REND

“This was in Ireland,” I said, pointing to a picture of Mom and me. “Mom used to work there. I think I was in the second year of high school here, not sure.”

“I must say,” Deen said from above me, “your looks barely changed. You’re an absolute baby face.”

“People say that like it’s a good thing, but I’d rather get treated my actual age, not half of it.”

“Well, you’ll be thankful for your genes when you’re old.”

Says someone who has superior genetics, I thought, rolling my eyes.

I flipped the photo album to the next page and showed Deen a picture of me and my cheerleading squadmates in uniform, huddling around a silver trophy. “This was in my junior year,” I said. “We got second place in this competition.”

I almost snorted at my stupid expression in the picture—a basic bitch enthusiastic smile like all the other girls. I wouldn’t say I liked getting my photo taken because it was a record of a specific face that may contradict a future one. But I especially hated this one because we came second to our rival school. I wasn’t the only person with a fake smile.

All of us did. A fun bond.

“If you notice here—” I pointed to my left foot in the picture “—my ankle was slightly angled. I got injured during our performance.”

“Oh my gosh,” Deen gasped. She bent over my head to take a closer look, her shadow and some strands of hair falling on me. “Did you fall?”

“Yeah. I continued our routine despite the pain, but… it cost us the gold.” It was a lie; I was usually a base, rarely a flyer. I had told Deen this, but she probably wouldn't remember. But the concocted story propped up my high school image—a badass and competitive girl, willing to sacrifice for the team. It also had a sympathetic side because we lost.

And I didn’t sprain my ankle in the picture. Just that I wasn’t sure how to do the half-bent pose girls often did when taking a group picture. We were all freaking short! We should’ve stood straight with the camera at a lower angle. It was like the pull of gravity increased the more girls were present.

“Repeating for the record,” Deen said, “I didn’t expect you were a cheerleader. It’s like you’re super reserved and quiet and… Oh, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I like that about you.”

You like me being the sidekick, I sardonically thought.

She continued, “Though I expected a former cheerleader to be more…”

“Energetic?” I supplied. “Sociable? Maybe more assertive?”

“All of those things, yeah. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way.”

“I’m not going to say I was completely different in high school, but I did have those traits cranked a notch higher back then.”

Fucking hell, those were the most exhausting years of my life. My base face was still a timid girl, even among my fellow cheerleaders—best not to ruffle any feathers; high school girls could get quite crazy—but I had to be more outgoing as required by the situation. Also, I needed to be well-connected among high school social circles to carry out my petty and brattish schemes.

Deen tapped my head with her fingers like she was playing the piano. “So… why did you become a cheerleader?”

I closed the album. “It’s a complicated story.”

“Come on, tell me.” She ran her fingers through my hair.

“I will if you won’t be angry at me anymore.” I kept my voice even despite wanting to lash out. Calm down, Erind. Think of this as a scalp massager thingy with plenty of blunt and flexible spokes—an inanimate object, not a person.

“I already told you I’m not angry. But I am going to be if you keep insisting on it. Now, storytelling time. I want to know more about you.”

“Promise you won’t judge me?”

Deen massaged my scalp like my head was a magic crystal ball. “Promise. If I laugh, I’ll let you do whatever you want with me.”

“I said ‘judge,’ not ‘laugh.’ There’s a wide range of reactions possible.”

“Story, story, story,” she joyfully sang, ignoring what I said.

What am I going to tell her?

The real reason I joined the cheerleaders was to punish a major skank who bossed me around during a group project and then claimed she did most of the work come presentation time. I couldn’t do anything directly in retaliation or even defend myself because of the face I wore—a diminutive persona who wanted to stay on the sidelines.

Pretty little me—maybe not so little because I barely grew since high school—came up with the ultimate revenge plan: steal the skank’s boyfriend.

My target was a conventionally handsome guy a year above us. That skank had attached her identity and self-worth to having a good-looking boyfriend, and getting cheated on would devastate her fragile self-esteem. I heard from the guy’s classmates that he was into cheerleaders; his girlfriend wasn’t one—the perfect opportunity for me.

