Tell Me How You Really Feel

by Aminah Mae Safi

  She could even deal with another lecture from Douga.

  What she couldn’t deal with, what she refused to deal with, was this final project being anything less than spectacular. It was going to be better than good. It was going to be the best. Her work and her passion and her obsessive control were going to take her places, the way it took boys places. She wasn’t going to end up stuck editing local TV for the rest of her life.

  No, Rachel Consuela Recht was getting out, and she’d claw her way there if she had to.

  2

  Never Let Go

  Sana

  Sana slipped out of the interview room. She was on the far end of the Royce School’s campus, and she’d scheduled herself for the last interview of the day on purpose. There was nobody to run into her, nobody to see her leave.

  Nobody who knew she was considering deferring from Princeton for a year. Nobody who knew that she hadn’t put down her deposit yet.

  Sana hunched her shoulders slightly. She could hear the way her grandmother, Mamani, would fuss at her about posture. She could practically feel Mamani’s fingers pinching her shoulder blades. Only Mamani could manage to convincingly nag someone when she wasn’t even around. But Sana persisted in her slump. Once she got farther away from the room, she’d relax her shoulders and straighten her back.

  Sana made her way out of the building, out into the early spring sunshine. It was the kind of day Los Angeles was famous for—sunny, but not hot. Blue skies and a small breeze. Sana inhaled—dust and smog and the faintest hint of eucalyptus. She dropped her shoulders, repositioned her backpack.

  She’d done it.

  She’d interviewed for a year abroad and nobody had found out. She probably wouldn’t get it. The competition to work in a genetics hospital—actually work, not just file paperwork or shadow a doctor—was fierce. But she’d done it all the same. Without anyone being the wiser.

  Including Mom. Including Princeton.

  Sana had taken a few more steps when she caught sight of a figure moving across the lawn, weighted down with several cases and bags. Sana froze for a moment, watching.

  Rachel Recht.

  She must have been carrying camera equipment. That’s what all those bags and cases were. Sana squinted, just to be sure; it really was her. Rachel Recht, a film student so extraordinary that she was granted a scholarship plus special filming privileges within the high-walled hedges of the Royce School. Rachel Recht, who was the kind of girl who vibrated going places and doing things and get out of my way already.

  Rachel Recht, who had hated Sana with every fiber of her being since they had met in October of their freshman year.

  Sana knew she needed to unstick herself from this position before Rachel noticed her staring. She’d learned to turn away, to not look at Rachel for as long as she wanted to, over the years. Learned that Rachel sneered at her whenever she caught Sana looking. So Sana tried her best to ignore Rachel. Ignore her own urge to look. Ignore the way her heartbeat kicked up a notch. That was just the leftover thrill from having finished her interview, anyway. Sana grabbed both of her backpack straps and pulled, willing herself to turn away and keep moving.

  And that’s when everything went haywire.

  Sana watched in slow motion as Rachel tripped over something. A sprinkler head popping out from the field. Rachel began to stumble, all that equipment still in her hands. She was either going to land on the equipment and do some serious damage to some expensive cameras, or the cameras were going to land on Rachel and do some serious—and likely as expensive—damage to her. Somehow, Rachel missed both as she came crashing down onto the ground.

  But Sana was in motion and halfway to Rachel before she realized she was running. And by the time she realized what she was doing, realized she was running, it was too late to second-guess herself. She slammed chest first into Rachel, just as Rachel had recovered and was standing back up again.

  Sana tried to catch Rachel, she honestly did. But Rachel clawed the entire way down and the two went tumbling over each other. Sana landed on top of Rachel, her arms on either side of the girl’s head, their skulls millimeters from cracking into each other. Sana breathed heavily, her legs tangled in between Rachel’s.

  Holy Hades.

  Sana ignored the jolt she felt at the touch. She buried the thrill down deep, easily covered by the choreographed stiffness with which Sana had to hold her body in that moment. Rachel was all softness, her years spent behind a camera rather than on any athletic field. Sana supposed Rachel’s arms had muscle from her time spent hauling all of that camera equipment. But everything pressed up against Sana right now was so, so soft.

