Samantha and the Golden Boy
…
- "Start from the beginning."
Good news! I finally discovered where the eyes are on an Unseen.
Trick answer. They don't have any! Which makes sense given their pretty ghastly name, too. I figured it out as I stood there, knees buckling and teeth chattering, with poor Pika fighting his instincts to run for the hills and never come down. Believe me, you don't know fear until you know three Unseen with nothing between you and them.
"Samantha, you're fine."
I recognized Conner's voice from upstairs. The window had blown out during the battle between the other Unseen and Hammo, so Conner must have just flown right in with Staravia. He bounded off his mighty Pokemon's back and into the ruined classroom, first dashing to Henry's side, then finally to the hole. I had never seen fear or worry on Conner's stoic face, and he didn't break that trend now.
"Just walk past them. You can do it."
I must have laughed; I felt my vocal chords bounce but heard nothing over the ringing in my ears. Maybe that was my heartbeat.
My brain trusted Conner, but my feet had common sense. I didn't budge an inch.
"They don't have eyes," Conner urged. "That's why I call them the Unseen. They rely on extrasensory perceptions. Hearing, feeling, smell. The rubble is blocking out half of that, you'll be able to walk right past them."
"Right," I laughed. "How much of that is a theory, again?"
I looked up when Conner fell silent. He had taken his glasses off and started rubbing his temples.
"Sorry to annoy you with my rational fear of death—"
"Stop spending time with Amber, please? We don't need two of her. Now," Conner put his glasses back into place and slid them with his index finger. "I have to get these kids out of here, Henry too."
Another boy, this one built like an adult and with a fancy haircut, cut in. "Who do you think you are, calling us 'kids', little man?"
Conner just held a hand up at him.
Sometimes, I kind of like my new friends.
"I won't look away until you start moving, but it has to be now," he went on. "There are two girls on the other side of the building, room 114. If you get them outside, I'll see you from above. You can do this."
Then, in the gentle tone I didn't deserve: "You can do this."
He wasn't Henry, because I didn't just feel rainbows when he talked me through something. And he wasn't Amber, because he had faith in me to begin with. But he cared anyway, in his own way, and I think you have to walk past three hopefully-blind abominations to really get that.
"Come on, Pika," I urged him. "One foot, then another.
"One foot, in front of the other," I sang.
My heartbeat slowed. Now my lame sneakers decided to be the drumming echo in my mind.
"Left…Left…Left, right, left…"
I made it past the first one without incident. The beast remained frozen as I glided inches from his arm. If I touched it just the tiniest bit, the Unseen would "see" me, and that would be the end of our story.
I got past the first Unseen, but the second and third were crammed into the barely-widened space, such that I had to drop to my knees and crawl between their arms. I saw their hands up-close for the first time, and was unsurprised. Sure, fingernails sharp like knives and jagged along the edges were to be expected. Same went for the fingers that ended in sharp points but curved under the nails, so the whole fingertip became this two-pronged gouging machine. Yeah, simple enough.
…If there was ever a time to ask 'why, me?'
I finished crawling between them and was back by the school entrance. I kept my body low to the ground, not daring to stand up until I was all the way across the lobby and on the other side of the building. Almost there. Almost—
Pika screamed.
No, really. Pika screamed.
I flipped up and over, landing on my feet and not knowing where to watch. One moment, Pika is racing past my feet so quickly that I felt a warm breeze against my leg; in the next, the three Unseen are moving like machines, jamming their arms into the ceiling to push them along. Which, unlike the other times, made them fast.
They were at me in seconds. Jaws open—
Blue lightning hit it square in the pink tongue, and down the arms came, fingernails grinding and slicing through the lockers like knives through warm butter. The tumble bought me time as the Unseen fell like dominoes, the last one falling back into the rubble pile and blinding itself again.
I saw my chance. So what if I couldn't feel anything below my hip? I was moving.
Pika shot alongside me with an arrow's precision, a straight-flying yellow blur.
"Thanks for coming back," I said snidely. I took the tweak of his ear to represent some annoyed reply.