And so, I engineered a coming-out-of-my-shell character arc spanning a few months and eventually made it in the squad. By that time, my target had transferred to another school. There were rumors that he got caught with drugs or something illegal. As for me, I was stuck with the cheerleaders, and I forgot about my revenge plan because of all the new responsibilities I had.

In retrospect, that wasn’t my brightest idea. Probably be in my bottom five if I were to rank all I’ve ever come up with.

Of course, I couldn’t tell Deen all of this. I'll just cut out all the unsavory parts and present a normal high school girl.

“Fine, I’m going to tell you,” I said. “You see, there’s this guy in high school. I couldn’t remember his name, such a long time ago, but he was, um, blond and tall and…” I honestly couldn’t remember anything about him, so I made up some descriptions.

“Gray eyes too?” Deen asked. “He looks like me, then.”

“Huh? What?” Oops, I went auto-pilot mode and made up a male version of Deen. “Gray eyes, maybe blue eyes, whatever. I can’t really recall. What I’m sure of is that this guy likes cheerleaders.”

Deen squeezed my head. “Erind Hartwell! You joined the cheerleaders to make a guy like you?”

I had a smug grin on my face that Deen couldn’t see. This was the exact reaction I wanted to draw out. Just two girls gossiping during a sleepover. “He ended up transferring schools, and I soon forgot about him. I enjoyed my time cheerleading, so it was all worth it.”

“So…” Deen lowered her hands to the sides of my head and fiddled with my ears.  “Want me to laugh?”

“Huh? You promised you wouldn’t.”

“You weren’t listening.”

“What?

“Nothing.” Her fingers lightly pinched my ears. “If you liked a guy in high school, that means you’re straight, right?”

I blinked in surprise.

A person’s sexual preferences were such an obvious thing to know, but I didn’t have an answer to Deen’s question. I simply never thought of it before. Weird.

So far, I have only tried going for guys. But that was because guys were easy to manipulate, even for someone mildly pretty like me. Wow, putting myself on a pedestal here. And I never encountered a situation I needed a girl to fall for me—for one, I could only pull that off if they weren’t straight.

“I don’t know,” I blurted my thoughts aloud.

“You don’t know if you’re straight?”

I should’ve said I was straight to keep things simple, but here we were. “I mean, I guess it’s normal to like guys, but I haven’t thought of girls.”

“Can you think about it now?”

“Deen…”

“Oh, I’m sorry! Was that offensive? I was too prying, wasn’t I? I didn’t—”

“Not that,” I interrupted. “I was going to tell you to stop what you’re doing with my ears.”

“Why? Does it hurt?”

“No. But my ears are plenty clean. You don’t need to wriggle your fingers inside.”

I had no idea why my best friend was obsessed with my ears. I half-considered just cutting them off and giving them to her as a present, all nicely wrapped up in a box with a bow. I'd regrow them, anyway. While whatever Deen was doing felt nice—also the massaging my scalp part—it also made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I prefer no one touch me, thank you very much.

Deen removed her fingers from my ears and slid her hand lower to my chin. She gently tilted my head up to look at her. The back of my head rested on her legs. “Returning to the topic,” she said. “Are you straight?”

I raised a brow at her. Then it clicked. “This is about our kiss, isn’t it? The tongue part? Not sure if it counted as a French Kiss.”

She blushed. “It’s not about…” Her weak voice trailed to inaudible gibberish.

“Deen, I swear I wasn’t trying to sexually harass you.”

“I’m not—”

“That was just a prank. If it makes you feel better, I’ll categorically say I’m not romantically interested in you. But then, I guess you wouldn’t really know that for sure unless you had mind-reading powers.”

“Erind, I believe you,” she said. “Let’s move on—”

“Just think of it this way,” I pressed on. “If I’m interested in you and was trying to steal a kiss or something creepy, you can’t do anything about it because I’m times stronger than you.”

Deen sharply inhaled in surprise. She released my head, but I continued staring at her upside-down face.

I continued, “Unless you want to test if your Guardian Angel can save you…”

We stared at each other for several seconds. I didn’t break eye contact, and neither did Deen. The commercial on TV sang about a bucket of fried chicken.

“Oh my god, Deen.” I laughed. “You’re really thinking about—”

“No, I’m not!” Her whole face furiously blushed. “Enough of this,” she snapped. “Show me more pictures. We’ll talk about those.”