Are You Mine

Chapter 3


Saige


I almost don’t know what to do with myself now that school’s out. It’s a weekday, and I’ve got zero routine to guide me. For the first half of the morning, I drink coffee, waste hours roaming from site to site on the internet while watching women on TV talk about absolutely nothing of importance.

Now that it’s midafternoon, I need to do something. Not that doing something means going outside or anything, because I’m not so desperate I’ve convinced myself I need to leave the apartment in search of something to do.

I run through the documents on my laptop. I’m not sure which I should move forward on. I’ve got the thirty page beginning of a manuscript about World War II, then there’s the autobiographical screenplay. I’m pretty certain I don’t want to finish that one. My life is even boring to myself!

When I come across my file full of story ideas, I realize that some of them aren’t bad at all. I doubt that anyone would ever want to read them, but I should build a routine around developing and writing one. You never know.

But I can’t decide right now, so I’ll think about it and figure it all out tomorrow. Instead, I let my mind wander to the beaches of California where sexy surfer man-boys walk around so confident some of it seeps onto me. With my borrowed confidence, I strike up a conversation with one, and he says all the right things. Even with the things left unspoken, I know he’s the kind of guy I want to be around. Though confident, he’s quiet and soft-spoken. He also doesn’t mind a girl who doesn’t need him every second of every day and who isn’t stick thin.

Not that I’m fat. I mean, I’m not Fat Cody. I have five extra pounds. Okay, so maybe more like ten, but I think it gives me curves. I don’t want to be as thin as Myka. I love my friend, but she looks like the gush of wind as one of her futuristic steam engine trains passes by would blow her over.

But whatever. It works for her. She’s got Valentine.

What do I have?

My daydreams, that’s what. So I go back to the fictional surfer who loves me just the way I am and doesn’t make me go out if I don’t want to go out. We sit on his old couch with bare feet against the hardwood floors of his bungalow and spend the night talking about books and–

A knock jars me out of my thoughts.

I’m so happy to see Myka on the other side of the door, but then I see she’s brought someone else. My face falls a bit as I see Fox freakin’ Harrington with her. He’s smiling at me with that stupid, popular smile, and all I can do is frown back at him. What’s he doing with my friend?

“Hey,” I say to Myka.

“What’s up?”

“Don’t know. You’re the one knocking on my door. What’s up?” I don’t like the sharpness of my voice, so I try to loosen my demeanor by unfolding my arms and stepping back. “Come on in.” By default, I’m inviting Fox in as well, but I can’t just let Myka stand in the hall all day.

I steer them into the living room, motion Fox to sit, but then tug Myka into the kitchen. In a hushed voice, I ask, “What the hell are you doing? Why’d you bring him?”

“Because he’s nice and because—”

“Nice? Do you remember who he hangs with?”

“High school’s over. None of us have to live by that code any—”

“Well, yeah, it’s over. I guess we have confirmation he’s finally out of high school because he was at graduation and—”

Myka places a bony hand over my mouth and looks me straight in the eyes. “Saige, baby, you know I love you, but you’re judgmental as hell, and if you don’t stop, I’ll be forced to find another sidekick.”

“I’m not your sidekick,” I say against her hand, then pull it away from my mouth. “And I’m not judgmental, just—”

“Self-righteous?”

I take a deep breath and screw up my lips as I narrow my eyes. “He’s not our people, you know?”

“Who are our people? I mean, you’re so flippin’ selective, it’s ridiculous.”

“What if he’s just—”

“OMG, you’re an idiot. Don’t be so suspicious of everyone all the time. He’s perfect. His name is Fox.”

I blink and cross my arms over my chest again. “So?”

“Your name is Saige.”

“Thank you, I know that.”

Myka grabs my cheeks and squeezes them together like my Aunt Regina used to do. “He’s perfect for you.” I’m unimpressed and she can tell, so she lets go. “Come on. Fox and Saige. Saige and Fox.”

“No matter how many times you say our names together, I still don’t get it.”

“You could have new-aged little hippie babies or some shit. So cute.”

“No, that’s you and Val. Little corset and black make-up-wearing, clockwork car-driving hippies.”

Although she laughs a little, she gives me this look that leaves no doubt she’s about to give me a command. It doesn’t matter if this is my apartment or not; Myka and I both know that when she takes control like this, I shut up and do as I’m told.

