When You're In Love with a girl

Chapter 12, When He Tells

WHEN HE TELLS

I'm in hot, hot water. The moment I see Sam my insides turn to liquid.

"Sam, I can explain," I say, flustered, but Sam laughs and wears his unintelligent smile.

"Alie's here!" he calls back to our mom.

Tom looks at me, and I have a sudden realization that I know he knows what I know. His eyes widen in horror and I push him out of the apartment. "Go," I tell him, but not harshly because I am going to be in trouble myself.

I walk into the kitchen area. Mom is cooking dinner, potatoes, macaroni, and asparagus. Her back is turned. She has trimmed her hair today—before it was brown, like mine and down to her back, but I suppose she had a hair appointment and now she wears a platinum bob.

Mom does not turn around to look at me, but I know she heard Sam because she trembles once, violently. I hear her hiss and I feel afraid.

I did not do anything wrong. I walk to my room. Other girls can be friends with boys, specifically Asian boys, and their parents do not care. But my parents have always been different.

Tears do not fall because they are useless. What would it do? My parents will never understand my need for someone like myself.... they are happy being dumb and interested in superficial matters! Only I am an intellectual, one who is interested in the complexes of humans and the whole glory of living on the wonderful earth. Only I capture the world as it deteriorates and changes and all its devastating beauty.

I take my painting of our house in Madison off the easel and throw it to the floor. I feel like painting, but I also don't know what to paint. There's so much in me that I want to express, but I don't know how. I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the ground.

I have barely stared at the ground for five minutes when I hear Mom's cooking come to a stop. I hear her light, ghost-like footsteps as she walks towards my bedroom. She shakes the locked door handle; I can feel her ferocity.

I quickly get up and open the door. Even now she holds her video camera. I wince and put my hand over the lens.

Mom seems almost sorry when she says, "Alie, what was that boy doing with you?"

It is interesting how when she is angry, she seems almost intelligent. Anger seems to take away her lightness and ignorance, replacing it with cold, bitter intelligence.

It is, of course, a question not meant to be answered, but I still answer it because the expression on her face makes it seem like she wants my response. There are many ways I could respond. I feel my heart pound a little after as I can't decide what to say.

"Who is that boy, really?" she asks, and almost politely, softly, almost shyly. I don't respond and Mom tells me, "Alie, I know who he is. He is your young romantic love, isn't he?" At this I feel my face turn hot, but not with embarrassment but with rage. "He is your boyfriend, he is your first experimental love."

I am about to respond—but I don't, for I hear Dad unlocking the door to the apartment.

"Stan, Alie is back," Mom says, opening the door.

Dad doesn't process. "From where?" he asks.

"Sam caught her and this Asian boy coming back from wherever." Much to my horror, Sam comes out of his room and proceeds to give my parents all the details—how he thought there was always something suspicious about my activities, and how I always seemed to be in a frenetic feeling before spending a lot of time in my room.

Mom instantly turns her eyes on me when she catches that Tom and I had been alone together in my room by ourselves. "Alie, do not tell me you did anything inappropriate in that room!" she says.