The first year of her new life. She was small, with skinny legs and wide brown eyes, and flinched at the very air. Erik was twelve, maybe thirteen, tall and cute and confident. He noticed the flinching before their parents did.
One afternoon he sat across from her on the floor of his bedroom, solemnly, as if it were serious business.“We are going to play a game. It is called the touch game. I’m going to touch your hand,” he said. “Okay? You count to three first and then I’ll do it. Trust me.”
She stared at him.
“Put your hand out,” he added.
She held her hand out, palm up.
He nodded to her. “Go on. Count.”
So she counted. “One. Two. Three.”
He tapped her palm, just once, and she flinched, and then laughed at herself for flinching. He laughed, too.
“Again,” she squeaked. “One. Two. Three.”
He tapped her palm.
And then the memory ends.
I pull my hand free and sling my satchel over my shoulder. After smoothing my skirt down my thighs and tossing my blonde hair to one side, I peer up at him sheepishly. “So… Do I look okay?”
He grins down at me. “You know you’re pretty.” Then he pauses to look me over, his smile fading. “Everyone with eyes thinks so, Blesk. It’s fucking annoying.”
“I’m your little sister. It’s my job to be annoying.”
He brushes a strand of my hair over my shoulder. “Your hair is getting so long, Goldilocks.”
“Don’t call me that,” I grumble half-serious, half-not. “And don’t call me Bebe in front of people either.”
He lifts a brow. “Why? That’s boring.”
“No, just…” I don’t know why. The reason keeps dissolving at its edge. “I just want to be Blesk,” I decide. “Not Bebe or Goldilocks or beautiful or any other term of endearment or mockery.” I fidget with my shirt. “I just don’t want to give anyone a reason to…”Ask questions?“To think I’m a talking point.”
“How does a nickname do that?”
“Like…” I act the part, saying, “Bebe? How did you get that nickname? Is it because your name is Blesk Bellamy and it has two bs and two es, and that’s the intellectual depth of it?”
“Howdidyou get that nickname?”
I swat at him. “Stop it. You know everyone will be saying, ‘No one puts Bebe in the corner’ every time they see me if you say it even once.”
He smiles softly. “Don’t be silly.” Without pausing, he places his hand on the small of my back and steers me gently toward the exit. His mouth is close to the top of my head. “I’ve got you. Don’t I always?”
“Yeah. You do.” Out of habit, I lean back into his touch,even as something inside me whispers I should step away and be independent.
“I’m like a God in this place,” he adds. “No one will talk about you when I’m around.”
“Only a God in this place? Youareslipping, but still just as humble as always.”
There are hundreds of students moving around the oval. The sun is blazing in a cloudless sky, which means I can wear my sunglasses and hide my anxiety behind them.
Clever.
A stage at the front is surrounded by small stalls run by students advertising extracurricular activities.
Girls and boys who are obviously not socially impaired, like I am, scurry around me. It’s colourful and noisy. Most of the girls I pass are wearing jeans and sneakers. I smooth my skirt down my front, then stop myself. Then do it again.