We reached the end of the hall and turned on a hard right. My shoes skidded along the tile, squeaking and screaming and telling the Unseen 'hey, I'm here, come eat me!'
This was yet another generic hallway, with lockers on each side and doors with that fancy opaque glass window. My lungs had finally caught up with the adrenaline, and my entire chest burned. I couldn't focus on it; I had to make sure we didn't miss the room. Henry was not getting airlifted out of a war zone just so that I could miss a few numbers on a door—
"114! Got it!"
Pika responded in the best possible way: by jumping ahead of me, charging his cheeks in mid-air, and throwing himself at the door so it splintered apart from the energy. There's science in there somewhere. That's probably what made it cool, save for the splinters in my hair.
I wasn't in the room yet and Pika already had an enemy. Desks flew at him from several feet up, crashing at an angle with enough force that the metal broke in two. Pika weaved through the academia-tools-turned-projectile and charged for another hit. Awaiting orders—
"Thunderbolt!"
The blast connected with the Unseen, and props to Pika for seeing it before I did. The beast had both girls in its grasp and its salivating mouth ready. Unlucky us—the Unseen knew to snap its jaw shut before the beam hit home. The Unseen jittered slightly, just enough to make it drop the girls and stagger against the whiteboard.
But now it was mad. And Pika knew it.
Its arm defied the human eyeball: in one moment it hovered and waited for an opening, and in the next, it crashed through the wall and Pika was flying outside, skidding along the asphalt and ending on his back.
Seeing someone hurt is one thing. Seeing them struggling to get up, but not even being able to turn over and the harder it tries, the more red fluid stains the ground underneath, that's something else.
"Pika!" Then, running to him: "Pika, get up! He's coming!"
If I could make it to him and give a Hyper Potion, there could be a round two. But damn if I don't have the porkiest legs and the lamest lungs on the planet! The Unseen grabbed me from behind and whipped my body back toward him.
Have you ever heard your ribs crack?
Neither did I! I was too busy screaming from the searing, eyeball-splitting pain of it. The demon lifted me into the air and stared at me. It's creepy now, too: he "stared" by feeling me, hearing my pain, and smelling my body. The girls huddled in a far corner, eyes shut and sobbing. I think one of them was praying..?
"Hands off! Solarbeam!"
Lime-green energy hit the Unseen's elbow, forcing his fingers open and letting my body flop onto the tile. Flames spread through my chest, worst than I ever imagined, as though the shards of my ribcage were stabbing my guts.
Elegant, ain't it?
Lili bounced between the desks and fallen support beams and to the arena. It hadn't been a good day for her and Amber either, judging from the bruises and burns along Lili's body.
"Stay down," I heard Amber say. "I'm on this."
A burst of wind from Staravia's powerful wings crashed through the room. The Unseen stumbled and steadied itself by planting its arms into the walls. Confident, but shaken.
"Conner! I'm trying to work here!"
"Samantha's Pikachu," Conner said fast. "It can't breathe. I don't think it's moving. Do you have any potions?"
"No, they're all in Sam's bag—"
The Unseen made its move. Three arms came down on Lili with megaton force.
"For the love of….Frenzy Plant, block maneuver!"
Ancient roots sprung up from the blasted ground and spread out, blocking the arms from connecting. The wood splintered and shattered, but Lili had her opening.
"Magical Leaf! Go!"
As much as I would have loved to stay and watch, Pika needed me. If I got thwacked through a wall and couldn't get up, the reason would be pretty obvious. But it happened to Pika, and plus or minus a rib lost, I was okay. The only reason I was still alive was because Pika and I weren't bonded, and that was my decision, not his.
So, I made a decision. I stood up.
When I screamed like bloody murder, both the Unseen and Lili jumped slightly. I saw Amber at the hole near the asphalt, and Conner farther back as Staravia battled another opponent.
"New girl! Stay down!" Amber yelled, before wincing and buckling at the knees. I couldn't look back to see the fight, I had to keep moving. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.
…Yeah, no. Two footsteps in and I was on my front, my vision clouding from pain so magnificent, it spread through my every nerve like electricity.
