Chapter 11. In Which I Learn That Vodka, like Neutron Stars, Can Utterly Atomize a Human Being
IN WHICH I LEARN THAT VODKA, LIKE NEUTRON STARS, CAN UTTERLY ATOMIZE A HUMAN BEING
Mom and Dad always claim that alcohol is a life ender, but in this moment, it’s never looked more like a life saver. Fall in love with Luca?
I grab my cup and take a large swig. This screwdriver Luca made me still just tastes like orange juice. But when I drink it, my stomach does a weird thing that I’ve never felt before, like it’s shifting and settling at the same time.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I say quickly. When Christiana proposed a “bonding” party, I never thought to approve what antics they would pull to make that happen. The only positive is that this will buy me time to figure out more ways to distract Luca.
I draw my first card, too, and read it.
Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
My brow shoots high. I hoped for a question that Luca would want to skip. Not one that would make him leave the party for good.
“You wanna ask me first?” Luca asks. He’s covering his card like we’re playing poker.
“Uh,” I say. “‘Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?’”
Then I wait to see what Luca will choose: if he’ll drink, or if he’ll run out the door.
“In a perfect world, I’ll die on the ice,” Luca says matter-of-factly, choosing neither. He remains calm, like this question was on the same level as asking his favorite color.
“You think you’ll still skate when you’re old?”
“Yeah, bro. That’s why I think I’ll kick it there. My body won’t be able to keep up with a hockey career once I’m forty or even thirty, but I’ll need my fix too bad. I’ll keep skating until something forces me to stop.” He grins to imply it’s a joke, but a part of me also doubts that.
Luca is a genius. He beats me at every competition, and he’s made it into brAIN. Yet at every chance, he proves how much he prefers hockey to academics. I still don’t understand how he can manage both. “What expert field are you again?”
“Kinesiology. You?”
The study of movement. Of course. “Physical science.”
“Makes sense,” Luca says. Like he knows it makes sense. Like he knows me.
My heart does a strange flip that I can’t quite place.
Luca lifts his card next. “‘What roles do love and affection play in your life?’”
My skin suddenly feels hot and itchy, and for a moment, I assume Big Papa Huge Time must be crawling up my shirt. Nope, I’m just deeply uncomfortable. As I try to think of an answer, I readjust on my pillow, only for my posture to awkwardly tilt.
Perfect posture conveys confidence, Rory. Weak posture conveys hesitation!
Panic jolts through me. I straighten myself, but the nerves don’t go away.
Eyeing my drink, I pick it up and take a swig.
“You’re passing?” Luca asks, a curious glint twinkling in his gaze. Gold flecks dance around his pupils in a way I never noticed before. His cartilage piercing is also showing again. I catch myself inching closer, wanting a better look.
It takes me five more seconds to realize that I’ve been staring at him for way too long. The embarrassment is enough to encourage me to take another drink, even though I don’t have to, only to realize it’s empty. Well. “I’m allowed to pass.”
“What if I answer it first?”
Now I’m the one showing a curious look. “Depends.”
“I’d say my biggest affection in life is my family. My mom and brothers. And Gumball, our Pomeranian. I’m missing her birthday while I’m here.” He pauses. “And I guess I give a lot of affection to the poster of Macklin Celebrini in my bedroom.”
“Who?”
“The hockey player?”
Guess that answers if Luca likes guys. Maybe?
Which I wasn’t wondering. But when guys like Jason were asking out Luca, I assumed they were shooting their shots without confirmation. Do other people know about this? Rumors claim he’s never dated anyone, but has he dated guys before?
I knock the questions away. I’m not wondering.
“I get that,” I say.
Luca’s stature loosens like he’s relieved.
But why would he care about who I’m attracted to? Did he really think I might not be gay, too?
To be fair, I struggle with my public persona.
But I doubt I give super-straight frat boy.
I don’t think about who I’d date since it’s the worst Deadly Distraction, but I’m also only human.
I’ve been attracted to all sorts of people in brief instances, even if I had to ignore it for the sake of my image and the company.
If Luca only recognizes me from the smoothie incident, though, then he might not even know I’m trans.
The idea of clarifying brews an uncomfortable sense of vulnerability within me. Luca is the last person who should ever hold that vulnerability in the palm of his hand.
Instead of answering further, I inspect my empty cup.
A clunk strikes between us, pulling back my attention. A liter of vodka at the center of our pillow talk station.
Luca holds the neck as if he just leaned over and grabbed it off the table.
“I may have made a mistake by making you a drink that tastes so good.” He smoothly screws off the lid with his thumb, his gold rings clinking against the glass.
“There should be higher consequences to passing on questions. From now on, want to take shots?”
“Seriously?” I ask.
Luca pours more vodka into our cups, even though he hasn’t finished his own drink. He leads us into another cheers.
Hesitantly, I clink my cup against his own. Vodka is made from potatoes. Sometimes grains. It can’t be that strong.
The moment I take a sip, my tongue shrivels like a worm on hot pavement. A raging fire shoots down my throat and up into my brain.
My eyes water. I cough.
Luca is too busy drawing a replacement card to notice.
