“Well …”
I scoff. “Yeah, well. It’s hard to date anyone when you can’t touch anything.”
“Eva!”
“Ew, Mom! I didn’t mean that! I just meant, like, hold hands or whatever!”
My mom laughs and I start laughing, too.
“So … he’s okay with you not … holding hands?”
“First of all, Mom, you’re grossing me out.”
“You’re the one being gross. I’m seriously just asking how things are going.”
Well, now she’s done it. She’s put me in a situation where I’m going to have to tell her that I don’t get fractals from him. And that will open up a whole can of worms.
“He’s been very patient,” I tell her. How I can say this with a straight face is beyond me. The idea of him having to be patient with me is ridiculous. I’m like an eager puppy, pressing myself into his outstretched hand.
“Have you told him about your … condition?”
I roll my eyes. She acts like my brain malfunction is as simple as a case of eczema. “Yes,” I tell her. “He knows I have some issues.”
“And …?” She doesn’t like to talk about it, doesn’t like to call it anything because if she names it out loud it becomes more real. Not something minor. Not something that will go away on its own. My fractals are kind of like Voldemort — the things-that-must-not-be-named.
“I guess we wait and see.”
“Maybe we should try another doctor,” my mom suggests. “Take you to the Mayo Clinic or something?”
“It’s fine, Mom,” I say. “No sense in wasting more money.”
“Maybe you’ll still outgrow it.” Her voice is suddenly too bright.
“Maybe,” I say.
I know she’d feel better if I told her that I can touch Zenn, that I can have a regular relationship with someone. Or maybe it would make her feel worse, especially if she knew who Zenn was. Who knows what she wants to hear.
“Are we done with the third degree for the evening?” I ask. “I’ve got some homework to do.”
“Fine,” my mom says. “If teenagers volunteered just a little information on their own, parents wouldn’t have to dig so hard.”
“If we did that, we would be pretty lousy teenagers.”
Chapter 32
Zenn is not at school again today. Every time he skips I feel like he’s drifting away from his college dreams, from his bright future. From me.
I check my phone to see if he’s texted — he hasn’t — but I do see that I have an email from a Stephanie Rayner. I don’t know a Stephanie Rayner, but it’s not labeled as spam, so I open it.
Dear Ms. Walker,
Gemini Corporation is pleased to inform you that you have been selected as a finalist for the $100,000 Ingenuity Scholarship. Your application stood out among those of over 2,000 Wisconsin seniors and we would like to complete an interview before selecting the winner. Please contact me at your earliest convenience to set up a meeting …
There is more but I stop reading. My heart is hammering in my chest. I’m a finalist! I could actually get this!
And then I think of Zenn, who also applied. Oh, God, please let him be a finalist, too! Because it’s not like our relationship needs another challenge. We’ve already got secrecy and fractals and messed-up parents. At least if we are both finalists, one of us has a shot. It would be proof that the world is not totally out to get us. And I want him to have a chance. Maybe this is what love feels like: wanting something for someone else as much as you want it for yourself. Of course, he has to graduate before he can even qualify for a scholarship.
I text him.
Me: Where are you?
Zenn: Working. Why? U OK?
Me: Yeah. But I thought we had a deal?
Zenn: What deal?
Me: About school.
Zenn: It’s just one day. Have a big job to finish before it snows.
I don’t text back right away. He is working to keep a roof over his head, to feed himself and his mom. He is not lazy or dumb or irresponsible. I want to ask him about the email, but if he didn’t get one then I will feel horrible. So instead I just text.
Me: OK.
Zenn: I’ll be done by 3. I’ll pick you up.
He is waiting for me when the bell rings, filthy again. Funny how I’m finding the smell of soil kind of sexy.
“Do you, like, roll around in the dirt at work?”
Dirt is caked under his fingernails, ground into the creases of his knuckles.
“You need a manicure,” I tell him.
He laughs. “Yeah. I’ll drop twenty-five dollars to make my hands look pretty.”
“I’ll do it for you. C’mon. You’ll love it.”
He looks doubtful.
“It’ll be part of my therapy.” Just thinking about touching his hands makes me warm and soft inside.
“Fine. They’ll just look shitty again tomorrow.”
He drives us to his place and I offer to make him a sandwich while he showers. He points me in the direction of the bread and the fridge and I carefully assemble what I need, testing items around the kitchen for fractals before using them. I sense that Zenn’s mom doesn’t do a lot of cooking. By the time he comes back to the kitchen I have his sandwich ready, along with a bowl of warm, soapy water, a fingernail brush I found under the sink and a small bottle of hand lotion from my backpack. He picks up his sandwich with one hand while I plop his other hand into the bowl.
“You have to let it soak,” I tell him. “Or … at least I think you do. I’ve never actually had a manicure myself.”
“Really? Isn’t that, like, a mandatory rite of passage for girls?”
“Not for me.” I hold up my pathetic, damaged hands with their short and unpolished nails.
“Oh, right,” he says.
“But in the movies they always soak in some kind of liquid first. Right?”
“Some kind of liquid?” Zenn laughs. “This should be interesting.”
“How hard could it be?”
“With my hands? Pretty fucking hard.”
After he finishes his sandwich and his free hand has soaked for a few minutes, I lift it out of the water and tell him to put the other one in the bowl. I take the fingernail brush and scrub gently at the permanent dirt lines in his knuckles. My mind is spinning, trying to figure out how to bring up the email.
“You’re gonna have to scrub harder than that, Ev. That dirt has been there for years.”
I scrub a little harder. His fingers are relaxed, slippery, warm. I imagine them sliding along my skin and feel a blush creep up my neck. I clear my throat. “Your hands were the first thing I noticed about you,” I tell him.
“My hands?” He lifts the hand that is still soaking and studies it. “They’re not exactly my best feature.”
“They’re really … manly.”
He laughs.
“My dad’s hands are so … soft and clean. Yours are, like, weathered.”
“That’s just a nice word for beat-up.”
“I like them. I guess I notice hands. Maybe because mine are so …” I can’t think of the right word. Fucked up?
He watches me for a moment and then says, “I got an email today.”
My eyes meet his.