Darius the Great Deserves Better - Adib Khorram Page 0,53
touching. Evie took the opportunity to wiggle her way from his lap to mine.
“Evie . . .” Chip began.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
Evie rested her head against the crook of my elbow as she drank her juice and I fought with imaginary numbers.
I didn’t really get the point and purpose of imaginary numbers.
“Okay. Better.” Chip looked over everything and nodded. “I think you’ve got it.”
I sighed. “Now I’ve got to do it on the test.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll do great.”
“Maybe.”
The thing about Chip was, he just got things. And he didn’t know what it was like to not get things.
To try and try and still not succeed.
Evie squirmed in my lap.
“You want down?” I asked.
She nodded. I held her as I scooted away from the table, then set her down. She tossed her juice onto the floor and ran off again.
Chip shook his head and scooped the sippy cup off the floor. He looked at me and did this kind of half smile.
I blinked and then looked down at my hands.
“I guess I better get home.”
“No rush.” He patted my knee. “Hey. What’re you doing for homecoming?”
“I. Uh.” My cheeks started to warm. “I asked Landon to go with me.”
“Cool.”
“How about you?”
“I think I missed my window.” He shrugged. “Should’ve spoken up sooner.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Yeah. Kind of sucks when you like someone but they don’t like you back.”
“As a gay guy I definitely have no idea what that feels like. Definitely never crushed on any straight guys ever.”
Chip snorted.
“Trent doesn’t have a date either, so we’re just getting a big group together. Why don’t you and Landon join us?”
“Oh,” I said. “I think we’re good.”
Chip’s eyebrows furrowed. “What?”
“What what?”
“You made a face.”
“No I didn’t.”
“You did!”
To be fair, the statistical likelihood of me making a face at the mention of Trent Bolger was definitely non-zero.
“You’re doing it again!”
“Doing what?”
“That face!” Chip poked me in the little crease between my eyebrows.
I leaned back.
“Don’t.”
“Sorry. But what is it?”
I sighed.
And then I said, “Why do you keep trying to get me to hang out with him? You know he hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“Well, he’s never been nice. Why are you friends with a guy like that anyway?”
As soon as I said it I wished I could take it back.
You couldn’t just say things like that to someone. Try to control who someone was friends with.
But then I said, “I get you have to deal with him because of Evie and stuff, but . . .”
Chip shook his head. “It’s not like that. I mean, we’ve been friends ever since preschool. You remember?”
“I remember you and Trent calling me Doofius.”
Chip lowered his eyes.
“Sorry.”
“Whatever. We were kids. But now, you’re . . .”
“What?”
“You’re nice.” I swallowed. “I mean, the last couple months, you’ve been nice to me. Ever since I got back from Iran. And Trent is still . . . kind of mean.”
“You just don’t know him very well. That’s all. It’s his sense of humor. He’s just teasing.”
“It doesn’t feel like teasing,” I said. “It never has.”
Chip blinked at me.
I looked down at my hands again. My cuticles were looking rough, probably because I’d taken to chewing them every time I thought about the square root of negative one.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Chip said. His voice was quiet and small. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“Thanks.”
“I did hurt you, didn’t I?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Chip let out a slow breath.
“Well.”
“Yeah.”
We sat like that, in a Level Twelve Painful Silence.
I’d made it weird between us.
But then Evie ran back into the room with a pair of safety scissors she’d found somewhere.
Chip sprang out of his seat. “Evie! That’s not a toy.” He chased after her.
And the moment had passed.
VERTICALLY GIFTED PEOPLE
Wednesday morning I popped a pair of cherry Toaster Strudels into the toaster oven to surprise Laleh for her first day at the district’s Innovation Center.
(We didn’t have a regular toaster at home, just the toaster oven. Persians tend to toast big pieces of flatbread, so regular toasters are insufficient.)
Grandma was at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and doing her latest sudoku.
“That’s what you’re having for breakfast?”
“It’s for Laleh,” I said. “For her first day.”
Grandma chuckled. “That’s hardly a treat. Here.”
Before I knew what was happening, Grandma had grabbed the flour out of the pantry, a bowl from beneath the counter, and a couple eggs.
“Pancakes are a real treat,” she said.
The toaster oven dinged.
I would have left the strudels in there—the sight of Melanie Kellner making pancakes had me transfixed, like a meteor shower—but when I