Then, when you think it can't get worse? Amber starts choking.
The Unseen had Lili around the throat with one arm, lifted her several feet up, and punched her body with another arm. Lili's body rocked back and forth, each time almost coming to a standstill before being throttled again. Not only could Amber not scream to Conner for help, she couldn't find the strength to stand. This was a pretty sight, for sure. Sam and Amber, incapacitated and in considerable agony.
"I thought you were on this?"
Enter Hammo the Heroic Tepig, in full fighting form! With a certain Henry, and behind him, a restored Pika.
"You guys know what to do," Henry said confidently. "Hammo, flamethrower!"
Pika and Hammo took to business. Hammo's blaze of orange fire singed the Unseen's grasp. Lili plummeted to Henry's open arms. He ran out of the arena as fast as his legs would carry.
Then Henry filled my vision.
"I'm sorry about this," he said, reaching for my bag. "And no, I'm not saying that because you said it. Jokes aren't funny when you've got broken bones."
I had the wonderful luxury of laying right on top of the bag. He would have to move me to get to it.
"On three?" He nodded. One, two—
Huh, no pain.
I reached to my ribs…Wait, there it was. Touching my body still felt like pressing the 'torture' button on my imaginary cage, but not nearly as awful.
The surprise on Henry's face was less than encouraging. He asked slowly: "You never used your Celebi Ball…right?"
"Scout's honor," I said, my voice like sandpaper.
"But you healed when Pika…Not now," He shook it off. Henry delved into my bag and found another Hyper Potion, then rushed to the broken Lili beside us. The boy had amazing powers of concentration, to avoid being distracted by the Unseen battle roughly two feet away. Hammo and Pika zipped and swiped at the behemoth, bringing it down one cut at a time.
Hammo and Pika regrouped at the broken doorway. I knew Pika well enough to know he had been charging an attack, and watching him next to a glowing Hammo, I figured that's where he learned the move from.
Henry tossed the empty Hyper Potion and stood, valiant. "Guys, now!"
Hammo's Solarbeam technique launched from his small mouth with the force of a warhead. Pika's Thunderbolt strike wrapped around it in a blue ribbon, and when both attacks hit the Unseen's already wounded body, the battle was done. It sank back to its own world, and we had…oh, a good ten seconds before we could expect another attack. Oh, life. You big joker, you.
The bond did its job fast. A restored Amber rose to her feet and ran to the girls hiding in the corner. She didn't wait for them to whine or cry or do other prisoner-of-war-y things. Amber grabbed them both by the wrists and dragged them outside, where Conner helped them onto Staravia's back. I didn't ask who was watching the other kids at the front of the school, but then I realized: if someone saved me from a hell beast and told me to stand still someplace, I'd do it.
I watched through the gaping crater in the wall: the world lost its greenish hue. Clouds returned, a breeze wafted through the air, and soon enough, the familiar sound of cars on the road echoed around us.
Henry stood over me and extended a hand. I took it and bent to my feet.
"Looks like a Mission Clear," he said. "How are you feeling?"
"Well…I'll put it this way. Does your dad's store sell replacement lungs?"
He laughed. "Nothing's broken anymore, you said. I'll hold you to that."
"Don't worry, I don't plan on being an Unseen's yo-yo again anytime soon."
We went silent then. I don't think we had to bring up how I was somehow miraculously un-hurt despite not having a bond, how a bunch of kids were suddenly sensitive out of nowhere, or how much stronger these Unseen were…Or how Henry couldn't bring his own healing items from the store for reasons undisclosed but obvious…Or how Henry saved my life, and probably Amber's and Conner's in the process.
I returned his laughter with the sweetest smile I could manage. Because sometimes, I think I can manage.
"Thank you," I said.
…
This one's about two, three months back.
I had just gotten home from school. The worst part of it was the lie I walked in with, the one I had held to my chest and cried myself asleep with for the last four years.
