Rising Shards

On the night of the Dentist Haircut premiere, I sat in my room, hoping to unwind before we had to leave for the movie. I checked the e-tickets and for a moment forgot why I had four of them. As I was looking at them, Kalei entered the room, back from beam chasers practice with the Matora sisters. She had bought like twelve Hado Diconius shirts at her convention, and much to the chagrin of teachers who were strict about the dress code, had been wearing a different one each day.

“Hey, Kalei, I just remembered something,” I said. “I told you Nikki’s coming too tonight, right?”

Kalei dropped her gym bag. “Uh, wait. Huh?”

“I didn’t get the tickets,” I said, pausing for Kalei’s reaction as a bit of teasing payback for making me get all that stuff in her game.

“But I saw them,” Kalei said. “You…you showed me…the tickets.”

“Let me finish!” I said, giving up on my joke immediately when I saw how devastated Kalei looked. “They were sold out. But then Nikki stopped by, and her uncle works at a theater in Sky Clay I guess, she said it’s the good one, and she got us all tickets.”

“Oh, awesome!” Kalei said. “Wait, NIKKI?!”

“Y-yeah?”

“What do you mean Nikki bought the tickets?” Kalei asked. “Nikki’s coming with?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said like twice already?” I asked. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes! A HUGE problem! I mean, well, no! Not a problem, problem but…Zeta, did she…really?”

Kalei was pacing now.

“Are you…alright?” I asked.

“You can’t tell anyone this,” Kalei said. “Please, promise me that?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’m guessing Nikki is why you got so off at club day?”

Kalei climbed onto her bed and put a pillow over her face. She sighed a few times.

“Maybe.”

I let her lie down for a bit as she worked up the nerve to talk more.

“I don’t know what’s going on with me,” Kalei said, finally taking the pillow off her face. “It’s like, I feel something whenever I’m around her, but I can’t be feeling that, because if I’m feeling that, then…I…I just don’t know.”

A doofy grin formed on my face as I watched Kalei stammer.

“I think I know,” I said.

“No you don’t!” Kalei said. “Shut up!”

“I mean, I have a guess,” I said.

“…tell me, please?” Kalei asked, covering her face halfway with the pillow.

“I think you have a crush on her,” I said.

“What?” Kalei scoffed. “That’s not it. No way. Right?”

Before I could answer, Kalei quickly added, almost expectantly, “Is that what you really think?”

“I’m not you, so I obviously can’t speak for you, and this all could be like a friend crush thing where you just really wanna be friends with them or something…but this…”

I looked at Kalei with her head between her hands as she rocked back and forth. “Looks more like a regular crush.”

“But Nikki’s a girl,” Kalei said. “I’ve never had a crush on a girl before.”

“What’s wrong with having a crush on a girl?” I asked. “I’ve had like crushes on at least four girls, five if Raina Starlight counts. Hey also, I’ve dated a girl.”

“Yeah, but you’re you.” Kalei said. “You’re already aware of yourself and crap.”

I got up and kicked her bed frame. “Don’t be a jerk about this, I’m trying to help you.”

“Fine, sorry,” Kalei said. “It’s just…a lot.”

“Oh, there’s a great Raina Starlight quote about self-discovery,” I said. “It’s from her thirteenth book, when she meets someone who’s scared because they just realized they’re a boy. It’s uh, what is it exactly?”

“I don’t need a Raina Starlight quote,” Kalei said, stopping me before I could look through my trusty bedside pile of books. “I appreciate the thought, though.”

“OK,” I said, still really wanting to remember that Raina Starlight quote as I sat back down on my bed.

Kalei groaned.

“My mom is gonna be so smug about this if she finds out,” Kalei said.

“Smug? What do you mean?”

“She told me when I signed up here,” Kalei said. “The school’s reputation.”

“I’m a few steps behind you right now, can you catch me up here?” I said.

“Don’t you know this school’s reputation?”

“Rising Shards has a reputation?” I asked. “What, that it’s…heavily influenced by the Kilanders?”

“That Rising Shards is the school for le—….girls who like girls. Falling Shards is the same for boys.”

“You can say lesbian, it’s OK,” I said.

“She said it’s the school’s reputation and she just laughed and said she wouldn’t be surprised if I brought a girl home by the end of the first year.”

