Chapter 3:
Thou Shalt Not Flirt
I make sure to drag out my stay at my dad's until Sunday afternoon. Mom and Patrick pick me up from my dad's house right after church. Aunty insists on holding salt in front of my face and drawing it in a circle in the air three times. She says it's to remove the evil eye if anyone cast it on me. I think it's bullshit.
"How was church?" I say cheerily.
"We missed you there," Mom says.
"I didn't." I yawn. "I mean church. I didn't mind not being there."
Mom and Patrick look at each other in the rearview mirror and don't say anything else to me. They discuss the cooking schedule for next week instead, and I let the car's rhythm rock me to sleep.
When I wake, it's nearly 6, which means I've been sleeping for 3 hours and was left in the car for 2 and a half hours after getting home. I'm in the garage, and the car door is cracked open, so there's really no issue, but I feel betrayed. I storm inside with a bone to pick. "How could you leave me in the car?!" I shout.
"Shh," my mom says.
"We didn't want to wake you," Patrick says, and then adds wryly, "You're too big to carry."
I can't decide if I'm angry about this or not, so I decide to just go to my room. If I were anyone else, I'd have someone to call or play video games with, or maybe someone to go to the movies with on a boring Sunday evening. But I don't, so I flop onto my bed and scroll through my phone until I see a video about someone painting, and I'm reminded that I promised myself to practice drawing anatomy. I draw arms and shoulders of all sizes until I fall asleep.
The next day, there is school, of course, which is boring as usual. However, during the period right before lunch, I find that Jaron is in my history class. He sits in the front like the try-hard he is and waves at me like a dork. I also sit in the front because I am also a try-hard for history, but I do not sit next to him or wave back at him.
"Class," Mrs. Bergen says, "As you know, there is a group project for our final. You will choose an era that we have learned about and present it to the class in two weeks. I've posted your partners here on the whiteboard, and the rubric is online. Get started." The class surges forward to check their partners.
I cross my arms and lean back in my seat. My partner can come to me, or I'll check the list when the crowd clears. I wait until the class settles back into their seats, with their partners this time, and look around. No one came to find me. Everyone is already paired up, except...ugh.
Jaron looks over at me. He checks the whiteboard first and then comes to sit down next to me. "I guess we're partners," he says.
"Do you even know what we've learned all year? You're new."
" I can learn." He eyes my desk, then takes my phone. He holds it in front of my face to unlock it.
"Hey–!" I start.
"I need your number for the project," he explains. He adds himself, calls his own number, and slings his bag over his shoulder. "We'll work on it later. I've got practice."
"Lucky you," I mutter, "Get to skip class to go sweat." I will not comment on the fact that his baseball pants—whatever the fuck they're called—are too tight for him. Or maybe baseball is just a slutty sport. I'm not sure.
"You should consider sweating," he says, "Good for your health." And then he leaves after passing a slip from his coach to Mrs. Bergen.
"I sweat lots," I snap, but he's gone before he can hear it. He's always gone before I can insult him properly.
Well if he was going to leave in the middle of class, I'm picking our project topic He was just going to have to deal with it. I head to the whiteboard while the other pairs are still debating. I write our names next to 1500s India, then go back to my desk and start sketching what our poster might look like.
———
During lunch, I go to the art room, which is usually unlocked and empty. The paints and canvases are locked up, except for one cabinet with a busted lock. I duck under the table to reach it. This cabinet has a fresh set of oil pastels that I've been using for the past month. I'm not sure if it's allowed, but no one has stopped me. Using them is difficult, and I can barely draw with them, so I mostly make a mess of my hands and scribble nonsense on my paper.
Halfway into lunch, the door opens. My heart drops. Is it the teacher? Will I be found out and banned? No, it's two boys, I can tell from the voices. So not the art teacher. One of them is wearing heeled boots, so I guess it's Ansel, the only obviously gay kid in school. There are others, but he's the only one who is stereotypical about it, with his voice and makeup and all. We sat next to each other in math in our freshman year. He used to give me his erasers since mine run out so quickly.
Then they start kissing. God, how do I leave without making this awkward as fuck? Do I just wait here until the end of the lunch period? I don't want to wait, though, involuntarily listening to this. I put the pastels away and stand up from under the desk. They stop instantly, wide-eyed and guilty. The other boy steps back into the light. Blonde. Perfect posture. Of course it's Jaron.
It feels like I'm watching a bad, coming-out Hallmark movie made for straight people. Of course, the pastor's kid is gay. Is that something I need to keep secret for him, or is it fine if it slips? "Hi," I say, "You two should really check if a room is empty before doing that."
"Get out Indra," Ansel tells me.
"Call me," I tell Jaron as I pass, just to cause trouble.
He scowls. "It's nothing," he tells Ansel quickly, "We're in a project together."
I close the door behind me when I leave. Jaron opens it right after. "Um, don't tell anyone," he whispers.
"It's not my business," I say, "I won't tell." And I shut the door in his face. As I absently finish my lunch in the hallway, I can't help but think that Ansel doesn't look properly appreciative of getting to touch that stupid baseball player's golden hair.
But Jaron's hair isn't what's on my mind the following week. He is busy with baseball practice, and he also volunteers at the church (of course he does), which means we can't work on the project together. Any text I send him (not many because I am not desperate) is met with an infuriating thumbs up and nothing else. It appears that he does not care about his grades. So I just work on it myself and plan on tattling to the teacher that he didn't help me at all.
We could either make slides or a poster. I will obviously make a poster. I have a giant pad of watercolor paper at home. I tear one sheet out of the book and trace the shape of the Indian subcontinent, the surrounding seas, and the main shipping and trading routes in pencil. Then I begin painting.
Call me a dork, but I love projects like this. I never know what the finished product is going to look like, but I just know I'm going to be proud of it, and that I'm going to have fun doing it. I could also recite anything from 1500s India, mainly the rise of the Mughals and arrival of the Portuguese, from memory so the presentation was nothing to worry about. It means I can focus on the art.
And Jaron could fuck himself for making me do everything. Maybe I'll corner him at church this Sunday about it, since he always gets pulled out of class for practice and I can't talk to him there. Or maybe I'll ignore him completely. I'll decide when Sunday comes.
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