“I’m so sorry!”
“Why would you try to touch it?” I ask, like I didn’t just do the same thing.
“I’m so sorry! Why haven’t you put any ice on it?”
“Because I pulled myself up off the floor and walked in here about five seconds before you got here.”
“Did you pass out, or did I just miss him?”
“I don’t think I passed out,” I say, trying to remember my thought train. “But I don’t remember what I thought about after the stars and before the spinning things.”
“Here, come with me,” she says, and pulls me by both arms to the couch. “Sit.”
I try easing myself down, but my legs give out once I’m about halfway, and I fall back into the couch. I’m probably not ever getting out, and I don’t care. Annie’s back with Advil, chocolate milk, a wet washcloth, and a Ziploc bag of ice.
“Take the Advil, then tip your head back,” she says. I obey. She wraps the washcloth around the bag and brings it close to my face. “And no screaming.”
“I didn’t scream,” I say, grimacing as the ice makes contact with my throbbing face. “I shouted and it was manly.”
She doesn’t correct me. She holds the ice with one hand and the back of my neck with the other. “You could have a concussion. How would I check for that, by the way? Maybe we should go to the ER.”
“I don’t need to go to the ER. And I think you’re supposed to ask me questions to see how confused I am.”
“Like what’s your name?”
“Mo. But I think trickier questions, like who’s the vice president.”
She pauses, then mutters, “So now I’m the one with the concussion?”
“I don’t think I have a concussion. I think this is just how you feel when you get punched by one hundred and eighty pounds of muscle and anger. At least I know how that idiot from Taylorsville felt now.”
“Which idiot from Taylorsville?”
“The one who called me a towelhead last year. Bryce punched him in the face.” I try to smile at the memory, but that proves to be a painful error. And thinking about Bryce sticking up for me tightens the guilty knot in my stomach.
We sit in silence for a minute before she asks, “So, are you going to tell me what happened?”
“Yeah. He punched me.”
“I got that part. Anything else?”
“He feels bad.”
“You don’t say. He’s been trying to get me to go out with him for five years. I didn’t realize you hadn’t told him yet.”
“I was going to email him, but I thought it’d be better in person, and I thought he wasn’t coming back until next week.”
“So what, he found out on Facebook?”
I shrug. I hadn’t thought of it, but there hadn’t been much post-punch thinking time. Facebook was a likely source.
I think of his face hovering over me. His eyes. It wasn’t just rage. Even with the swirling, I could see confusion. “Maybe we could tell him the truth.”
Annie’s grip tightens on the back of my neck and she takes the ice away.
“At least then he’ll understand and he won’t have to hate us.”
“What are you talking about? I lied to
“That has nothing to do with it. Although, wow. Getting punched. Who knew?”
“I’m not kidding around, Mo!”
“Neither am I. You know he’s always had a thing for you. Now he thinks I stood by and watched him make an idiot of himself and that something’s been going on with us for years.”
“So. The hell. What?” There’s more than a hint of panic in her voice. “And what about what Sam said? If we get caught, you’d get deported and I’d go to jail!”
“She said jail time pretty much never happens. You’d get a fine, but it’s not like Bryce would tell anyone.”
“You’re scaring me,” I say.
“Good.” She sits back on her heels and shakes her head at me. “Because I will do something so evil to you in your sleep if you tell Bryce or anyone. You can’t even imagine it.”
“I was just assaulted by a primate with a fist the size of a cantaloupe.”
She narrows her eyes. “You’re saying I’m not as scary as Bryce’s fist?”
“I’m saying I’ve never been more terrified of anything in my whole life than of you at this moment. How’d the job interview go?”
She brings the ice back to my jaw. “Welcome to Myrna’s Country Craft, how can I help you?”
I grin and pain shoots into my cranium. “Congrats. You know what this means?”
“Employee discount.”
“It means I have a sugar momma. Hey, and you’re older than me too. How’s it feel being a cougar?”
“Not bad. How does it feel being a punching bag?”
“Not good.”
“Hey, if I’m your sugar momma, I get to revise the job chart. Here, hold this.” She takes my hand and puts it over the ice.
I don’t argue as she reassigns chores. I’m too sore, too grateful. At first, anyway. “Wait, I have to do the toilet and the dishes? Seems like it should be one or the other.”
“When’s the last time you did any cooking?”
“Good point.”
She turns on the TV. “How about you just watch basketball and agree to do whatever I tell you to do.”
“You’re mean. But okay. Wait, can the new order begin tomorrow, once I can feel my face again?”
“Fine.”
I spend the rest of the day acting like a baby and Annie spends the rest of the day treating me like one. It’s kind of awesome.
In a lot of ways, living with Annie is like living with Sarina. A girl is a girl. There are boxes of feminine hygiene products under my sink that I absolutely will not touch or even stare directly at, just in case I accidentally internalize information that makes me want to vomit and/or kill myself. And there are ridiculously long showers, but I can handle it. Besides, the bathroom smells like berries and vanilla after she leaves wrapped in about five towels, so what do I care? And there’s a row of bath products in the shower for practically every body part. Seems excessive. But apparently she needs a different bottle of soap or gel or foam or whatever for heels, forehead, and stomach.
Annie’s stomach. It’s kind of an interesting idea.
It’s not like I’ve never pictured her naked before—just nothing more than your typical
I need school to start up again so I can go back to imaginatively admiring Maya. That’s an idea I can wrap my mind around. If I was at basketball camp right now, I’d at least have something real to focus on. Summer, however, is another six weeks of SAT prep (
