What to Say Next(49)

Me: I meant the football team! Maybe you should tell someone. Like the principal.

David: Oh. On one hand they’ve made it clear they want me dead. On the other, I doubt they actually want to do the dirty work. Not to mention they’d have to dispose of my body. And all their prior threatening texts could be used as evidence against them by the police. They’re stupid, but not that stupid.

Me: ?

David: I think it highly unlikely that they’ll kill me.

Me: I didn’t mean it literally. I meant they could mess you up.

David: Again unlikely. Also, I know various forms of self-defense, including but not limited to kung fu and krav maga. They should be scared of me.

Me: Really?

David: Yup. But you know what I don’t understand?

Me: EVERYTHING.

David: That’s a joke, right?

Me: Yes, David, that was a joke.

David: Right. So what I don’t get is why everyone is mad at me, instead of realizing I’m the one who has been wronged here. Not a single person has come up to me and said, “I’m really sorry this happened to you.” Not one person.

Me: I’m really sorry this happened to you.

David: I’m being serious.

Me: So am I.

David: Thank you.

Me: You’re welcome. You really know krav maga?

David: Would I joke about something like that?





“I thought college would be easier,” Miney says on Tuesday morning. She is sitting in our breakfast nook, digging into a pile of pancakes. My dad is manning the stove with his headphones on, the same pair I have, though instead of listening to music, he prefers audiobooks. He claims it allows for efficient multitasking, but it has the unintended perk of allowing Miney and my mom to talk without him hearing. I’m just beyond the door, eavesdropping. I realize I don’t actually have the power of invisibility, but I come pretty close. “Like it would just be an extension of high school. But then I got there, and I had to make all new friends. And no one seemed to like me.”

“Laur, of course people like you.” My mom leans forward and squeezes Miney’s hand. Miney is being ridiculous. Everyone likes her. That is one of life’s constants, like the chemical makeup of water.

“It’s not just that. As you know, rush was a disaster. My classes are seriously hard. And there was this guy….”

“And?” my mom asks.

“And nothing. Well, not quite nothing. I really liked him, Mom, and I thought he was interested too. And so I saw him out one night and I, like, basically threw myself at him in front of everyone and he made it superclear he wasn’t at all into me. It was beyond embarrassing. Plus I don’t really have any friends. Not real ones yet, anyway. It just feels like college is one rejection after another. Maybe I picked the wrong school. Or maybe I’m just a big loser.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my daughter? One guy doesn’t like you and you come running home?” my mom asks. “He’s obviously an idiot.”

“He’s actually supersmart, Mom. He was my physics tutor. I was the idiot.” Miney puts her head down on the table and my mother strokes her hair like she’s a small child. I think she might be crying, but I can’t tell from here.

“That’s why you’ve been moping all this time?”

“Little D, you scared the crap out of me. Stop lurking!” Miney screams when she notices me. Darn new clothes and their crinkly sounds. My khakis were much more inconspicuous.

“I wasn’t lurking. I was eavesdropping,” I say, and step into the kitchen.

“Stop it,” Miney and my mom say at the exact same time, so I have no choice but to say, “Jinx, a Coke,” though I don’t drink caffeine.

“Maybe we should talk about this later,” my mom says, and Miney nods. I wonder what my dad will say when he finds out that Miney needed a physics tutor. Since last summer, he has been putting a lot of pressure on her about college. He’s adamant that she major in something useful, like math or biology. Before she left that’s all he could talk about: how Miney needed to understand how much school was going to cost my parents, that she better finally figure out what she was good at, that she should stop wasting time putting on makeup and instead apply herself in the sciences, like I did.

“Anyone can be prom queen, but not everyone has the opportunity or the capability to learn from Nobel Prize–winning geophysicists,” he would say, and Miney would look him straight in the eye and say: “I was homecoming queen, actually, and some parents would be proud of that.” I stayed out of it, though it’s not quite true that anyone can be homecoming queen or king. I certainly can’t. Miney might not be the best person to talk to about quantum theory, but she’s a genius in her own way.

“I just want to say I love you guys and I’m so lucky to have the two bravest kids in the world, and sure you both make mistakes, but please don’t let anyone or anything ever make you feel small, okay? Either one of you,” my mom says, and stands up and kisses both me and Miney on the tops of our heads as she makes her way to the sink. My mom likes pep talks. It’s kind of her thing.

“Statistically speaking, it’s unlikely we are the two bravest kids in the whole world,” I say.

“Just say I love you too, Mom,” my mom calls over her shoulder.