The Nowhere Girls(85)

“Hey,” Melissa says after two rings.

“I just had a fight with my mom. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, Rosina. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s actually kind of okay,” Rosina says, confused by her own words. “I think.”

“Yeah?” Melissa says. “That’s great.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Rosina says. “Let’s pretend nothing sad happened today.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I just want to hear your voice.”

“Oh, okay.”

Silence.

When Melissa giggles, it feels like butterfly wings fluttering everywhere in Rosina’s body, blowing the pain away.

“Say something,” Rosina says.

“Do you want to come over to my house for dinner sometime?”

The butterfly wings stop fluttering. The butterflies are stunned stupid. “Like, with your parents?” Rosina says.

“Yeah.”

“I’m supposed to say yes, aren’t I?”

“I hope you say yes.”

“Okay, yes,” Rosina says. “But I’m a little terrified.”

“It’s okay to be terrified.”

“I’m peeing my pants a little.”

“You should probably get that checked out.”

“What’d you tell your parents about me?”

“I told them you’re awesome.”

“Oh.”

“I also may have told them that I kind of want you to be my girlfriend,” Melissa says.

And that’s it—there are now officially too many feelings to fit inside the confines of Rosina’s ribs. Her heart explodes. She’s a goner.





US.


Amber Sullivan is in Graphic Design, her best hour of the day. It’s her chance to fool around on a decent computer and feel halfway good at something. Who knows what she’d be capable of if she actually had one at home to practice on.

Not only is this her best class, it is also her best seating arrangement. She is assigned to a computer right next to Otis Goldberg, who is usually on the other side of the school in the smart-kid classes, and who, at this point in her life, is the only person whose company Amber actually enjoys.

“What are you working on?” Otis asks her, as if she’s an actual person.

“Oh,” she says. “Um.” He is the only boy she doesn’t know how to talk to.

“That looks cool,” he says, leaning sideways to better see her screen, his shoulder touching hers. “Is it animated?”

“Yeah,” she says. She presses the button to start the animation. It’s nothing, really. It took her fifteen minutes to create.

“Wow,” Otis says, and he seems genuinely impressed. “How’d you do that?”

“It’s really easy programming,” Amber says. She switches to the screen where she wrote it.

“You wrote all that code? How’d you learn how to do that?”

Amber shrugs. “I guess I just taught myself.”

“You’re really talented,” Otis says. “You could do this professionally if you wanted to.”

Amber has to look away from his searing eyes. He’s the only one who’s ever told her she can do anything.

“Slut,” Olivia Han fake coughs as she walks by, knocking Amber’s computer with her hip.

“Shut up, Olivia,” Otis says. “Not cool.”

Olivia looks at Otis for a moment, dumbfounded. When has anyone ever stood up for Amber Sullivan? “Whatever,” Olivia finally says, and walks away.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Amber says. “I’m used to it.”

“That doesn’t give her the right to do it,” Otis says. “You don’t deserve that.”

The strange thing is, he actually seems to believe it.

The strangest thing is, for a brief moment, looking into Otis’s eyes, so does Amber.

*

Someone sits in the desk designated for Adam Kowalski, but that is just the name on her birth certificate. Her real name is Adele now, but nobody knows it yet. Just one more year, she thinks, the mantra on a constant loop in her head.

She watches a group of girls in a huddle, whispering. Something yanks inside her chest, wanting to join them. She knows they’re talking about the Nowhere Girls; that’s all anyone talks about these days. She yearns to be a part of it, but would they even let her in? Is someone like her allowed? If she showed up to a meeting, would they scream at her to leave? What is her claim to womanhood if it isn’t in her body?

*

Of course Margot Dillard has already finished the homework Mom picked up for her at school. She has already had an encouraging conversation with the dean of admissions at Stanford, who waxed nostalgic about her own trouble with the law protesting apartheid in the eighties. Certain that their daughter can do no wrong, Margot’s parents are preparing to sue the school district over her suspension, and they have a very good lawyer.

Margot does not think about her great luck, about this privilege of being trusted. She is sitting in front of the mirror applying makeup. She replays the YouTube video about how to create a smoky eye, which she’s already watched six times because of course it has to be perfect. She looks in the mirror and pouts out her plump red lips.