  It was dizzying. And it was terrible. Sana had never wanted to know that Rachel’s hair smelled like pineapple shampoo or that she had faint freckles across her tan cheeks. Didn’t need the knowledge that Rachel didn’t have pierced ears—they were small and unmarked. That would just make all those daydreams Sana had to tamp down on so much more vivid.

  “Get off of me,” said Rachel, her tone at once righteous and imperious and every one of the worst kinds of -ouses that Rachel could probably muster.

  Sana reeled backward. She should have been used to it by now, but she wasn’t. She lifted herself off of Rachel—efficiently enough so that Rachel wouldn’t have further cause to yell at her for lack of speed, but not so quickly as to possibly jostle Rachel in the process. Rachel got up immediately. And then, without warning, Rachel shrieked. Sana rushed forward, to see if Rachel had hurt her leg and needed support standing. She held her arms out to Rachel’s, but the girl slapped Sana’s arms away. The sting in her forearms chased away any lingering heat left in Sana’s limbs.

  It was probably better that way. Remember this sting, not the pineapple shampoo.

  “Stay away from me, you incompetent purveyor of benevolent sexism!” Rachel shoved her, then she ran toward where her camera case had fallen.

  That’s when Sana saw it. The latch to the pelican case must not have been secured. The camera had come tumbling out of it. She covered her mouth with her hand.

  Oh no. “I’m so sorry. Do you need help?”

  “Stay. Back.” This, Sana knew, was Rachel’s most authoritarian tone. There was probably only one tiny thread of control left to keep Rachel from a full-blown meltdown.

  The lens in Rachel’s hand looked fine, but Sana saw the body of the camera. A huge crack ran down the front, on the right-hand side. It was probably cosmetic. Hopefully. Sana stayed still and quiet.

  Rachel placed the lens into the pelican case. Then she caught sight of the camera. She whimpered, picking up the camera body gently. She looked up to sneer directly at Sana. “Look what you did. Oh my God, just look.”

  Sana took a step backward. This was all her fault. “I’m really sorry.”

  Rachel was scrambling with equipment and taking stock of the damage Sana had unwittingly caused. “Oh, good. So long as you’re sorry. Jesus. You nearly destroyed the camera. You’re lucky this is just a crack in the plastic that hopefully doesn’t affect any of the actual mechanism or mounting functions. You’re lucky you don’t have to explain this damage to the head of the photography department, like I do.”

  “I’ll go explain what happened.” Sana didn’t want to have to do it—resented that she’d listened to her own instincts and tried to help Rachel in the first place—but she wouldn’t run away from the consequences of her own stupidity. This was why Sana made plans and to-do lists and action items. She had to counter bad instincts. Instincts that had her running over to Rachel. Instincts that were trouble.

  “Don’t bother.” Rachel snorted.

  But, despite the meanness and the tension flying between them, Sana acted on instinct again. She reached out and touched Rachel’s arm. It was almost like she couldn’t help it.

  Rachel wrenched her arm away from Sana’s touch. “In your dreams, Khan.”

  The two girls stood there, locked in that moment, by bitterness and memory and, for Sana, no small
amount of longing. Then the grass rustled—and around the corner stepped Nashville Harrison, his hair still wet from the pool. He took in the tension between Sana and Rachel and he froze.

  Everyone called the boy Diesel and had been doing it for so long that few people ever thought to ask why anymore. Diesel was a water polo player and the kind of guy people jokingly called a golden god, because between the athletics and the bleached-out hair and the deep tan, that’s what the dude looked like. But he was Sana’s friend and had been since the beginning. Though even Sana didn’t know why he went by Diesel, especially since Nash ought to have been a perfectly good nickname for “Nashville.”

