She blinks her dark eyes a few times, a little surprised, a little pained. “She’s…okay,” she says slowly. “Some days are better than others. You know how it is.”
“I don’t, actually,” I say. “You want to talk about it?”
So she does. And I listen the whole way through.
* * *
The National Geographic article is taped to my wall, right above my headboard. I put it there a while ago, after I almost left it in my pants pocket and had to salvage it from going through the laundry for the third time. As Asha’s leaving, she runs her hands over the shiny, creased page.
“So that’s where you got the idea,” she says. She looks over her shoulder and smiles. “I’m so glad you’re not actually in a cult.”
I smile back. What else is there to do? I figure if that’s the worst thing people can come up with to say about me, I’m gonna be okay.
After Asha’s gone, I finish up some homework—it’s sort of fun to imagine Mrs. Finch falling out of her chair with shock as she reads this awesome essay I’m working on, complete with sources cited and embedded quotations and even footnotes—and dick around on the internet. I know, I know, gossip is bad, gossip has consequences, all of that, but it can’t hurt to live vicariously reading the celebrity tabloid blogs.
I’m absorbed in a story about some D-lister’s botched boob job when I hear this weird tapping on my window. At first I think it’s a bird, and then I think I have a stalker, but I peer out the window and see Sam standing below, pebbles in hand.
I lift it open enough to stick my head through and hiss, “What are you doing?”
He stares up at me, mouth hanging open. “So it’s true,” he says. “You’re…”
Talking. Yes. And the first thing I’ve said to Sam has been relayed in an annoyed whisper-yell. Not exactly how I envisioned this going.
“Hang on. I’ll be right down,” I say, and budge the window closed.