“Well, if that is the school’s reputation it’s awfully reductive,” I said. “There are a lot of identities and orientations not covered there. Though I still am not quite sure how the two schools handle nb students and such, but I figure it’s something like—"

“Geez, walking encyclopedia of this much?” Kalei asked. “I can add this to the list of things you nerd out about. But…I guess I’d rather talk this out with someone who gets it than someone who doesn’t.”

“That started out pretty insulting, but you almost turned it around by the end there,” I said.

Kalei got up and headed for the door.

“Leaving already?” I asked.

“I…need to go for a walk.” Kalei said. “Clear my head with some fresh air or something.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “Go easy on yourself, alright?”

“Yeah,” Kalei said. “Thanks, Zeta.”

Shortly after Kalei left, Oka showed up, looking gloomier than usual.

“Zeta, this script is…ugh!” Oka said as she stormed into the room. She dropped the play script between the beds before flopping down on hers face down.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“My character has the dumbest lines imaginable. Listen to this. So I have to be like a shopkeeper, alright? So someone comes in, the character’s best friend, and co-owner of the store with them because they bought it after an economic downturn and worked hard to pull through to get it moderately successful, and says the store is going under.”

“This is a lot of backstory,” I said. “Do they have time to cover this in a high school play?”

“I have no idea,” Oka said. “The stuff we did at the camp was so much easier and more fun! Like in this, the best friend says that despite the store going under, she’ll always be there to support my character. And guess what my character says?”

I tried to somehow put myself in the character’s shoes. If Oka told me she’d always support me, I’d probably just sputter out some weird response as I tried to not confess everything that I felt about her.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe like, I support you too, or something like that?”

“My character,” Oka said, picking up the script and paging through to a highlighted section. “Says, ‘Can you? Or perhaps are you not sure the sugar plums we sell have been ravaged by the fiery death of the hot air balloon pilot?’ Who. Talks. Like. This?”

I didn’t want to laugh, but seeing Oka steamed about this as she almost chucked her script pages across the room was really cute.

“And then,” Oka said. “I go into a monologue about ham. About ham, Zeta. This is…untenable. Did I say it’s untenable already? I’m saying it again, it’s untenable.”

“Do you think you should ask to switch characters or something maybe?” I asked.

“The worst part is I’m pretty sure I have one of the more tolerable characters because at least I only have like twenty lines.” Oka said. “So if I switch, it’s off to a character that’s like made of algebra or the one that speaks in third person and has a really long name.”

“So this play is going to be very interesting,” I said.

“If it doesn’t explode like the hot air balloon guy.” Oka said, and let out a big groan. Again, this kind of mad from her was super cute. “So how has your day been?”

“Well, I’ve just been sitting around,” I said. “We have that Dentist Haircut premiere tonight.”

“Great, I can’t wait to see that pinnacle of modern cinema,” Oka said, instantly making me start to laugh. “I’m serious!”

“You’re not,” I giggled.

“I’m not,” Oka said. “But at least we all get to hit the town, right? My character also says hit the town in pretty much every line somehow.”

“Oh, and Nikki’s coming with too. Her uncle works at the theater and got us the tickets.”

“Nikki,” Oka said, strumming her chin. “Orange haired spacey Nikki? Or black-haired brooding Nikki?”

“Orange haired,” I said.

“Good, brooding Nikki scares me,” Oka said. “Plus, with you and Kalei there it won’t be as awkward since I never talk to her.”

“True,” I said, wondering how awkward it would be for Kalei to be at the movie with her crush. Then wondered how awkward it would be if Kalei and I were both at the movie with our respective crushes.

Oka had built up energy from her ranting and was flopping around on her bed. Did I mention how incredibly cute this all was?

“Is it nail night yet?” Oka asked, rolling over. “Ahhh, that’s tomorrow. I could use a nail night.”

“I mean, we could just have it now,” I said.

“But that ruins the specialness of it,” Oka said. “It’s our tradition now.”

“True,” I said. Even on a busy week, we managed to get nail night in every week.

I had been thinking a lot about my talk with Dr. Diast over the long weekend and the week that followed. Instead of thinking about my past, I wanted to look forward, and that mindset had me maybe more willing to step out of my personal boxes a little.

“Hey, do you wanna go somewhere?” I asked.