  “We’re just over a month into second semester and you’re already picking fights with the cheerleaders. That’s got to be a new record, even for you. Leave them be, man. You know they don’t have the ego to handle you.” Diesel winked.

  Rachel sighed and rolled her eyes, like Diesel was too stupid to even be worth the time of her insulting him properly. Except the only thing Diesel had ever been stupid about was thinking that staring longingly at a girl for years would do anything to further his romantic interests. Sana and Diesel were, unfortunately, alike in this way.

  “Do you need any other help?” Sana knew she would be rebuffed. She asked anyway. She was a one-woman masochism parade today.

  “You’ve done plenty already, thanks,” said Rachel, still hunched over her gear.

  Diesel had already started to help Rachel get the camera and lenses and equipment back into the pelican case. His movements were quick and efficient. “There we go. Easy solve. You’ll be all right.” Diesel clicked the latch to the case shut.

  “No thanks to her.” It was the first time Rachel hadn’t ignored something the water polo player had said, even if it was an indirect kind of statement that mostly took aim at Sana.

  “I said I was sorry,” said Sana.

  “That’s not good enough,” said Rachel.

  “Was there any other damage to your equipment?” Against her better judgment, Sana stared into Rachel’s eyes. They were a deep golden brown that reminded Sana of the best kind of bitter tea.

  “Luckily, no. You just made the camera look awful, not work awful. And it’s not my equipment. It’s the school’s. I can’t afford a camera like this. I don’t go out and buy everything I need for my activities. There’s not some vending machine of technical equipment that I’ve got unlimited access to. There’s a reason I’m aiming for a scholarship for college.” Rachel looked Sana up and down.

  Sana wished it had been a different kind of elevator glance, rather than this cutting one. But disdain was the only thing she’d ever gotten from Rachel, and probably would be the only thing she would ever get from her. She’d somehow become the girl’s nemesis, and all she’d been trying to do was ask for her phone number that one time.

  It had gone horribly sideways. Everything where Rachel Recht was concerned went horribly sideways.

  “I’m glad you’re not injured,” said Sana, knowing she shouldn’t say anything but needing to say something. “And I’m glad your camera equipment is still working, despite the crack.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Khan, for nearly damaging thousands of dollars of school property.”

  Sana nodded at Diesel. “That’s my cue.”

  Diesel gave a slight, sad nod. Like he remembered that once upon a time, Sana had tried asking out a girl on her own for the first time. And that that first girl had been Rachel Recht. Because what Diesel didn’t know, what he probably did not suspect, was her crush wasn’t firmly rooted in the past tense.

  As Sana walked away, she willed herself to take deep breaths again. It was a trick Sana had learned a long time ago. Breathe in, breathe out. The more deep breaths she took, the more she envisioned the tension leaving her shoulders.

  It stung to know that Rachel was clever and ambitious and pretty, that Rachel created whole worlds and put them onto film, even with a shoestring student budget, and she thought Sana was lower than dirt. But Sana knew better than to expect anything anymore. Even if moments like this—where Sana could smell Rachel’s hair or look directly into Rachel’s bright brown eyes—made Sana forget she wasn’t supposed to have a crush on Rachel at all. And anyway, the feeling was mostly in the past.

  Sana certainly wasn’t about to tell anybody the truth, not even herself.

  Rachel

  Fucking Sana.

  “It’s not her fault,” said the water polo player. Like he could read Rachel’s thoughts.

  Rachel’s eyes snapped toward him. She hadn’t realized he was still here, hadn’t realized he hadn’t gone with Sana. He had a stupid name, like Chet, or Chip, or Colt, or Petrol. Diesel. Rachel snorted. Who names their kid Diesel?

  Rachel put her hand on her hip. “What isn’t her fault?”

  “Any of it.” Diesel watched her, like he was trying to pick up clues for some kind of mystery that only he knew about. “Even if she knocked you over, I know Sana. I’m sure she was trying to help.”