See, when middle school blows, every adult can relate to it. It's a time nobody ever wants to return to. We block out memories of being bullied, of being laughed at for liking someone and telling them, of having teachers scream at you and tell you to take it like an adult who somehow has it in them to scream at children. There's a joke in my creative writing class that nobody writes books about middle school, because it's be tough to top the Book of Revelations. The bright light at the end of the tunnel? That's high school.
Because in high school, life is amazing. Your curves will come in, your face will lose all of that baby fat, you'll have tons of girlfriends, boys will throw themselves at you, and there will be heinous parties to remember for the ages. Everybody loves high school. College is optional, but that's okay because high school is rightfully called The Last Hurrah.
…Then reality hits, and freshman year is lame. You've made a few friends, sure. Cold, gray, useless friends to match the cold, gray uselessness of the buildings and assignments and teachers. The teachers stopped screaming at children, and now just don't care at the fundamental level. The boys went from scrawny and boy-ish to suddenly chiseled and manly overnight when you didn't become a woman overnight, so good luck in that department. And as for girlfriends…
I met this girl named Brenna in my homeroom class. She was like me: Brenna kept to herself, didn't raise her hand, and snacked on Cheetos from her backpack. I asked her at lunchtime if she wanted to share a cake I brought from home.
She looked at me once, for a fleeting moment, and I'll never forget her response:
"I only eat pie."
So, there that went. Sophomore year was looking to be exactly the same, barring the whole Hannelore-less Household. She had been gone awhile by now, and as much as I hate to say it, things started to feel okay. I took over Hannelore's chores, which meant I was doing every chore. That argument ended with some pretty choice quotes ("I will never wash a dish, Samantha") and ultimately another day telling Ms. Oliver I bumped my head into the dresser. Even then, there was a routine.
Perhaps I didn't appreciate routines until I lived with Hannelore.
Or perhaps that's the Boss-inspired Stockholm Syndrome talking.
Anyway.
I came home that day from tenth grade feeling just, entirely done with high school. I didn't turn in a project, and instead of getting yelled at and given a few complexes for my adult life ("This really shows me who you are," said Ms. Yoon to eleven-year-old me), the teacher just shrugged and kept on trucking. And if the teacher didn't care that I didn't care, then really nobody cared, and that's just life.
Nobody cares.
I spent a good two hours doing housework, which was a new record. Then it was over to the answering machine to delete calls home from teachers, and finally to my bedroom.
I was on my floor, reading one of Hannelore's old paperbacks, when the Boss came home. The door slammed, which was normal.
He shouted if I ran the dishwasher, with more than a few profanities I'd prefer not to reproduce.
Before I could answer, the phone rang and the Boss picked it up. My heart skipped a beat, but then again, this was high school. In middle school, teachers who called home actually wanted to discuss things, not just level empty threats that can be neutralized with a press of the answering machine 'erase' button. There would be no second call in one day.
Our house was set up so that the stairs led right into the living room, and my bedroom was at the top of those stairs. I heard everything, like it or not.
The Boss sighed. "Damnit, you call me it home for this? I just got off work, that jackass Kenny can't tell the briefs on his desk from the ones on his balls, and you really think I care about what she told you?
"Look, Mom. She's not my problem. She's not my daughter, and if…Am I supposed to? She made her choice, I told her…You're not listening to me. I told you what she said. The bitch can't shut her mouth, and that's what happened."
I froze.
"No," he shouted abruptly. I heard a cabinet open, followed by a glass on the table. Drinkin' time in the Hutchinson House. "No, you're…You're not listening. You don't want to hear me, Ma.
"No, you know what? Fine. Believe what you want to believe. Samantha would never say those things about me, she's the good one…The hell do I care about that?" Then: "Yeah, her teacher stopped calling…No, Sam's doing fine, and she's not stupid, she knows what'll happen if she doesn't."
There was a thirty-second calm before the storm.
I told you the Boss has a habit of breaking things, right? When I found the glass in the morning, it looked like he slammed it on the table at terminal velocity; I prefer to pretend it just imploded with his patience.
"I am not a bad man," he bellowed. "That girl is an ingrate. Hear me? She's an ingrate. Put a roof over her head and she'll ask for the biggest room. Put food in her mouth and she'll ask to eat off the bloody china. Damnit!" Then: "Samantha!
