5 Chapter 5

This time, it was just too bizarre not to notice. Something was…off.

“Bio was a pain today. We had to cut some…”

“Why is everyone like this?” I interupted Linda as we passed by a girl leaning against the wall with her eyes glued on a purple book.

“Like what?” she asked puzzled.

“Like if there’s some life-shaking exam going on that I don’t know about.”

“Uh, you lost me.”

I stopped before pulling open the exit door and turned to look at her. “Didn’t you see all the people reading and writing on the way?” I waved my eyes to the hallway behind us.

She spun and looked with a frown. “Oh.”

“Yeah, don’t you think it’s weird?” I pushed open the door and stepped outside. There was still a cold breeze brushing the air, like sprayed fresh mint over tap water. The tooth-edged leaves of small oak trees seemed to shiver, and the purple-pink flowers of redbuds deepened in color under the bright sun, as if the gold in the light fed the cashmere petals.

But that wasn’t what I noticed first. Another guy was reading on the steps down to the parking lot, oblivious of the people walking down next to him. “Another one, huh?” Linda said when she spotted the lanky guy with a black hoodie seated on the edge of the staircase. “This is definitely weird.” She shook her head softly as we moved down the stairs.

When we closed the distance with him, she tilted her head to the side, trying to catch what the source of bewitchment was. “Star Wars,” she mouthed to me, half rolling her eyes. “I guess that’s not part of some English exam,” she whispered into my ear, as if avoiding to be overheard by the sci-fi bookworm. But it was completely unnecessary. An asteroid of the size of Brazil could’ve been falling and burning the air with a huge tail of fire and acrid smoke, and he wouldn’t have even blinked.

Or who knows? Maybe he would’ve taken out his hidden light saber and saved the day.

“I'm telling you…there must be something going on,” I said, bringing to my mind all the puzzling images of people I’d noticed over the last two weeks. And the number seemed to increase while the days unrolled one after another. “Could there be a bug in the air that makes you, I don’t know, read compulsively?” It sounded stupid, but it was the only thing I had.

“Well, that’s original.”

“Oh, enlighten me, please. I don’t hear you giving any ideas.”

“Maybe there are reading seasons over here,” she guessed when we reached the foot of the long staircase. “Every place has its own weird thing, right?”

“Reading seasons?”

“Like sharp cravings or something.”

I turned to look at her with skeptical eyes. “Cravings to stick your nose in a book? What do you think they are…teens with pregnancy syndrome?” I stopped before my Mini Cooper, polished and smooth as the black keys of a Steinway grand piano. “My theory was a lot better, not credible, but better.”

“It could be, you know.” She shrugged.

“Have you forgotten that I’ve lived here for almost two years now? Don’t you think I would’ve noticed if there was weird reading seasons around here? If I’m telling you this it’s because all of that.” I waved my hand to the sci-fi bookworm still diving into the pages “It’s completely and entirely not normal.”

“I so agree with you,” a girl’s voice said next to me. “There’s definitely something not normal about you.”

Even though I wanted to refuse to look at Jessica, even if my guts twisted at the high-pitched, corrosive sound of her voice, I turned and faced her sneering visage. “Yikes! This must be my super duper lucky day.” I raised my shoulders in mock surprise. “The double J’s talking to me! To what do I owe this honor?”

Jennifer stuck out his bottom lip and snorted. “Didn’t you say she was in a less…bitchy mood today?”

“Jessica started it this time,” Buffy told her with an accusing look. “And she is in a good mood today. Right, Dafne?” She looked at me with her pink glossy lips pressed together, as if making sure the truce between us was still valid.

“Well, now that your Lucy Liu wannabe here tainted my ears with her lovely words,” I said, locking my eyes on Jessica’s, “I might be back on a full-gear subzero mode—a gift only for her.” I wrinkled my nose.

Her narrowed dark eyes tightened even more. “I'm not a wannabe,” she said slowly, menacingly.

I whistled. “Man, I can barely see your eyes now. Glowers don’t look good on you, Jess.”

“What, are you a racist now?” Jennifer snapped in Jessica’s defense.

