kind of consciousness-sharing crap and I watched her look depressed and scared, and then everybody freaked out because they had no idea where you were. And then she left. It was very dramatic. And I was scared too, because I didn’t know if you’d gone somewhere on your own or if someone had taken you. And then when we find you, you won’t say anything about what happened. I keep hoping you’ll tell me the truth, but you don’t seem to be able to talk.”
Reese wanted to shrink into nothing. She wished she could melt into the deck of the ferry and become the wood. Anything would be better than seeing David look at her as if he didn’t recognize who she was anymore.
“I know you had feelings for her, and she obviously still has feelings for you.” His eyes were shadowed with something between anger and sadness. “I just want you to be honest with me.”
Reese didn’t know what to say. A thousand words were jumbled up in her head and she couldn’t form a sentence out of any of them.
Gritting his teeth, David turned and headed back across the deck toward the stairs.
“David, wait!” She went after him, determined not to mess this up, not like this, and she grabbed his hand. Jealousy jolted through her, fierce and bitter, and she nearly dropped his hand in shock.
He jerked away from her. “What?”
“You’re not like that,” she said, desperation rising in her. “You’re not like this.”
“Like what?”
She pushed her hair back, her fingers digging into her scalp as she searched frantically for the right words. “You’re—you have no reason to be jealous. You’re you. You always do the right thing. You’re so put together, and you can talk about whatever happened to us when I turn into a babbling idiot, and you’re—you’re the good guy. I want the good guy. I want you.”
Something softened in his gaze, and she took that as a positive sign. She reached for him again, but his hand was a leaden weight in hers. David. He took a step closer to her. “Can’t you feel how I feel about you?” she asked. She raised his hand and placed it over her heart.
He lifted his other hand to her face. His fingers were warm on her cheek. He was so close to her, all he had to do was lean down a tiny bit, and he could kiss her. She put her hands on his upper arms. She wanted to tug him down to her. She wanted to close the distance between them and forget about Amber.
“Yeah, I can feel it,” he whispered.
Her fingers tightened over his biceps. David. He didn’t move.
“But how do you feel about Amber? You need to figure that part out.” He didn’t kiss her. He stepped back. “I’m not the person you think I am,” he said, and then he turned and left her alone.
Reese and her dad had to drive David home. It was beyond awkward. As Reese’s dad pulled the car away from David’s house, he asked, “Is something wrong between you two? Do you want to talk about it?”
She stared out the window at the passing houses as their car descended the hill. “No,” she answered. She definitely didn’t want to get into this with her dad. She saw him glance at her dubiously and she quickly changed the subject. “When are you leaving?”
“Why, am I outstaying my welcome?” he said jokingly.
“I’m just wondering. Don’t you have to get back to work in Seattle?”
“I’m working here. You know that. I have to fly back for a meeting at the end of the month, but I might come back after that.”
She turned her head to look at him. “Why?”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “I’m your father. After what happened to you, I want to be here for you.”
She turned back to the window. “Oh, really,” she said, lacing the words with sarcasm.
There was a pause, and then her dad asked, “What is the matter with you? Are you trying to start a fight?”
She shrugged, slouching down in the seat. “Why, is there a fight we should be having?”
“Reese,” he said, sounding exasperated.
“Dad,” she mimicked. She was all prickles right now; she didn’t care if she started a fight.
“You’re acting like a child.”
“You guys never let me do anything on my own anymore. Maybe that’s why.”
He inhaled sharply. “Reese. I’m trying here. Are you angry with me? You have to meet me halfway.”
She didn’t answer for a moment. She felt as if all her emotions were turning to stone. She asked in a bored tone of voice, “What are you doing with Mom?”
She could sense the tension in the car ratchet up several notches as her dad said, “What do you mean?”
She looked at him. His jaw was tight, his hands clenched over the wheel. “I mean, are you trying to get back together with her?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “I’m your father,” he said curtly. “You shouldn’t be speaking to me in that tone.”
“I think you lost your parental authority when you cheated on Mom and moved out.” Reese had argued with her father before, but she had never put this particular thought into words. Saying it out loud sent a surge of hot excitement through her, as if she were gearing up to do something reckless.
Her father’s face turned an ugly shade of red. “You need to tone it down. I won’t accept this from you.”
“Won’t accept what? The truth?” She sat up, glaring at him. “You never tell me the truth. What about Lydia? Are you still with her?”
Her father jammed his foot on the brake and the car jerked, the seat belt digging into her shoulder. They were at a stop sign. He turned to look at her. “Where did you hear about her?” he demanded.
“I live in the same house with Mom,” she said coldly. “I can hear, you know.”
He accelerated through the intersection. “You’re too young to understand these things. And they’re between your mother and me and have nothing to do with you.”