  “Look, meathead,” said Rachel, resenting his close inspection. “I get you think you’re helping. But some jock saying the cheerleader is really nice underneath it all doesn’t mean shit to a girl like me.”

  Rachel had learned that when it came to pretty girls, people would bend the rules—even laws—for them. Nobody had ever bent the rules for Rachel. Much less laws. Rachel waited for his response. But instead he just shook his head. He handed her the pelican case wordlessly and walked off the field. Great. She’d just been deemed less than by a guy named Diesel.

  Fucking Sana.

  It had always been like that between them. Sana was one of those perfect, delicate, tiny girly girls. Her shirts were never wrinkled and her skirts—the girl only ever wore pants when practicing her stupid, idiotic cheers—were never stained. Her ponytail was always sleek and in order, despite humidity from the marine layer or sweltering heat or even spring breezes. She was like a South Asian Elizabeth Taylor.

  More Maggie the Cat than Martha, though.

  Even from the start, Sana had looked like that—like a leading lady who’d stepped off the silver screen. Back during freshman year, Rachel had walked by Sana several times, having noticed her on campus pretty immediately, without knowing who she was. It was hard not to notice Sana. And Sana, she’d been watching Rachel the whole time too, of that much Rachel had been sure. Did Rachel look that out of place among these people? Could this perfect cheerleader notice the difference so immediately so as to always stare in her direction? It had been impossible to say.

  But one October morning in that fateful first year, Sana had come right up to Rachel with her prim, swishy ponytail and had said, “Hi,” in a way that was all smiles.

  Rachel had known just by looking at Sana to mistrust that girl’s intentions from the start. “What?”

  Sana’s smile had faltered then, slightly. But she’d pressed on regardless. “I’ve seen you around. But only after school. Are you new?”

  It had been a perfectly normal question, as far as they went. But it was one Rachel hated. It was why, up till then, she’d mostly hung around the film labs, the darkrooms, and the film lab, trying to hide away.

  Rachel’s work had caught Douga’s eye during a summer arts program that she’d applied to on scholarship. Douga had thought that Rachel showed promise, so the instructor had gone to the Royce administration with Rachel’s final film project to show them the exact nature of that promise. They’d offered Rachel a spot then and there, but Rachel initially had turned it down. She didn’t know anybody with forty-five grand to blow every year on her college education, much less for high school. The Royce School had amended their offer, telling her that of course she would be there with financial assistance.

  That’s how they had phrased it, “financial assistance.” Rachel was being given a specific kind of training for her specific kind of talents that the Royce School thought worth investing in. They had a whole fund for this kind of human investment. In this
world, new and outsider seemed to mean about the same thing.

  Rachel had shrugged, trying to play it cool. Her mother had just left and Rachel spent most of her waking hours back then either making films or trying to pretend everything was okay, was fine, was totally and completely all right. “Kind of.”

  Sana had tilted her head, her ponytail swishing along with the move. “Cool.”

  Rachel had stared, mesmerized by Sana’s hair. It had reminded her of one of those desk toys, what were they called? Perpetual motion machines. Sana’s hair was like that. A perpetual motion machine.

  “Do you wanna grab a coffee sometime?” Sana had asked, breaking Rachel’s reverie.

  “What?” Rachel shook her head out, like she’d left on monitor headphones and someone had been trying to talk to her through them.

  “Coffee? Or like if you don’t drink coffee, tea. We could swap numbers.” Sana’s eyes had been so wide, so hopeful, that they were a punch to Rachel’s gut.

  “Are you fucking with me?”

  Sana had gasped; her glossy mouth had dropped open. Sana’s expression had turned raw and naked; it had confirmed every one of Rachel’s worst fears.

  “You are. I can see it. You’re totally messing with me.” There was no way the girl wasn’t. Rachel had seen Carrie, for Christ’s sake. And that scene from that godawful movie Never Been Kissed. All anyone had to do was watch a teen movie for about ten minutes to get the message: Never trust beautiful people bearing invitations.