“But things must have resolved between you two. You’re seeing her again.”
“Not as an item. We’re just . . .” Working together, he had wanted to tell her. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter. I apologize if I seem indifferent.”
“You are indifferent, Ben, but especially to me and your father. I know you’re a wonderful grandson. You talk to your grandparents a lot. I know because they tell me things about your life that I don’t know about. How do you think that makes me feel?” She pointed to herself. “Don’t I count?”
Ben didn’t answer right away. “I need to clear my head, Mom. I’ll be home in an hour or so. We’ll catch up then.”
“And it’s not just me, Ben. It’s Haley too.”
“She’s complaining to you?”
“No, but since you’re not around, she and Griffen have become a very intense twosome.”
“So she has a boyfriend. Don’t blame that on me.”
It was her turn to sigh. “I like Griff, but I don’t know how healthy it is, just the two of them all the time. And poor Lilly must be so resentful. I never see her anymore. Not that it’s your job to fix things, but sometimes it’s better coming from a sibling than from a parent.”
“I’m aware that Lilly is a bit put out.” Ben exhaled. “Haley’s not going to listen to me. But maybe Griff will.”
“I’m not saying they shouldn’t be together, but both of them should have some interests other than each other.”
“I agree. Where is Haley now?”
“She and Griff are at the mall. I’m going to pick them up now.”
“I’ll do it. It’ll show I’m still part of her life.”
“What about you clearing your head?”
His mom’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Ben kissed his mother’s cheek. “See you later.”
They weren’t that different, his mother and him. Both retreated inward when the stress got to be too much. The problem was, she and Ben were stressed out at different times and for different reasons. One of them was always emotionally unavailable. Their happy paths didn’t cross that often.
He would make it his business to talk to his parents tonight.
The living before the dead.
Chapter 3
April was enveloped in the winds of spring, and before Ben blinked, it was almost gone. His classmates were getting acceptances and rejections from colleges and universities, and once again he sat on the sidelines as other people seemed to move forward. JD was going to Duke, and Ro had gotten into Penn, but was wait-listed for Brown and Harvard. Weekly was going to Colorado State, Lisa had her eye on Texas, and the rest of the crew was making do with New Mexico State or UNM. Ben had disconnected from Remez High, but JD found it hard to let go of his reign. He was adamant that Ben take up his former position of second in command. But too much time had passed and too much had changed, and Ben was absent more than he was present.
What really interested him was Haley and Griff and their own little clique taking over the roles of king and queen. With Griff by her side, Haley had developed an air of confidence. She smiled a lot. She gesticulated a lot. She was constantly surrounded by friends. Unfortunately, Lilly wasn’t among her acolytes. It had been a while since Ben had seen her. One day when she was absent from the lunchroom, he went searching and it didn’t take long for him to find her, working in an empty classroom. Her hair was covering her face, her lunch laid out neatly on the desk to her right. He watched her for a minute, hearing her pencil scratch against paper, seeing her tuck her hair behind her ear, her mouth chewing on the eraser.
“Hey.” She looked up and Ben walked over to her. “You okay?”
She smiled but it was forced. “Just working on a practice math sheet for the state final.”
“When is that?”
“In three weeks, I think.”
“And you have to work on it during lunch?” She shrugged and went back to her problem. Ben said, “You’re pulling a Vicksburg.” She looked up. “Doing a disappearing act and using math for an excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse. My mom’s heavily invested in my performance.”
“Are you invested in your performance?”
“No.” She sighed. “But since I’m practically an only child, what do I know? And you know Asian mothers—”
“I already apologized for that crack.” Ben sat down. “I’m a good guy. Don’t be a brat.”
“I’m not a brat. Well, maybe a little bit of a brat.” She waved her hand in the air. “As long as you’re here, maybe you can make yourself useful.” She showed him a problem. “I have to find the area underneath the curve as it expands at the rate of the function of time.”
“Just integrate.”
“I’m not allowed to integrate. I have to do it with simple geometry at any given point.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
Ben smiled. She had fight in her and that was good. He picked up the pencil and started dividing the figure into workable polygons. It took sixteen divisions. “This should do it.”
She looked at the work. “Maybe you should enter the contest instead of me.”
“Maybe you should just tell your mom you don’t want to do it.”
“Maybe you should just leave me alone.” She was muttering under her breath but loud enough so he could hear it. “Can’t a girl get a little solitude?”
“Lilly, I know my sister and Griff are wrapped up in one another and she’s probably being a little inconsiderate. But she isn’t going anywhere and neither is your friendship.”
Lilly shrugged. “I don’t care, Ben. And what’s wrong with being alone, Mr. Asocial extraordinaire? Or should I call you Mr. Popular now?”
“That’s a very interesting point. Because now that I’m with the in-crowd, I’m still a fish with a bicycle. It’s weird sitting with Ro now that she’s back with JD.”
“So just get back with Ro,” she blurted out. “You obviously still love her. She obviously still loves you. You should try a little forgiveness.”
“This is none of your business, but I’m gonna tell you anyway.” Ben waited until he got her attention. She finally put her pencil down. “Ro and I are magnets. If the proper poles are aligned, it’s instant attraction. But if you align them the wrong way, the poles repel and no amount of forcing them together will change the physics.” He erased his sectioning of the math problem and pointed to the smudged paper. “Let me see you solve this without integration.”
Her dark eyes shifted from Ben’s to the paper in front of her. She stared at the figure in front of her, at first copying his erased lines and arcs, but then she slowly started improving on the solution, her brainpower clicking in as she chewed on the eraser of the pencil, her hair once again hiding her face. Gently, he tucked an errant tress behind her ear. It was an intimate gesture for a guy to do to a fourteen—well, almost fifteen-year-old girl. She looked up and blushed.
He pointed to the paper. “Go on.”