“I’m not that impressed.” I shrug, baiting him back. “You’re rude, you’re not a team player, and you eat hunched over your food like you think people will steal it.”
Again, he hides an expression with a sneer. “So basically, you have a good memory and you’re a snob, like all the other stuck-up geeks here.”
“SHiP happens,” I say with a sarcastic smile, and turn my back again.
“Hey,” he says, still not bothering to keep pace with me. “Are you and I going to keep this up the whole time?”
I glare back. “Keep what up?”
“This little hostile act between the two of us.”
“I’m not hostile.” I stop and force him to catch up. “Seriously. I’m not, but whatever baggage you’re carrying around is a little hard to ignore. Maybe you should keep it in check during class hours.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can handle your bullshit but Julian is one hundred percent serious about this scholarship. He lost by half a point last year, and it wasn’t his fault. The fact we’re already a team member down is stressing him out. You need to carry your load of the weight.”
“You think you can handle me?” His eyes are hard and his jaw is set, and he takes a step, towering over me, even though I’m in an extra four inches today. “I’ll do my share, Cherry, but otherwise our relationship ends there. I didn’t come here to get some kind of surrogate family, or make best friends forever.”
“No one said anything about relationships except you.”
“Good, because there won’t be any.”
“Fine.”
7.
Entrances
I watch as the girl walks away from me, so fast she almost falls over her stupid, glittery platform flip flops. Who wears those things? I run my hand over my head and start down the sidewalk to the building with our study room, refusing to look for cracks in the cement.
Maybe Memory will settle down before I get there.
Maybe I will, too.
I’m better at managing the rush of anger than I used to be, no longer a six-year-old throwing a temper tantrum because he feels choked by the tie he has to wear to meet the newest foster parents. My feet and fists got too big too fast, like the rest of me, and lashing out led to assault charges, so I’ve learned ways to cope with the rage that flows under my skin.
I’m not always successful. Deep breathing, counting backward, playing a game of tic-tac-toe in my head—all the various tricks I’ve been taught from each guidance counselor and “at risk” youth tutor I’ve been sent to, and a few of my own they wouldn’t appreciate—only go so far.
Memory skirts the edge of my anger, taunting me with her swinging hips and needling me with insults sharper than the heels she wears. Being near her is a lot like the knife blade in my pocket; one careless move and I’m sliced open in a very personal manner. Just looking at her brings up a dozen magnified feelings, the least of which is amusement. Much more dangerous is the curiosity of how much trouble she really is and how much damage we could do together. We could blow up the world with the nuclear energy between us, and I don’t like thinking about it, because it makes me want to try.
At the door, I pause, reach in my pocket and run a finger down the sharp blade of the letter opener, fingers flat along the surface, testing the danger of the edge. A slip and I would bleed, and my concentration cools the last of my ire.
*
“Before we start I thought maybe we should introduce ourselves a little better.” Memory stands at the end of the table, a tiny smile on her lips. I narrow my eyes enough for her to notice. She’s digging for information on me. Good luck with that. “I’ll go first. I’m eighteen. I still haven’t decided where I’m going in the fall, but I got accepted to SCAD and Parsons. We’re from Raleigh. Our parents both teach at Duke. I have three tattoos, four piercings and you all already know that I’m a visual eidetic.”
Faye mouths the odd word, and the tall girl taps her temple. I wonder if Memory is a nickname, but I don’t ask.
She points to her brother. “You’re next.”
“You told them everything. What else do I have to say?”
“You could tell them your favorite color or book or something.”
“Green. And I don’t have a favorite book.” He shakes his head. “That’s like asking what your favorite molecule is. I’ll be studying linguistics at Harvard.”
“I’ll go,” the small chick, Faye says. “I’m home schooled, except not really in my home. I take classes wherever my father is teaching at the moment. His work means we travel constantly, but right now we’re in Charlotte, working on an exhibit of the latest Tollund bog find, and his current wife decided I needed to spend time with people my own age, so they shipped me here for socialization purposes. Apparently, I lack the knowledge of ‘appropriate norms and behaviors’ of my peers.”