“Oh, no, I love Japanese people. They invented sushi after all,” I told her with a serious look, and suddenly craved a lip-smacking California roll. “But you have to accept that her eyes do look like two black slits.”

Though Jessica was cute-looking—straight dark hair, heart-shaped face, small flat nose, plump lips—when the anger inside of her boiled, she looked like a wild karate chopper about to kick the crap out of people.

“What do you think you are? You might be an eighties bad joke for all I know.” She pointed her slit-eyes to my clothes.

“Should I be flattered by the compliment you can’t seem to do openly?” I gave her a knowing smile.

Linda snapped her hand to her mouth to hide a chuckle, and Jennifer snorted once more, twisting a strand of ginger hair around her finger.

“You know that she pulls off really well the whole retro urban chic style,” Buffy moved her eyes to me. And my breath stopped, because I couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken nicely of me in front of her friends.

Jessica answered with silence and pushed away her glare from me. I swallowed back a laugh. “Just so you know,” she said a few moments later, as if wanting to counterweight her muted approval, “Lucy Liu is Chinese descendant, not Japanese.”

“Whatever,” I shrugged. “You still look a lot like her.”

“Doesn’t every girl in China or Japan? I mean, they all look kind of the same,” Linda added thoughtful.

I knew she hadn’t meant hurt with that comment, but Jessica was already on a full karate chopper mode a second later without sparing her a chance to explain herself. “We are not the same you ignorant fo—”

“Oh, don’t you even go there,” Jennifer cut her off and pulled her by the arm. “We’ll wait for you in the car,” she told Buffy and dragged along a fuming Jessica with her.

“What did I say?” Linda asked confused, throwing her hands in the air.

I shook my head as if telling her to let it go and looked at Buffy, who was still watching the double J’s with a smile. “Things never change, huh?” she said, and turned to look at me with a full grin across her face.

“I don’t know how you can stand your friends,” I said with a face. “They’re worthy of a reality show.”

“It’s all about the power of three,” she teased.

“No, it’s more like a Charlie’s Angels thing.”

She frowned.

Linda started laughing.

At least, I thought, someone gets me.

“Come on, you totally look like Charlie’s girls—the new version, I mean. The blonde, the redhead, the Chinese brunette… it’s all the same. Except for the really tight clothing and kickass abilities.”

“Jesus, how many nicknames do you give people?”

“Not so many. But you and your homies are a grand source of inspiration.”

When I thought she was about to retort something like ‘there you go again with your subzero bullcrap, and that I’d already ruined whatever good thing was going on between us,’ she surprised me by laughing, shocking me as if I’d been suddenly electrocuted by some unseen charge. For the glimpse of a second, I remained still, waiting for something to change her mind, but then, even more surprisingly, I realized I didn’t want her to do so. I liked the way she was enjoying herself so openly in front of me, how her chocolate eyes crinkled in amusement, like when she’d plastered our eleventh birthday cake into my face years ago, and that I’d been the one to cause it, not to erase it . But mostly, I liked having my sister back, my twin, even if it was only for a moment. Because it could only last a moment. The brick wall between our connections weakened whenever we stood too close of each other. And I needed that wall as a plant needed water and sunlight for its sustenance.

“So…are you going somewhere?” I dropped my head down and looked at the tiny pebbles that were merged into the pavement, suddenly uncomfortable to be around her.

She didn’t notice, though. “We’re going to Grounded to have some white mochas— and to meet with some guys from campus. I would ask you to come with us but…”

“But I would answer I’d rather have my skin rubbed with sandpaper and then have it soaked in lemon juice than going to a coffee shop with Jess and Jen.”

“Yeah, I was about to say that.” She arched her eyebrows in mockery.

“Besides, I promised Linda to go to her house. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

“Sure,” she said. “And we’ll watch a movie.”

I opened my mouth to object, but Buffy’s words flew in, cutting mine immediately. “It’s part of the truce, remember?”

I sighed. “Fine, whatever. Pick the movie.” At least it would lessen the closeness and awkwardness with her focus on the story behind the screen.