"I told her to clean this up this morning," he drawled into the phone. "Samantha! Get your fat ass down here!"
In retrospect, making friends with Lucy wasn't what got me from that hellmouth to here with Hannelore.
That was all getting me in the frame of mind. Not doing homework, not caring about it, not caring about what people thought of me and being able to go through the motions with so little emotion, it got me to this moment right here.
The moment where I put a bookmark in Hannelore's paperback, crawled into the small space in my closet under the dresses I no longer fit and the shoes I never wore, closed the door, and went back to reading.
In that moment, I realized that if I didn't have to do my homework or make friends, then I didn't have to cower under the Boss, either.
I learned to defy.
…No, this isn't one of those stories where the Boss finds me, drags me out, and it just gets bad all over. Though he did storm around downstairs for ten minutes, come up, and bless grandma's heart, she got him angry enough to send him back downstairs for a refill. I peeled him off the recliner and into bed around midnight, when he was too drunk to care that I wasn't in bed.
The next morning, I made him breakfast and cleaned up the mess. We ate in our usual semi-amicable silence.
He only had this to say: "Grandma says 'hi'."
…
"Hannelore, I have a question."
"Shoot," she shrugged.
"Have you tried to find your real dad?"
We're back in the present, and it's the night after the Trainer School Showdown, as I'd like to remember it.
Nothing eventful happened on the way back home. I mean, it was the first time the four of us rode on the train together, and we kind of felt like a team and maybe I had a group of people I could call my friends, seeing as how I knew them as a group but also as individuals, and they knew me, and…
Anyway. Pika crawled into my bed, and I didn't fight him on it. I sat in my pajamas and binged on snacks and reality food for what felt like an eternity, and then Hannelore came home. She had prettied herself up, which is the equivalent of polishing a diamond if you ask me, and I waited until she came out of her room in boyshorts and a top to drop the question.
I don't know if she was planning to bake beforehand, but she was now.
"I haven't thought about it," she said, keeping her voice level and failing at the last syllable. She flailed for her ingredients, knocking over the salt and pepper in her haste. "Besides, I have so much to do these days. I have my own life now, after all. Mr. McCall says that if we are to forget the mistakes of our fathers, we need to accept that the past cannot be fixed and that the future is yet to be broken—"
"Hannelore—"
"And I mean, really. My real dad has to know what kind of a jerk mom took up with. He could have gotten me out of there at any time. Don't get me wrong, I love that we got to be close, but really, there are some things that my real dad could have kept me from—"
"Hannelore, wait."
"If you ask me, Sam? Your dad is my dad is our dad, and I know you hate him and I know I should hate him, but at least he was around until I was eighteen, which is more than I can say for—"
"Hannelore, you're going to burn the building down! Stop."
I should mention that I had just snatched the cooking spray out of her hands. She had turned on the kitchen burners, taken down her ingredients—flour, pepperoni, and a can of sardines?—and had forgotten to take a pan out.
She took three deep breaths, and on the last one, she slouched her body forward. She leaned on me, head on my shoulder.
"You smell like garbage and dust," she laughed.
"Don't look at me. Your nose is in Pika's seat."
I sat at one of the table chairs, and Hannelore set out to cook again, for real this time.
There were a few minutes of reality-TV white noise. Hannelore broke the silence. "Are you getting homesick yet?"
I laughed, then threw up in my mouth a little bit.
"Ouch, fine! I'm wrong, Saffron can burn to the ground," Hannelore conceded.
"Why would I ever miss that place?"
"You were asking about dads, so…"
I saw the exact moment where she clued in that the question was not entirely about her. Her eyebrows shot up, along with everything else, like she had been hit with Pika's Thundershock.
I had to cut her off. "Please, don't say it—"
"This is about your not-boyfriend, isn't it!"
I ran a hand down my face. "I told you not to say it…"
She stirred chocolate chips into her batter, arms on autopilot and head turned my way. "What's his name?"
"Nunya Business."
"He's not anybody I know, if that's what you're worried about. I don't know any teenagers besides you, and especially not any cute boy teenagers."
