Page 35 of The Genius
I scoffed and walked over to turn her around. “I’m just fucking confused about why you did it, and I would have liked a choice.”
“I understand.”
“I doubt it.” I hardened my jaws. “It means that we’ll be marrying.”
Shelly took a step back. “No.”
I scrunched up my face. “Don’t be stupid. When you slept with me you chose me. You can’t sleep with a man and then not want to marry him. That’s not how it works here in the Northlands. You’re mine now.”
Shelly gave a chuckle of disbelief. “Marco, you’re angry and not thinking straight.”
“Don’t think so. I’m not the one pretending to be something I’m not. It’s obvious that your genius pushed you toward insanity. I’d say I’m the one with the clearest mind here.”
“I’llnevermarry you.” Her eyes were wide open and she was staring at me.
I jerked my head back. “Wow. That’s harsh, even for you.”
There was a flash of regret on her face before she looked away. “I’m not trying to hurt you, I just don’t believe in marriage. It would never work anyway, since I’m only here for a short while before I’m going back to the Motherlands.”
“Then why the fuck did you sleep with me?”
She walked away from me and stopped in front of a large glass board with notes on it that made no sense to me. With her back to me, she repeated what she’d told me before, her voice back to being low and apologetic. “I was just curious.”
My head was exploding with questions but I was too confused, upset, and humiliated to talk about this in a calm way. “And it never occurred to you to tell me who you were?” I hissed.
Shelly’s head was bent down in shame and her tone of voice was defensive. “Yes, but then things just escalated. I didn’t know you’d be this angry about it.”
“I’m fucking furious.”
“I can hear that.” Her voice was thick and she nodded her head, still making sure to keep her back to me.
I watched how she moved over to stand in front of Mindy and fiddled with the robot’s hands, making herself look busy and shutting me out at the same time. The small bobs of her shoulders told me how she was suppressing her tears. Her breathing was shallow and coming in fast inhalations, as if she was taking in air but not letting it back out. I had seen this behavior in Nboys many times when they were too proud to cry in front of others.
“You want me to go, don’t you?”
“Yeesss.” Her word broke and I could tell she was close to the last straw before she would be sobbing. It pulled at my soft core. Shelly was still sensitive and proud, as she had been ten years ago.
“We’ll talk about this later then. This should teachyounot to lie,” I said, throwing her own words right back at her before I slammed the door behind me on my way out.
All the way home, I was in a state of shock and my initial anger turned to disbelief. I’d had sex with a real woman who had given herself to me freely. In what world did that happen?
Shelly was beautiful and smart, so why was I so bothered by what had happened between us?
Because it felt like she’d been laughing at me the whole time. She’d known what was going on, while I’d been the dumb fuck who was tricked.
But that was only half of it.
I kicked at Storm’s shoes, lying in the middle of the entrance area, when I came home wondering again why I hadn’t recognized her. Maybe because every time I’d thought about Shelly these past ten years, she’d been fifteen with a large mane of unruly hair just like the last time I saw her. Opening the top drawer in my bedroom, I picked up a small box and pulled out a seashell she had given me before she left the school. Memories took me back.
“A seashell is symbolic in a way,” Shelly said while holding the small stone I’d given her as a joke. I had called it a portrait but only painted her gigantic brain on it.
“Symbolic of what?” I asked.
“Of you. The animal who lived inside that shell was soft and vulnerable on the inside and needed a hard shell too.”
I laughed and insisted that I was as tough as they come, but Shelly knew better and just shrugged. “If you say so.”
“I’ll treasure this shell. If people ask me I’ll tell them it’s a wonderful reminder of a genius girl who was wicked smart but needed to learn to shut up once in a while. You know, like a clam or an oyster.”
