Another girl. Angelica is kissing another girl.
Angelica is an Unnatural.
The look on Angelica’s face passes from irritation to fear to fury.
“Get the hell out of here,” she practically snarls. Before I can say anything, before I can even say it’s okay, she reaches out and shoves me backward. I stumble against Steve. He steadies me, leans down to whisper in my ear.
“You okay there, princess? Too many drinks?”
Obviously, he has not seen. Or maybe he has—he doesn’t know Angelica; it wouldn’t matter to him. It doesn’t matter to me, either—it’s the first time I’ve ever really thought about it, but the idea is there, immediate and absolute—it doesn’t matter to me one tiny shred.
Chemicals gone wrong. Neurons misfiring, brain chemistry warped. That’s what we were always taught. All problems that would be obliterated by the cure. But here, in this dark, hot space, the question of chemicals and neurons seems absurd and irrelevant. There is only what you want and what happens. There is only grabbing on and holding tight in the darkness.
I immediately regret what I must have looked like to Angelica: shocked, maybe even disgusted. I’m tempted to go back and find her, but Steve has already pulled me into another small room, this one empty except for the heaping pile of broken furniture, which over time has been split apart and vandalized. Before I can speak, he presses me against the wall and starts kissing me. I can feel the sweat on his chest, seeping through his T-shirt. He starts hitching up my shirt.
“Wait.” I manage to wrench my mouth away from his.
He doesn’t respond. He finds my mouth again and slides his hands toward my rib cage. I try to relax, but all that pops into my head is an image of the laundry lines heavy with bras and underwear.
“Wait,” I say again. This time I sidestep him and manage to put space between us. The music is muffled here, and we’ll be able to talk. “I need to ask you something.”
“Anything you want.” His eyes are still on my lips. It’s distracting me. I edge away from him even farther.
My tongue suddenly feels too big for my mouth. “Do you—do you like me?” At the last second, I can’t bring myself to ask what I really want to know: Do you love me? Is this what love feels like?
He laughs. “Of course I like you, Hana.” He reaches out to touch my face, but I pull away an inch. Then, maybe realizing the conversation won’t be quick, he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “What’s this about, anyway?”
“I’m scared,” I blurt. Only when I say it do I realize how true it is: Fear is strangling me, suffocating me. I don’t know what’s more terrifying: the fact that I will be found out, that I will be forced to go back to my normal life, or the possibility that I won’t. “I want to know what’s going to happen to us.”
Abruptly, Steve gets very still. “What do you mean?” he asks cautiously. There has been a short gap between songs; now the music starts up again in the next room, frenzied and discordant.
“I mean how can we . . .” I swallow. “I mean, I’m going to be cured in the fall.”
“Right.” He’s looking at me sideways, suspiciously, as though I’m speaking another language and he can identify only a few words at a time. “So am I.”
“But then we won’t . . .” I trail off. My throat is knotting up. “Don’t you want to be with me?” I ask finally.
At that, he softens. He steps toward me again, and before I have a chance to relax, he has woven his hands in my hair. “Of course I want to be with you,” he says, leaning down to whisper the words in my ear. He smells like musky aftershave and sweat.
It takes a huge effort for me to push him away. “I don’t mean here,” I say. “I don’t mean like this.”
He sighs again and steps away from me. I can tell I’ve started to annoy him. “What’s the problem here?” he asks. His voice is hard-edged, vaguely bored. “Why can’t you just relax?”
That’s when it hits me. It is as though my insides have been vacuumed away and all that remains is a sold rock of certainty: He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t care about me at all. This has been nothing but fun for him: a forbidden game, like a child trying to steal cookies before dinner. Maybe he was hoping I’d let him shimmy me out of my underwear. Maybe he was planning to clip my bra alongside all the others, a sign of his secret triumph.
I’ve been fooling myself this whole time.
“Don’t be upset.” Steve must sense that he’s made the wrong move. His voice turns soft again, lilting. He reaches for me again. “You’re so pretty.”
“Don’t touch me.” I jerk backward and accidentally knock my head against the wall. Starbursts explode in my vision.