Or he does, but he’s sparing me the embarrassment.
The patches on his letterman jacket blur, and I blink to readjust my contacts.
The patches still look like fuzz. “‘Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time, and why haven’t you done it? ’”
I consider the question for a moment. “I’ve always wanted to go to Utah.”
“For the Mormons.”
“No. What?”
“What else is in Utah?”
Right. Luca and I may both be labeled geniuses, but we all have our niches. Where I know nothing about sports, he knows nothing about space.
“I want to go with my dad,” I say. “When I was young, we would go to different parks upstate since stargazing is impossible in the city. But pollution is still awful anywhere on the East Coast. People say to go out west to California, like Joshua Tree. But the best places are in Utah. There are a lot of remote flat-stone land masses. Zion National Park. Grand Staircase-Escalante. Capitol Reef National Park. You can see the whole Milky Way.”
Only then do I realize how much I talked, and I feel myself turning pink. Once again, I’ve encouraged Luca to run out the door.
Luca nods a few times, though, like he paid attention. “Between this and your JSHS research, I’m taking it that you like the stars.”
“Not just the stars. Everyone always focuses on the stars. Which I do like. But the planets are visible, too, with a telescope, at least. Every dawn and dusk.” The full weight of what he said finally hits me. “Wait, you saw my project?”
“It’s hard to forget someone who discovered thirteen planets.”
The head judge was thrilled to forget about it. Same for Mom.
I bitterly swallow the thought. Instead, I try to digest Luca’s compliment—words I never expected from him in a million years.
Drawing another card, I scan the cabin once more, taking in the laughter around us. Everyone is genuinely enjoying their conversations. The only two not taking part are Christiana and Jade. They sit on Jade’s bottom bunk, their legs intertwined, and—
My eyes open wider as they kiss. On the mouth.
“You got another question for me?” Luca asks, looking at my card.
“Sorry, yeah.” I flip the card over, my heart racing at the unwanted reminder of what these cards were originally for.
Deplorable, awful, disgusting love. “‘Tell your pillow talk partner what you like about them so far. Be very honest this time, saying things that you typically wouldn’t to someone you’ve recently met. ’”
Luca’s head tilts. At first, I assume he’s debating if he should pass. But then he studies me up and down, like he’s instead wondering something, and my hypothesis falls apart. “We haven’t recently met, though. Have we?”
No, we have not. But where he thinks we met at JSHS, I know that it’s been years.
I scoff. It’s against my media training, and Mom and Dad would give me disapproving looks. Shockingly, I struggle to care. With every sip I take, the controlling voices that tell me how to behave grow softer.
It feels strangely nice.
I take another drink. “You don’t even know.”
“I don’t?”
“Nope.”
Luca props his elbows against his thighs and leans closer to me.
He’s so near that I pick up a fragrance—shampoo, maybe cologne.
It’s woody and smoldering, like oakmoss after rain.
“Enlighten me, then, Prince Charming.” His voice is so quiet that I struggle to hear him against the other conversations.
It’s undeniably intimate.
My heart rate quickens so terribly that I barely notice he called me Prince Charming again.
“We didn’t meet for the first time here,” I say, keeping my voice low as well in case anyone tries to overhear.
At least, I assume there are still people around.
The room has funneled into a blur, and all I see is Luca’s face.
His dark fluttery eyelashes. The annoying muscles of his jaw.
The soft hollow of his neck, accentuated by his collarbone peeking out of his T-shirt. “Or at JSHS, either.”
“When, then?”
It’s a question, but it feels rhetorical. Like he knows when.
Not possible. For the last three years, every time Luca won, he never noticed me. Not after I’d transitioned or before, when I hadn’t yet come into myself. It didn’t matter how I looked, how nearby I stood, or how closely I ranked to first.
“Before,” I say simply, working hard to match his calm and composed tone.
“Let’s start somewhere else, then. Tell me when you think we first met.”
The question resurfaces a memory beyond my control. One I try to keep buried.
It pulls me back two years and ten months ago.
The Distributive Education Clubs of America’s regional business competition held at the Academy of Finance and Enterprise.
My first major competition, only a month into high school.
As one of the best high schools in New York, Stuy was known to dominate DECA regionals.
Each contestant always placed first in their respective category.
I was in the Business Finance category. So was Luca.
That day, I not only lost to Luca, I also ruined Stuy’s winning streak. Multiple magazines reported our demotion. Mom and Dad worked overtime to bury my name in them.
I ruined everything.
A heavy weight pulls through me as though I’m back in that building, losing all over again. It feels like everyone in this cabin is looking at me. Like their eyes are everywhere at once, sprouting and multiplying like the wood rings that dot our walls. The whole world is watching me.
Always.
While I’m here, history will repeat itself. Trying to fix my image is pointless. Maybe I don’t deserve the freedom I’ve been searching for. All I do is screw up.
I should give up.
Instead of answering Luca, I grab the liter of vodka set between us. I raise it to my lips and take a long pull.
“Whoa,” Luca says. Maybe. Everything is muffled. “Rory—”
Everything smears. I try to blink, try to fight it off, but then everything goes dark.