His answer infuriated her, and she couldn’t seem to stop herself from pushing him further. It was as if everything she had ever wanted to tell him was waiting to spill right out of her into the space of the car, and all she had to do was let go. “Oh, really? Who gets to deal with the fallout when you decide you’re done with Mom again? Who? I do. Do you know how upset she was last time you guys broke up? It was horrible, Dad. You have no idea what happens because you go back up to Seattle and you don’t have to deal with it. You go back to your—to Lydia, or whoever, and you don’t have any repercussions.”
“Reese, I’m warning you—”
“You don’t get it!” Reese cried, anger arcing through her like lightning. “If you love Mom, then fucking love her. That’s the only one you get to love. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
They had reached the house, and as soon as her dad pulled the car into the garage he said, “You are grounded, Reese. You can’t speak to me that way.”
“Whatever,” she said, opening the door. “You can’t ground me. You don’t even live here.” She got out of the car and slammed the door, stalking away.
Her dad got out too. “Reese! Come back here!”
She didn’t listen to him. She just kept walking.
Her mother was waiting for her in the living room when
she returned home a couple of hours later. “Where have you been?” her mom asked, standing up. She looked tired and exasperated and upset.
“I had to get some air,” Reese said, heading for the stairs.
“Stop right there,” her mom snapped. “I’m not finished with you.”
Reese’s shoulders hunched. She turned around on the bottom step. “Mom, I—”
“Your father told me what you said to him.”
“He deserved it.”
Her mom crossed her arms. “He deserves your respect.”
Reese gaped at her. “Are you serious? After what he’s done to you?”
Her mom came into the hall. “I understand that you’re being protective of me, and you know, I even appreciate that. But you don’t understand the details of what’s going on between your father and me, and it’s not your place to manage that.”
“So tell me! Or do you want me to just wait till it’s over so I can make you feel better when he leaves you again?”
Her mother flushed. “That’s enough. Go to your room. We’ll discuss this when you’re calmer.”
Reese made a frustrated sound and stalked up the stairs. “Fine,” she threw back over her shoulder. “Whatever.” She slammed her bedroom door so hard that it made the walls shake. She sat down on the edge of her bed, dropping her head into her hands, and felt as if every nerve in her body had been switched on. She was vibrating with tension, and at first she didn’t realize that part of the vibration came from the phone in her jeans pocket.
She pulled it out, fearing that it was David, but to her surprise it was Bri. “What’s up?” Reese asked, answering the phone.
“Reese? It’s Bri.” She sounded strangely excited.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” She couldn’t hide the anger in her voice, and she didn’t care. It felt good.
“Um, there are these photos of you online?” Bri said hesitantly.
“This is news? There are photos all the time now.”
“These are new.”
There was something in her tone that made Reese suddenly nervous. “What are these photos of?” Reese went to her desk and opened her laptop.
“Well, you’re with that alien chick.”
“Like during the press conference in front of my house?”
“Uh, no.” Bri paused. The computer was slowly loading. “They’re, um, you guys look a little intimate.”
“What?” Why was her computer so slow? “Where are we?”
“Some beach somewhere? So… you and this alien chick?”
The laptop was finally on. Reese clicked on the Internet browser. “What website did you see it on?”
“It’s on the Hub. It just showed up like a few minutes ago.”
She went to the Hub. “On your feed? Where?”
“Just type in your name and it’ll come up.”
There it was. A somewhat grainy photo of Reese and Amber, sitting on the concrete retaining wall on the edge of Angel Island, their heads close together. Amber’s hand was on her cheek. Their mouths were nearly touching. Behind them the bulk of the spaceship loomed like a giant black beast.
Reese’s heart was racing. “Shit.”
“Reese? Are you okay?” Bri asked.
Reese clicked on a thumbnail image next to the large one. It was another shot of the two of them. There was a whole series, starting with them sitting a couple of feet apart and culminating with the fuzzy, zoomed-in photo that made it look as if they were about to or had just kissed.
“Hey, I just wanted to tell you. I didn’t want you to be surprised,” Bri said.
Reese took a shuddering breath. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Are you all right? You sound a little freaked out.”
Hysterical laughter threatened to rip out of her. “Freaked out? Shit. Shit.”
“So, I gotta ask, um, did you guys hook up before? I mean, you told the news that you knew her before. When did you know her?”
Reese thought she was going to hyperventilate. The comments beneath the photos turned her stomach. There weren’t many yet, but she knew this was only the beginning. Alien hottie moves in on human girl! Guess the Chinese dude just wasn’t “enough” for her, huh? I wanna get me some of that.
“Reese?”
