Page 34 of You Had Me at Hello World
I want to staple his lips together. Can’t he see Aisha is jealous of how much time we’ve been spending together? He should tell her that I’m a charity case and he’s carrying my ass. Maybe throw in a comment about how mid I look.
“And you claim this isn’t about Char? You should see how your eyes light up when you talk about her. Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, kiddo.”
My heart skips a beat. What is she implying?
“Don’t call me kiddo, I’m older than you! I turned seventeen a few weeks ago!”
“Exaaaaactly. This is such typical Gemini behavior.”
“I’m a Taurus cusp—”
My phone chimes with a text from Lola. She’s been pinging me about her latest fling, Lifeguard Rachel, not to be confused with Prom Rachel. I scramble to silence the notification, but it’s too late. Khoi and Aisha have abruptly stopped speaking.
The door swings open. Aisha. She has dark circles under her eyes, and there are wisps of hair falling out of her ponytail. “Oh. Char.” She doesn’t try to smile.
“Sorry, am I interrupting?”
“I was just leaving.” She sweeps past me. Her vanilla-and-cinnamon perfume lingers in the air like a disapproving ghost.
Inside the room, Khoi is perched on his gaming chair, knees against his chest. He’s frowning.
“What was all that about?”
He shrugs. “Ask Aisha.”
I shift from foot to foot. “Is she bothered by the amount of time we spend together?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
Why is he being this way? “Dude, shouldn’t you be moreconcerned over how she’s feeling? Or, like, where she goes all the time?”
“Char, you don’t know what’s going on, so leave it alone,” he snaps.
I fight back a swell of irritation. “Chill out.”
His eyes are definitelynotlighting up. They are in battery-saving mode. I don’t know what Aisha is on. If he actually liked melike that, he’d be nicer.
“Sorry.” He swivels to face me. “Isn’t there a trip to Cape Cod today?”
“I grew up on the beach. Didn’t seem that special.” And silly to lose a full day of studying. “Why aren’t you there?”
He grimaces. “Don’t know how to swim.”
“Whoa. Why not?” Even I know how to swim. With a pang, I remember that Michael is the one who taught me.
“When I was younger, the doctor said it’d be dangerous for me. My meds work pretty well now, so I could learn, but I haven’t gotten around to it.” When he sees my confusion, he explains, “Kids who get seizures are at greater risk of drowning.”
“Oh.” Now I feel like an ass for asking.
“It’s whatever.” He tugs at the collar of his shirt. “If you’re not going on the trip, do you want to study together?”
Maybe I should stop meeting with him. Sure, it’s not like we’re doing anything other than classwork. But I don’t want to make Aisha feel bad, and if there’s one type of code I wish I had a tutorial for, it’s girl code.
But I also need to ace the first checkpoint. And honestly, if Aisha does feel weird about all this, she should talk to me instead of whatever vanishing act she’s pulling.
“Yeah, that would be amazing,” I say.
The next week is a blur of cramming. I spend every spare moment memorizing algorithms, reviewing papers, and completing problem sets. At night when I close my eyes, I see syntax on the backs of my eyelids. I dream in code.