“Be good. He’s super nice and totally cute.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Do I seem like the type of person to be moved by cuteness?”

“Seriously. Be nice or I’m going to punch you in the boob.”

She doesn’t let me even try to come back against that, probably because she knows it’ll take me five days to think of something. Myka leaves the kitchen, and I follow her out. Fox sits in my living room with his bag and papers on his lap while he looks around like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Myka sits down next to him on the couch, so I move to the armchair. “Hey,” he says to me. I nod back to him. The silence, while only a few seconds, seems unbearable, then Fox points to the grandfather clock across the room.

“What did the digital clock say to the grandfather clock?”

I have no intention of playing along, but Myka asks, “What?”

“Look, Grandpa, no hands!”

His smile grows wider as Myka giggles, but it’s not until I feel him watching me that I realize I’m smiling, too. Okay, so maybe his smile is cute and accentuates his latte eyes. I mean, who has eyes like that? Such a light shade of brown that I don’t know they can even be called brown. And the way his dusty brown hair hangs over his forehead a little makes him very attractive, but somehow approachable.

“There it is,” he says.

I’m not sure why he says it, but it makes me feel self-conscience, so I let the smile fade.

Myka stares at me. I already know she wants me to seize the opportunity, so rather than wait for her to bug her eyes any more than they already are, I ask, “So you guys just randomly decide to hang out or what?”

“Nope,” Fox answers. “We just bumped into each other.”

Myka’s excitement cannot be contained. Her body almost buzzes with it. “He’s going to draw ‘Myka’s Metal Valentine’!”

“Draw it? I don’t get it. We just talked about—”

“Yeah, he’s going to make it into a graphic novel.”

There’s no disguising the little bit of hurt I feel as I say, “Oh.”

That was supposed to be my project, not that I had any real plans of writing my best friend’s crazy steampunk novella.

“Show her your work,” she says to Fox.

He hands over some pages. I take my time stacking them on my knee before I even glance at them, but when my eyes take in the black and white sketches and the full color drawings, I can’t look away. This isn’t Myka’s story in my hands. This is some epic shit about gods and demons.

“What the hell is this?”

I regret my words and tone instantly. Fox’s voice is defensive, as if he’s battling against an attack. “Art for my graphic novel.”

When I look up and our eyes connect, I realize his art is like my writing. It probably took a lot of courage for him to show these to someone – especially me. As he pointed out at the party, I’m not known as the nicest person in town.

“You’re writing a graphic novel?”

His eyes flick away from mine for just a second before he answers. What does that mean? Does it tell me something about him? Usually when people don’t look you in the eye it’s because they’re dishonest or a bad person, but until that brief moment, he’s been all about eye contact.

“Well, that’s the thing. I’ve got the characters. I’ve got the plot. I even have the ending, but I’m not so great at writing, so. . .”

Myka cuts in after Fox doesn’t continue. “Yeah, yeah. She’ll help you with that project after ‘Myka’s Metal Valentine’ because we all agree the story about me is way more important than that one, right?”

Fox chuckles. It’s a pleasant, deep sound. “Sure,” he says with a shrug. “I’ve only been thinking about my project for a couple of years, and what’s an epic war of gods and monsters compared to a steampunk romance?”

“I’ll tell you what.” Myka points at Fox. “Nothing.” She pauses and tilts her head to the side. “Okay, not nothing, but surely you guys can whip this out quickly and—”

I cut her off. “Who says I’m doing this at all? I didn’t say—”

Myka turns her begging eyes and pouting lips to me. “Please? I never ask you for anything.”

“You ask me for tons of stuff all the time.”

“Please? It’ll be like a birthday gift.”

“It’s not your birthday.”

“It will be in September. That’ll give you both plenty of time to get all creative and produce an awesome little book.”

Just voicing the little bit of dissent has tied my stomach in a knot and made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, so I don’t argue anymore. Myka wants a steampunk graphic novel in which she’s the heroin and Val’s her sidekick. There’s no use getting physically sick over it because in the end, I can tell that this is something she’s not going to let go of.

I look back to Fox. “Fine. Guess it’ll be easier than just writing a novella about it.”

Myka pulls our attention by standing up and clapping. “My work here is done.” To me, she points a finger. “Don’t you dare give up on it; this is going to be the one piece you finish.”

