Page 5 of You Had Me at Hello World
“What? We’re talking right now.” Which is hardly the best use of our mouths, by the way.
He scrapes a hand through his hair. “Like, you’re obviously pissed off. You’ve been all stiff ever since you got into my car. But you won’t even tell me what’s wrong.”
A small white-and-brown puff of a bird—a sandpiper, I think—lands near our feet.
I point. “Look, a birb.”
He doesn’t even bother glancing in the direction of my finger. “It’s like there’s this great wall between you and the rest of the world.”
Great wall. He cannot be serious. He’s acting like I owe him a peek into the depths of my soul when he says dumb stuff likethis. Annoyance flares in me. “You want to talk about something? Let’s start with the fact that Mulan is a ridiculously racist nickname.”
He blinks in genuine surprise.
“I didn’t know that it actually bothered you.” When I stare at him, he adds, “Kay, fine, Imma stop calling you Mulan. Happy?”
It doesn’t feel like much of an apology. He doesn’t get that the problem is bigger than a stupid nickname. “Okay, but what about that time you joked about me stir-frying yourdog?” Which didn’t even make sense. Drew knows I can’t cook.
“Stop doing that,” he says.
“Doing what?”
He shakes his head. “You’re trying so hard to find stuff to complain about when the real problem is that you don’t want me to know anything about you.”
I throw my hands up. “I’mfinewith you knowing things about me!” He knows plenty of things. Sure, they’re mostly tongue-related things, but still.
“Oh, yeah? Then what happened with your dad?” He raises his eyebrows as if this is a biggotcha.
“Drew, that’s not some crazy big secret. He’s a selfish deadbeat. He cheated on my mom.” I haven’t seen him in almost a decade.
“Oh.” He has the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
“Yep.”
“So, what’s got you so botheredtoday?”
I fall quiet. Talking about my sperm donor is like reminiscing over a sad story that happened to someone else, some past version of Char that no longer exists. Talking about Michael, my current family bullshit… that feels different. That feels like handing Drew a knife that he could use to stab me.
The silence stretches between us like a taut rubber band ready to snap.
He nods. “Exactly.”
“It’s not that interesting,” I say.
“I’m sure.” He stands up. “Let’s just go back. I’ll drop you off.”
“You don’t want to… hang out for longer?” My chest tightens at the thought of returning to the house. Michael is there. Michael willalwaysbe there. I can’t avoid him forever.
“Nah, I should get home. And Char?”
“Yeah?”
His face is this mask, and I know what he’s going to say before it even comes out of his mouth. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore.”
Chapter Three
So, yeah. Life is super great. And things don’t get much better the next morning.
I find Mom standing in the kitchen. We greet each other in Mandarin Chinese. I’m not really fluent, but we use it when nobody else is around or if we don’t want eavesdroppers to know what we’re saying. It’s kind of like having a secret language, except the secret language is spoken by over a billion people.
