Every Variable of Us by Bush Charles A

Author:Bush, Charles A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / LGBTQ+ / Social Themes / Prejudice & Racism / Homelessness & Poverty
Publisher: North Star Editions
Published: 2022-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

We returned back to school in the second week of January, and things have been weird.

Today at practice, I noticed Aamani looking like someone had set her comics collection on fire. She was so out of it she didn’t even buzz in once during the lightning round. And the lightning round is her jam. Like, we all call it “the dreaded lightning round.” Aamani just calls it “easy-peasy.” Then I go on the streak of my life and Aamani doesn’t give me the slightest smile or a “good job.” I mean, I’m droppin’ right answers like Sue Bird drops dimes—flagella, deoxyribonucleic acid, a hectogram. I was straight ballin’ and she gave me nothing.

For a second I thought it was because of me, because we hadn’t really spoken since break, apart from a few random texts of some dank memes she just had to see. You’d think I’d have had the courage to bring up the observatory at least once to clarify what that was, but every time there was a chance I’d get scared of my feelings, scared of getting an answer I don’t want, or worse, getting one I do.

Now I’m sitting across from Aamani on the edge of her bed, doing a terrible job at focusing on our homework. She’s wearing the same disheveled look she had earlier. She has on dark jeans and a blue kurta with crepe prints. She twirls her pencil between her fingers, and then jots down the answer to the next question on our algebra homework. Now I know something’s wrong. She doesn’t show her work. She lives to Aamanisplain her work to me. I mean, I know the answer’s seventy-five, but that’s beside the point.

“Okay,” I say, closing our textbook. “What’s wrong? And don’t say ‘nothing’ like you did earlier.”

She anxiously starts chewing on her pencil, leaving tiny bite marks in the wood. This must really be bad. Aamani’s not one for being unsanitary. This is the same girl who once berated me for not showering after gym by reading off an encyclopedia of facts about germs and the ways they interact with our cells, possibly leading to cancer, which will lead to my body rotting away for two years until the chemo fails and I die tragically at nineteen like the white boy in The Fault in Our Stars. You know, as you do when someone’s late for fourth period and doesn’t have time to shower.

“I’m fi—”

“Ah, don’t say it,” I stop her. “I know you. Everything is definitely not fine. You just bit into your pencil like it’s a cheesesteak.”

You know, now would be the perfect time to clear the air on our near make-out session. I look over at Aamani, her anxiety-filled face still soft with freckles above her cheekbones.

Nah, she’s good. I’ll bring it up some other time.

She takes out her phone, which she never does when there’s schoolwork in front of her, and swipes left through her photos until stopping on some Indian dude with thick

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