"How do you know he's cute?"
"Because you just told me."
I paused. "No, I didn't. You just said that because you saw it on TV."
"See, now I know he's cute because you're defending your defense of the obvious, being his cuteness."
Great, that's what I needed. An aneurysm brought on by avoiding my sister.
But…I had thought a lot on the walk home. Lucky for me, Conner got off at the stop by the Village. Pika slept in my shirt again, this time from plain ole' exhaustion rather than scumbag winter-y frost. Like usual, I wandered into thoughts about the Boss and Lucy and Hannelore and mom and secrets you aren't supposed to learn during fights…
"His family…Okay, preface?"
Hannelore played along. "Preface."
"Preface with: I only saw the man once."
"Sam, if he's older than you by half your age plus seven, then he's too old, period."
"Not him! His dad," I clarified. "His dad seemed like…Well, he was kind of prone to yelling."
"Uh-huh." Hannelore had finished her batter. She turned the stove on and started rolling balls of cookie dough onto the baking pan. "Mind if I cut you off right there? Dads are allowed to be angry sometimes, just like moms and sisters and friends. We aren't in any position to judge other families from the outside. That's my take, anyway."
I understood that bit. I knew about Lucy's problems, but I never had the right to judge, or vice versa. It's hard to judge someone at rock-bottom when you're at rock-bottom, too.
"I mean," Hannelore backtracked. "Did he say anything to you?"
"Not to me," I said. After a slight pause: "He told a friend."
"That friend had no right to tell you," Hannelore said. I swear I caught a hint of sternness. "This boy is entitled to his privacy, Sam."
"I'm not being nosy, I'm just not explaining it right," I groaned.
Hannelore put the pan in the stove, then sat beside me and folded her legs up. She placed a bowl of unused chocolate chips between us. "Then start from the beginning," she said.
"The beginning. Right."
"What's this boy's name?" Hannelore sighed.
"If I'm just boring you, then forget it."
"You're not boring me." The Hannelore Charm was back at full-blast. "I just pretended I lived in a fictional world where my baby sister wouldn't have boy problems. Those days are dead and buried." Then: "Come on, eat chocolate. What's his name?"
"Henry." My voice kicked.
"Henry. How'd you two meet? Come on, give me the story. Start to finish."
Ha!
"The whole story? It's kind of long…"
"I've got time. I don't have to be in at work for another eleven hours."
Stupid adulthood and its stupid efficient time management skills. I tried to think of a way out, but Hannelore's gaze never wavered. And if I made up any bogus lie, she would know it.
That said, there is a grand difference between lying and omitting certain truths.
I took a deep breath and began the sordid not-tale of Samantha and Henry. Luckily, both the sanitized Hannelore Story and the Real Story had the same start: "So that first day I came to Goldenrod, you weren't home."
"I remember," Hannelore said. "I had to work overnight, and I forgot to leave you a key."
Hannelore did her apology sigh, but I was over it. I kept on trucking. "Right. So, I went to the Village. That's where I met Pika, actually."
"Oh?"
"Right. He ran out of an alley…"
…And the sky went all green-like, and then the aliens showed up.
"…And he knocked over some guy's coffee, and he was really mad, right? And the manager came out of nowhere and started shouting in some language I didn't understand, like, Sevii or something. He was shouting at Pika and started demanding if it was a stray. Cops showed up, and you should've seen Pika's face, he was horrified! I told a white lie and said he was mine."
…Pika and I ran for our lives, and eventually we were rescued by Conner and Amber.
"That's how I met my other friends, Amber and Conner. They were at the other table, they saw the whole thing. The manager didn't believe me, but Amber was all, 'that's her Pikachu, old dude!' and Conner pushed up his glasses and went like, 'I do not believe you are required for this situation'."
I'd like my Oscar now.
"That's all fine," Hannelore said. "Where's the guy show up?"
…Pika and I were cornered, and Henry showed up and rescued me.
"Well, the manager wanted to see some proof that Pika lived with me. I couldn't even show him my passport! I was afraid I'd get you in trouble."
