Saturday, 11:00 AM
Saturday dawned cloudy, with a humidity that promised a storm but never quite delivered. I was in my backyard practicing throws with a football I'd bought the previous week. The Athlete path hadn't turned me into a sports star overnight, but my throws were more accurate, my legs firmer, my breathing more controlled. It was slow but real progress.
The ball left my hand in a perfect arc. It landed in the center of the yard, rolling until it stopped against the fence separating my house from the Dunphys'.
I approached to pick it up, and then I heard her.
"I'm not wearing your clothes, Haley! I'm not your doll!"
Alex's voice came from their yard, sharp and cutting. I carefully peeked over the fence. Alex stood by the swing, arms crossed, brow furrowed. Haley stood in front of her, hands on her hips, an expression mixing superiority with annoyance.
"No one said you were my doll," Haley said, with that older-sister tone perfected for the art of annoying. "I'm just saying, if you're going out with Leo, you should dress better."
"I'm not going out with Leo," Alex replied, her cheeks flushing slightly. "He's my friend."
"Sure. Your 'friend.'" Haley made air quotes with her fingers. "The one who comes to dinner, sits with you on the bus, lends you books, and looks at you with those eyes like..."
"Like what?"
"Like he likes you, genius."
Alex opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. For a moment, her prodigy child mask cracked completely, and I saw something on her face I'd never seen before: confusion. Not the intellectual confusion of someone who doesn't understand a math problem, but something deeper. Something that had no equation.
"He doesn't like me," she said finally, but her voice had lost all conviction. "He just... he's interested in the same things I am. Science, books."
"Oh, right," Haley said, with a smile that was pure malice. "That's why he spends more time at this house than his own. Because of the books."
"Haley." Claire's voice came from the kitchen, sharp as a whip. "Leave her alone."
Haley rolled her eyes but walked away, not without throwing one last triumphant look at her sister. "I'm just saying, if you don't like him, you should tell him. So he doesn't waste his time."
Alex stood where she was, arms hanging at her sides, with an expression I couldn't tell was anger, embarrassment, or something without a name. She let herself drop onto the swing, pushing herself with her feet, eyes fixed on the ground.
I stayed behind the fence, the ball pressed against my chest, not knowing what to do. Haley was right, in part. I did like Alex. Not as a character from a show, not as a subject of study. I liked the way she furrowed her brow when reading a difficult problem, the way her voice softened when she talked about something she was passionate about, the way she sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, smiled.
But I also knew Alex wasn't ready to hear that. Not because she didn't feel anything, but because she didn't know what to do with what she felt. For her, emotions were equations with unknown variables. And I wasn't going to force the solution.
I moved away from the fence, walking toward my house with the ball under my arm. But before going inside, I threw one last glance toward the Dunphy yard. Alex was still on the swing, head down, her feet tracing circles in the dirt.
Later, 2:00 PM
The doorbell rang while I was finishing lunch. I opened the door and found Alex on the threshold, hands in her sweatshirt pockets, with an expression trying to be casual but not succeeding.
"Can I come in?" she asked, not looking directly at me.
"Sure," I said, stepping aside.
She entered the living room with steps that measured every inch, as if calculating the optimal distance between herself and the objects. She sat on the edge of the couch, back straight, hands on her knees.
"Do you want something to drink?" I asked.
"No. Well, yes. Water."
I went to the kitchen, filled a glass, brought it to her. She took it with both hands, as if it were a fragile object needing protection.
"Haley says you like me," she said without preamble.
I was silent. I hadn't expected her to say it so directly.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"I don't know," she replied. Her fingers drummed on the glass. "I don't know what it's supposed to feel like, liking someone. In books, they always describe it as... a feeling in the stomach. Butterflies. Increased heart rate. Release of adrenaline and oxytocin." She paused. "But that also happens when I have a difficult test. Or when I see an equation I can't solve. Or when I eat something spicy."
I smiled. "So I'm like a difficult test?"
"No," she said quickly. Then, more slowly. "No. You're... different."
"Different how?"
She thought for a long time. Her fingers stopped drumming.
"When I'm with you, I don't feel like I have to prove anything," she said finally. "I don't feel like I have to be the smartest. I don't feel like I have to have the right answer. I can... not know things. And it's okay."
"And that's bad?"
"No. It's... strange. I'm not used to it."
She fell silent. I sat beside her on the couch, leaving space between us. Enough that she didn't feel cornered. Close enough for her to know I wasn't leaving.
"Alex," I said. "You don't have to feel anything you don't feel. Or be anything you don't want to be. I just... I like being with you. Talking with you. I don't need it to be more than that."
She looked at me. In her eyes was something I couldn't decipher: relief, perhaps, curiosity, or both.
"What if I want it to be more than that?" she asked quietly.
"Then when you're ready, you tell me. And we talk."
"And in the meantime?"
"In the meantime, we're friends. The best friends a person could have."
She looked at me for a long time. And then, for the first time all day, she smiled. It wasn't a sarcastic or analytical smile. It was a smile of relief.
"Friends," she repeated, as if tasting the word. "That sounds... logical."
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Haley dropped the bomb: "He likes you." Alex almost short-circuited.
She calculated her feelings like an equation. Result: error. Try again later.
Leo said: "We can be friends." Alex thought: "That one has a solution."
Is Leo a gentleman or a coward? Serious debate in the comments. 💣🤔⚔️
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