“Yeah, okay.”

To Fox, she smiles and places a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t let her fool you.”

Myka doesn’t expand on this, and it kind of pisses me off. I mean, really? Way to paint an incomplete picture of me to someone we barely know.

Fox and I sit in awkward silence as Myka leaves.

“So,” he starts. “She’s cool, huh?”

“Yeah. She’s. . .Myka,” I finish when I can’t think of a complete enough word to describe her.

“I didn’t mean to, like, crash your day or anything. She’s sort of forceful.”

This makes me laugh because it’s the truth. “Yeah, she is.”

“Did you have plans or anything?”

Obviously this dude doesn’t know me. Plans beyond watching TV? Yeah, right. “Um, nothing important.”

Again, the conversation stalls, and we sit in silence. The ticking of the grandfather clock he pointed out earlier sounds as loud as a steam engine chugging down the line. That seems like a great beginning. “So, this graphic novel we’re apparently now writing, can you draw machines and not just humanoids?”

His eyes sparkle. “Yeah. I don’t have anything with me, but I went through an industrial phase in ninth grade.”

“Which one?” I bite the inside of my cheek hard when it comes out of my mouth.

“Which one what?”

“Never mind.”

Fox widens his eyes a bit. “No, which one what?”

I let out a breath and prepare for an altercation. I doubt he’ll let it drop, so I answer, “Which ninth grade.”

I hope that he’s too stupid to understand my meaning because I didn’t really mean to ask that question, but I can see in his eyes and in the way the constant grin gets smaller that he gets it fast.

To my surprise, Fox’s voice is calm and even when he speaks. “Yeah, so about that. Just so you know, it didn’t take six years for me to graduate. Only five. I was held back in ninth grade, but before that I retook third grade. And if you’re going to keep bringing that up, you should just tell your friend we’re not going to work together.”

I open my mouth but then close it again when I find nothing to say right away. Thinking about Myka and her instructions to be nice, I try to find a way out of the hole I’ve dug with this guy. I hate arguments even though I find myself instigating them regularly.

In the end, I figure a simple apology will be good enough, so I say, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Maybe not today, but you meant it on Saturday. You don’t know me, and you shouldn’t assume I’m stupid because my academic record isn’t perfect.”

Is he joking? Not perfect? Please, he repeated two grades, and I bet he didn’t even take the SATs. “Sorry. I don’t think you’re stupid.”

I can tell by his expression that he doesn’t believe me, but I don’t know how to change that since I do sort of think his intelligence isn’t as high as mine. I’m sorry, but he can’t be that smart if he just graduated at age twenty.

He wants to say something else, but he’s holding back. I can’t meet his eyes. This is now beyond awkward. Why can’t I keep my mouth closed sometimes?

Finally after what seems like hours, he asks, “What’s white and black and white and black and white and black?” He only waits for me to look up before he answers himself. “A penguin rolling down a hill.”

I shake my head at the stupid joke but allow the corner of my mouth to rise in a smile.

Fox pulls out a pad of drawing paper and says, “So I can draw and you can write. We should be able to come up with something for Myka. How do you think the story should start?”

“With an old-timey train pulling into a wild west station where ladies and gentlemen stand waiting in their Victorian style clothing.”

He’s smiling at me again, but I don’t know why. He moves his hand over the page. It’s fascinating to see how the white paper starts to fill up with gray strokes, then suddenly, there’s a train where once there was nothing.

“I don’t know what Victorian clothes look like,” he admits when he flips to another blank page.

As I grab my laptop, I start to wonder again about his intentions. He barely knows Myka. I know he’s supposed to be an ultra-friendly guy or whatever, but people don’t do stuff for nothing. What’s he getting out of this? I’m not anyone’s first choice on who to spend their summer with.

“What’s in this for you?” I ask as the images of Victorian fashion load.

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you doing this?”

He stops drawing and trains his warm eyes on me. “Because Myka asked.”

I could study him for hours, but somehow I know that superficial answer is the truth for him. She asked, he agreed.

My breath hitches for some reason when he moves to sit on the arm of my chair to see the images on the computer. Are boys supposed to smell this good?

I don’t understand it, but now that he’s sitting so close to me, there’s a flutter in my body that can’t be controlled.

And there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to control it.