Hannelore nodded. Bonus points for feigning responsibility!
"That's when Henry showed up. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me to be still, and then he took care of everything."
"Everything," Hannelore repeated. "What did he do, knock out this menacing manager character?"
…He and his Tepig battled a ten-foot abomination.
"Henry's so sweet. He just offered to pay for the damages. The manager-guy almost didn't let him do it, since he was out for blood and carnage and whatnot, but Henry was so sorry about causing a mess. Then Conner and Amber—they're his friends—they offered to help pay, and manager-guy was on the spot, and then he just let the whole thing slide."
"Letting you walk home with a new posse and your own Pikachu before even coming home," Hannelore mused. "Well played, baby sister."
Now, I think she believed me. It's easy to fool angry educators and adults that honestly don't care, but tricking somebody who honestly cares about your wellbeing is a challenge. It's also dishonest and wrong.
Though if you ask me, bringing her into the world of Twilights, Unseen, Celebi Balls and a ton of other capital-letter words was the more heartless alternative. The last thing I needed was Hannelore worrying every time I'm not home at four PM.
With the grand faux-introduction completed, I was able to tell the rest of the story without too many edits. Henry and I hung out by ourselves, and he slowly introduced me to his friends. Conner was kind of standoffish at first, and Amber was just another mean girl. Two days later, Amber and I had that conversation at lunch and I think I understand her more than I understand myself. Conner likes me, but I never had the balls to deal with it…
"Amber, that's the one who told you Henry's having family problems?" Hannelore clarified.
"Yep."
"She was worried because he didn't text you first?"
I nodded.
Hannelore threw her head back. The timer blared for the cookies. She reached over and turned both the timer and the oven off without looking, then bent back forward.
"Sam, boys are complicated."
"I know—"
"No, you don't," she said, suddenly all serious-like. "You're only fifteen. You've never had a friend who's a boy, even."
She stopped and gathered her thoughts. "Preface? I don't want to make you feel like you haven't done anything, or to make your experiences meaningless. You know who you are, Sam. That's one of the things I love about you."
"Okay." I went along with that lie.
"The thing is, boys are different. They don't ask for help, and when they do, they only go to people who won't judge them."
I knew where this was going. "I would never—"
"Of course you wouldn't, because you know what it's like to be judged. Does Henry know that?"
I thought for a second. "No," I said honestly.
"Exactly. He thinks you won't understand him, so he's not telling you anything. He's afraid you'll judge him." Then: "Sam, if there's something going on in Henry's life, he'll talk to you about it when he feels like he can. All we can do for others in this world is be there when they need us."
Cue the Hannelore Smile.
…Cue both of our cell phones ringing at the exact same time. If I were the fly on the wall, I'd get a laugh out of how fast Hannelore and I fumbled over each other, knocking over the bowl of chocolate chips and almost crashing into the couch to grab our devices. I feel like there's a metaphor for humans and reluctance on technology somewhere in that.
I found my phone buried under the sofa cushion, where I'd parked my rear for most of the day. Unknown number.
"Hullo?"
"Samantha, it's Conner. Are you available?"
Uh…what?
"I'm downstairs," he continued. "Just outside your building. Are you free to talk? There's something we need to discuss, and I'm not sure my room is capable at present."
I glanced over the couch for Hannelore. She retreated into her bedroom and closed the door. Sister bonding time had officially ended.
"I'll be right there," I said. He hung up before I got to ask how he found my address.
Then I remembered: "research."
I threw on sweat pants and an unwashed hoodie. I went down to the lobby and found Conner leaning against the wall outside. Wind howled when I pushed the door open. My hair went flying.
He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and stared out into the street. "I apologize for bringing this to you so late, but it's urgent."
"Okay."
"It's far from okay. I believe I may have solved this puzzle of our mission, but before that can be, I need your help."
"My help." I jabbed a mock finger at my chest.
"Not exactly…yours," he slowed. "This is about your sister, Hannelore. I believe she works for a company that is manufacturing the Twilights."
Thanks for reading, thanks a bunch-ton more for reviewing.
