The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,281

she ruins everything else she touches. The sooner I graduate, the sooner I can take care of them. When I walk into the kitchen, she’s sitting at the counter with a plate full of biscuits and two glasses of milk in front of her.

“Come on, sit down. I want you to try these. I created the recipe myself.”

“Okay...” I wasn’t expecting her to feed me, but I’m glad. I’m too busy watching my back to actually eat anything at mealtime.

Most of the kids come back to school with care packages or get them regularly from home. I don’t have anything like that, and I usually go to bed hungry. I sit down and pick up one of the tender, golden biscuit looking things and examine it.

“Looks weird. What is it?”

“It’s a scone.” She says scone like she’s saying diamond.

I frown at her. “Looks like a biscuit.”

She presses a finger to my lips, her eyes wide with alarm “Hush, before you hurt its feelings. Taste what it’s made of, then you’ll know why it’s special.”

I cast her a skeptical look but bite the biscuit thing before she starts talking about it like it's a human being again. It’s as light as air, and practically melts on my tongue. I groan, my eyes roll heavenward. The butter, ginger, lemon and sugar are like biting into sunshine.

“I knoooow,” she croons.

I nearly choke on my biscuit. She’s smiling wide, even though she’d said she couldn’t. But yesterday when I said it, she looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her whole. So, I keep the thought to myself and take another bite of scone, intending to play it cool this time.

But I can’t.

It’s just too delicious.

“These flavors together -this is alchemy,” I exclaim and then bite my tongue. I know how my vocabulary annoys people.

Her eyebrows raise up and she smiles down at me, something like pride shining in her eyes.

“Alchemy? That’s a great word. How does it feel to be so incredibly smart?”

My stomach knots and I don’t want to talk about this, not with her. I shrug. “I’m only kinda smart, but mainly I read a whole lot.”

She smiles “I know you don’t think it’s great now but when you’re older, you’ll be so glad--”

“Yeah, obviously.” I hate how people seem to like telling how much I’ll love being me when I’m an adult. But that doesn’t make it feel better right now. I want to be normal.

Embarrassed by the attention and not wanting to say anything else, I grab the glass of milk and wash down the rest of the scone.

She hops off the stool she’s perched on and walks over to the huge cabinet and starts taking out bowls and baking sheets. “It’s not so bad to be misunderstood and ahead of your time …Jesus, Jane Austen, Malcolm X, Winnie Mandela - they were all revolutionaries who were ahead of their time. People thought they were weird, chased them, teased them, rejected them. But they didn’t stop. And neither will you.”

“I won’t?” I ask absently. I’m mesmerized by the economy and precision of her movements as she lays out her tools.

She gathers up her long, straight dark hair and ties it up on top of her head in a huge bun.

“Nope. Because we can’t stop being ourselves. Just because you’re not like everyone else, doesn’t mean there’s a single thing wrong with you. You’re perfectly made.”

I can’t speak around the tears clogging my throat, my heart feels too big for my chest. No one has ever spoken to me like this.

“Okay, you go to do your homework while I get to work. I’ll have tons of clean up for you by the time you’re done.” She points me in the direction of a dark corridor but doesn’t even spare me a glance as she dons her crisp white apron and gets to work.

“Are you sure you don’t mind me being here?”

She shakes her head, her bun bobs as she ties the strings around her waist. “After living with my two brothers, hanging with boys is my forte. You couldn’t possibly annoy me half as much as they do.”

She cocks her head to look at me, that half smile on her pretty mouth, and my stomach feels weird, like I’m on the Texas Cyclone at Six Flags. I’m afraid that I’m gonna fall off the stool, so I stand up and grab the counter. “Give it a couple of days. My mother says I could try a saint,” I warn