Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute

I’d bet my left ball it came up with Luke and it’s definitely come up with me. She’s avoiding feelings again. Hard.

I know she likes me—she said she likes me—so I thought the anti-relationship issue was just a lack of trust. We’ve only been friends again for five minutes, and last time we broke, we shattered, so for her to doubt my feelings, or even her own—that is understandable.

But is she telling me she doesn’t trust anyone?

I want more than this for you.

How do you tell someone a thing like that without coming off monumentally rude?

While I’m trying to figure that out, we reach an ornate door. There’s a golden plaque above it that says the blue conference room. Celine exhales and smooths down her skirt. I bet, for once, she’s panicking even harder than I am, what with her Lord and Savior Katharine Breakspeare being in the next room.

Yet she still makes the time to grab my hand again. “Brad. You know you’ve got this, right?”

God, I want to kiss her so badly, but instead, I say, “Back at you, Bangura.”

The door opens.

“Thank you,” a familiar voice says, all easy confidence. Katharine. “I’m so glad we had the time to make this work.” She’s the one who opened the door, but instead of walking through, she holds it and steps aside to let out a stream of people. Not Explorers; adults in suits and wool coats. Celine and I move back, hands parting, and I nod politely at everyone who makes eye contact. Never a bad time to make a good impression. I hope she remembers not to glare.

The last man out looks vaguely familiar—he’s tall, though not as tall as me, with brown skin and a bald head and silver-framed glasses that flash in the light. There’s something about his dark, dark eyes that gnaws at my memory, but I can’t quite grasp it, so I just nod and wait for him to pass.

He doesn’t pass.

He jerks to a stop as if he slammed into a pane of glass. I hear his inhalation. I see the color leave his cheeks. His eyes widen and he chokes out, “Celine?”

Oh.

Shit.

It’s Celine’s dad.

I’ve only seen him a handful of times, years ago. There are no pictures of him in the Bangura house. I turn to look at Celine so fast I feel the creak in my neck—but her exterior is the exact opposite of my explosive panic.

She stands there in front of her father, shoulders back, gaze steady, expression polite but blank. And she says, so, so calmly:

“I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

Mr. Soro looks like he has just been stabbed. I am suddenly having the time of my life. This moment could only be improved if he had a sudden bout of catastrophic diarrhea and shit himself in front of Katharine Breakspeare and had to waddle all the way home.

“I…,” he stammers. “I…”

Amazing. He can’t collect a single word. What a sad excuse for a human being.

I am suddenly, monumentally furious. This slug is the reason why Celine—Celine, who is so much, when he is so little—second-guesses so many things in her life? Unbelievable.

Mr. Soro clears his throat and finally gets himself together. “I…ah…sorry…I’ll just— Good seeing you.” He makes an awkward motion with his arm, then follows through, scuttling off like a roach.

I watch him all the way down the corridor with what is probably an expression of sheer disgust on my face. Then I notice Katharine Breakspeare observing the scene with interest and plaster on the best blank mask I can. No way Celine wants this drama playing out in front of her hero.

I can’t imagine how she feels right now. What do I do? I have to do something.

“Right, then,” Katharine says. “Celine Bangura?”

This is supposed to be the part where Cel quietly but visibly explodes with pleasure because Katharine knows her name. Instead, there’s not even a flicker in her eyes. “Yes,” she says.

The two of them head inside and shut the door.





CELINE


When I was little, Mum would wash my hair for me. I’d lie down in the bathwater to rinse, my ears submerged, and hear her voice as if from miles away.

Sometimes Giselle washed my hair.

Dad never did.

The conference room Katharine Breakspeare leads me into is ornate but tastefully cream and blue, with a huge oval table of dark wood at its center. I drift past each leather chair like a ghost and wonder which one he sat in. Wonder if he’s wondering about me.

Would it matter if he was? Would it change anything? He would still be a man who couldn’t look his daughter in the eye. He would still be a big blank slate to me. I thought I hated my father but right now all I feel is exhausted, like he ripped into a vein and drained half of the life I had.

If he were someone else’s dad, I would find him so pathetic. I wouldn’t even bother to think his name.

A little flame catches and crackles, flickers, grows in the darkness of my roiling gut.

“…really well, Celine,” Katharine is saying, and I realize we are sitting down at the head of the table. A meter of gleaming wood separates us. She has a tablet in her hand and a slight, encouraging curve to her wide mouth. There are gossamer creases around her eyes, magnified by black-framed glasses, and her infamous blowout is smoothed back into a simple ponytail. I wish I was eating up these little details; my lack of enthusiasm feels like a bereavement.

I smile and make a vague but positive/appreciative/encouraging sound. Whatever she just said is a mystery to me. The leather seat of this chair is too warm, radiating through my tights. There’s a faint ringing in my ears, which can’t be good.

Mum’s voice murmurs in my mind, “You’re okay. You’re all right. You are my daughter.” I sit up straighter. Bangura women don’t break.

“Your leadership score is very high,” Katharine says, scrolling through the tablet. “Your team building is—”

“Low?” I interrupt like some mannerless heathen. It’s not like I expected to do well. I don’t like people and they don’t like me. I don’t trust people; why should they trust me? I’m prickly and harsh and—

“Actually,” Katharine says, “your team-building score is also high. According to the feedback notes, you frequently supported and encouraged your fellow Explorers.”

Well, that can’t be right. Maybe she has someone else’s file. Unless…Is she talking about the tent thing? Seriously? I was bored and everyone else was slow, so I sped them up. It was not that exciting.

“You acted, on multiple occasions, to mitigate the effect of…stronger personalities in the group,” Katharine continues, “so quieter members could have their say.”

This is just technical speak for You shut Allen up, which I only did because he desperately needed to be silenced. Really, it was my pleasure.

“You took care of the communal spaces; you gave other people’s ideas a chance even when you didn’t necessarily agree….” Katharine finally looks up from the mystical tablet. “Yes, team building is one of your strengths. Your lowest score was actually creative thinking.”

Hmm. Maybe this is about those rope-based obstacle courses we did and how I got stuck near the top of a tree and didn’t even think to jump right back down.

Or it could be about that poisonous plant-life project we did—

“As you know, the final expedition at Glen Finglas will be more heavily weighted in the average. My advice would be to attempt a little more flexibility of thought. Have you ever heard the phrase question the premise?”

I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I’m too hot and my eyes hurt, and I want to go. I take a deep breath and maintain my smile. “Is it like rejecting the premise?” Before I quit for final year, I was a three-year debate team champion.

“Yes, but not exactly. It’s more internal.”

“Okay. Then, no, I don’t think so.”

“I very much enjoy the work of Becca Syme,” Katharine says, locking her tablet and putting it on the table. “She proposes that we might solve our problems more creatively if we paused to question the underlying premise beneath our established ideas. Does that make sense to you?”

I take another breath and force my brain to understand English. “Yes. Yes, I think so.” For example: my dad is a disgrace and I should make him feel ashamed. The premise: That blood makes him my father? That I can make him feel anything at all?

Time passes and so does our conversation. Katharine congratulates me on making it through and wishes me luck in Scotland; then I’m stumbling out the door and Brad is there. So is Sophie. When our eyes meet, she gives me a look of concern that grates me into cheese, then disappears with Katharine. Brad is holding my hand.

“Cel. Celine. Talk to me.”

“No.” My mouth is numb, but I’m ready for an argument.

Except Brad doesn’t argue. He just twines our fingers together and leads me down the hall. “Okay. What was your score?”

My mind comes up panic white. “I don’t know.”