Ashbot sighed.
She had not left his side since the day she arrived at school. Partly because she was absorbing how Gideon walked, talked, and seemed to think, in order to better simulate a real teenager. Gideon had seen enough newly manufactured Ordinarias following his mom around the grocery store and asking inane questions to know that much.
He just wished Ashbot’s hair didn’t smell so good.
“So after school, are we, like, gonna go somewhere or something or whatever, yo?” she asked.
Ashbot’s language had been programmed with research adults had done on how teenagers spoke. It was bad.
“Ashbot.” He tried to sound kind, but firm. “Nobody at this school talks like that.”
She tilted her head, listening intently.
Then, guilelessly, she asked, “How do they talk?”
He thought about it.
“Like . . . God, I don’t know. Not like in the movies. I know that isn’t very helpful,” he said apologetically.
Ashbot nodded understandingly. “Word.”
xLoupxGaroux: Rolling with the robot subplot! Ho-LEE-Shit. Ballsy move. But I think you actually made it semi-interesting. Solid work.
WillianShipper2000: agree!!
xLoupxGaroux: I could use some more hot guys. But, yeah, some simmering (boring hetero) sexual subtext in here . . . Get thee to a nunnery, Scarface.
WillianShipper2000: wait y should she be a nun??
xLoupxGaroux: SMALL FRY. Google it.
WillianShipper2000: don’t call me a fry
DavidaTheDeadly: guys!!!!
xLoupxGaroux: Hiiiiiii!
DavidaTheDeadly: scarface, this is . . . unsurprisingly . . . a weird story. but i’m into it! at the very least, it’s making my work day go a little quicker.
xLoupxGaroux: Ehh . . . I dunno how much robot I’m down for at this point.
DavidaTheDeadly: but think about where John would take something like this! Ashbot would totally transcend her origins. look at Davida, she was a werewolf raised in loup garou culture, but she learned how to be a girl.
I roll my eyes.
DavidaTheDeadly: in any case, I am into it. if you need a beta reader LMK. More pls.
WillianShipper2000: me too!
xLoupxGaroux: Agreed. Featuring more hot guys. And a shirtless Gideon please.
DavidaTheDeadly: Ditto.
WillianShipper2000: ditto.
Ditto.
Chapter 7
MR. RADFORD PASSES OUR TESTS BACK AND MINUTELY SHAKES his head at me as he slides mine onto the table. Thirty-seven. A disgruntled noise comes from behind me. Gideon’s glaring at his test. Also thirty-seven. He glances at me, and when I catch him looking, he looks away. Then when he thinks I’m not paying attention, he looks at me again.
When the bell rings, he catches up to me by the door.
“Hey!”
I stop, my heart pounding hard enough to shake my brain. Even before we got our tests back, for some reason, I could feel him looking at me the whole period, boring holes in the back right side of my head. And it’s not a good feeling, it’s that nauseous fight-or-flight feeling I get when I see Ashley and Natalia looking either near me or at me and whispering something and laughing. But that’s not fair, because he’s the one who did something wrong.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have cheated on me,” I blurt. “Oh. Ha, cheated off me. Is what I meant.”
He stares.
“Because, like, I didn’t do the reading,” I add.
“Yeah, I got that.” He waves the test he’s still holding.
“Well. I never promised you a rose garden. So. Okay. Um.” I awkwardly slip by under his armpit and speed-walk to my locker, wishing for the first time that I’d done the reading and his A+ on the test had helped him get into Dartmouth. Then he’d owe me one. Then . . . that is the end of the plan, really. I’m so lost in fantasies that I don’t notice him following me to my locker.
“Scarlett, hold up.”
My name coming out of his mouth so casually gives me a head rush, like emotional brain freeze. He pauses in front of my locker, running his hand through his hair.
“I was kind of a dick the other day, I know. But it was weird, what you said. I do have friends.”
“What?” It takes me a second before I realize that he’s talking about my verbal brain fart from the other day.
“I mean, they don’t go here. I know that sounds fake, like how girls are like”—he does a girl voice—“‘I have a boyfriend, but he doesn’t go here,’ and actually they’re just making it up. But I’m not.”
“Okay,” I say.
He shifts, irritated. “Don’t just say okay if you still don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you!” I mean it.
“I have friends,” he says again, then makes a face that’s like Oh shit, the more I say that, the faker it sounds. At that moment, I am even more positive that Gideon and I have a lot in common. I feel protective, like I need to rescue him.