She had to stop looking at this page and its comments—another three popped up that second—or she would throw up. She got up, slamming her laptop closed. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here,” she said. She began to pace back and forth. Her phone beeped; Julian was on call-waiting. She didn’t answer, and Bri kept talking.
“I know you’re not out and all, and this is probably like a giant shock to you or something. I’m really sorry. If you need to talk about it or anything, I’m here for you.” Bri laughed slightly. “Hey, that girl’s pretty hot. Congratulations?”
Reese froze in place. She had to call David. He was going to see those pictures. “I have to go,” she said abruptly. “I’m sorry. Thanks for telling me about the photos. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up without waiting for Bri to respond, and then she stood there with her phone in her hand, her finger poised above David’s number in her address book.
She took a deep breath and hit the Call button.
CHAPTER 25
Walking into Kennedy High School on Monday morning felt like walking into a pit of vipers. Reese had already gone through the gauntlet of photographers outside on the sidewalk, shouting questions at her about her relationship with Amber, and that was bad enough. Going inside meant facing people who knew her—or thought they had known her—as well as their judgment.
The normal hum of conversation faded quickly as she came through the door. After her lessons with Eres, Reese could now sense much more clearly where the emotions fell around her. There was a lot of curiosity—which still felt like dozens of fingers jabbing at her—but layered over that was an amalgamation of distrust and, in some cases, disgust. That feeling in particular emanated from a group of kids standing by the trophy cases. David’s friends. Of course his friends would hate her. The pictures made it look like she had cheated on him. She didn’t see David, though, and she wasn’t sure if she was glad about that or not.
He had been brief with her on the phone. She couldn’t tell if he was angry with her when she explained, haltingly, that she and Amber had been photographed together. “We didn’t do anything,” she told him. “I left right after they took those photos.” There had been a long silence afterward. So long that she began to fear that he had hung up on her. “Are you still there? Do you want me to come over?”
“No,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
She had kept her phone with her for the rest of the weekend, but he didn’t call. Julian did, and so did Madison, but Reese didn’t answer. She stayed in her room with the computer off and replayed her conversation with David on the ferry over and over in her mind, picking out every instance when she could have told him about what had happened with Amber, but chose not to. As the hours passed, dread built up inside her, layer upon layer. This was it, she thought. She had messed things up with David, just like she had feared she would, and now it was over.
As she crossed the school lobby on Monday morning, her face burned with shame. Whispers passed through the students: Cheating little dyke. What a freak.
At her locker, she fumbled through the combination, opening the door clumsily and nearly banging her face into it. She cursed under her breath and unloaded her backpack. She should get to class. Ignore all of these people. When she closed the locker she started at the sight of Julian, Madison, Bri, and Robbie standing right there. “Crap, you scared me,” Reese mumbled. They all had extremely sober expressions on their faces.
“Come on,” Julian said. “We’ll walk you to class.”
A wave of gratitude swept through Reese. “You don’t have to do that.”
Robbie shrugged. “You hooked up with some hot alien chick. Other people are just jealous.”
“I didn’t hook up with her,” Reese said. “At
least, not last weekend.”
Madison’s eyebrows shot up. “When did you hook up with her?”
Reese reddened. “Those photos are totally misleading. I would never cheat on David.” It was important that her friends understood that, and she said the words loud enough that several other students stopped to stare at her. “I didn’t,” she insisted, looking at her friends.
Julian gave her a sympathetic look and put an arm around her, ushering her down the hall as the others fell in beside them. “Think of it this way: Now it’s all out in the open. You have nothing to fear anymore.”
“Also,” Bri put in, “you are totally coming back to the GSA.”
Reese only glimpsed David from afar at lunch, and he was surrounded by his friends, who kept shooting dark glances at her, so she didn’t approach him. Her friends tried to cheer her up, but she could only manage a wan smile at their bad jokes. She couldn’t avoid hearing the whispers in the hallways or feeling the waves of emotion that passed through other students when she walked past. Nobody believed that she hadn’t cheated on David. The pictures were too damning. By the end of the day she had withdrawn into herself, blocking everything off so that she was enclosed in her own mental space. It wasn’t comforting, though, because in her head she kept remonstrating herself for not telling David everything right away. Maybe if she had, he wouldn’t have reacted this way.
During Principles of Democracy, Mr. Hernandez once again told her and David to wait after class. David wouldn’t look at her the whole period, and even when the room cleared out—with a few students casting curious glances their way—he continued to sit in his seat, facing forward. David? she thought, but he only shook his head without answering her. She hunched over in her seat and wished she could be someplace else.
Mr. Hernandez closed the door. His shoes clicked across the floor as he pulled one of the desks out to face the two of them. She heard the beep as he turned on the audio recorder. “All right,” he said. “What happened on Saturday?”
“Dr. Brand officially invited us to go to the UN with them,” David answered.