Beneath the Surface, Above the Core (S1 fiction)

Unquestioned Motives

It was one kiss.

I did it because I was tired of the stupid comments by his stupid friend and his stupid assumptions. And we danced so I didn't have to listen to the parasite anymore. When I'm mad, I get physical, and dancing is physical.

So why was it such a rush, and why could I still feel him?

"I...uh...the....the kiss..." he stammered as we walked home after the dance. Dang it. I knew this was gonna happen. He was going to make something more of this. Ask me what it meant, want to define our relationship.

"Look..." I started, but he interrupted me.

"No, Grace. I get it. It was an instinctive reaction to Friedman's erroneous assumptions. Or—or, perhaps, not erroneous, but definitely irrelevant. It was an automatic response to stop any and all discussion of whether you're—of the topic. Nothing more. And—and that's fine. I completely understand that there was nothing more to it..."

"Yeah...OK." I nodded.

I don't think he even heard me. He kept on rambling on about how irrational behavior can be caused by the stress of a new situation, or even too much stimuli, but then rational thought returns, and the scientifically sound thing to do was to disregard said irrational behavior.

Good. We're clear. And it's not going to take some long, angst-filled yap-fest to figure it out.

He doesn't even consider that it could be more.

The Irritatingly Awkward

He hasn't tried anything. Hasn't called, hasn't asked for a second date. Nothing. Unless you call working on the science fair project a date. Which, unfortunately, would probably count in his mind of theorems and equations.

So when he showed me the final project, he told me that he "really enjoyed our collaboration. And feels like our intellects and approaches really complement each other." Was that his way of hitting on me? He might as well have been talking to his grandmother, or, I don't know, the Parliament. Who talks like that?

"Stop, stop. You're embarrassing me with your dirty talk." I razzed.

He looked away and went back to his computer, turning all sorts of red. I barely contained my laughter at his expression.

It's so fun to see him squirm.

Near Miss

I knew that if I partnered up with him for the Science Fair, we'd do something worth seeing. Something that made participating in this melee worth it. I was wrong. A virtual model, a picture on a computer screen, wasn't worth the space it would take on the display table. I was seriously thinking of blowing the whole thing off. It's not like I had helped a lot, anyway, and he didn't need my help to show off a computer. But when his computer and the virtual cyber model was confiscated by the FBI, I decided to not ditch the fair, and suggested we build the rail gun.

I'm not a science geek, but working all night to get the thing working was kind of exhilarating; our hands and minds were able to create this machine out of steel and scraps. I understand why Rove creates sculptures. Building something out of nothing is real power.

We were done, and I suddenly realized we were standing very close to one another. Close enough that I could smell him. An undistinguishable scent that I couldn't name but recognized from the night we kissed. Distinctly his. I brought myself to look up at him, and saw his gaze intently on me, a charge rising between us as we stood there. If he had leaned in, without speaking, without warning, I wouldn't have been able to do anything but close my eyes and...

"Remember when you kissed me at the semiformal?"

His words pulled me back to myself, away from his eyes and lips and skin. As quickly as the electricity mounted, it died. Fizzled, actually, like air going out of a balloon.

"Forget it." I said and walked out.

As I walked home in the early dawn, I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets and held them against my body to keep them from trembling. What had happened? This guy—kid, really, my friend's kid brother—affected me in ways that I had never been affected before. I figured it was because he was the one and only person in the world that looked at me like that. Of all the stupid reasons to date in high school—and most every reason was a stupid reason—dating someone simply because they liked you was the stupidest of them all. I wasn't the type of person to get all swoony and weak-kneed when someone starts shooting puppy dog eyes at me.

I'm anti, I don't feel this way about anything, especially a science geek who is younger than me. He's my classmate, the brother of my friend. Nothing else.

A thought kept returning, no matter how many times I pushed it away: why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut?

Stunned Recognition

I wasn't prepared for what I saw when I headed down the hall to Joan's debate.

When I first saw out of the corner of my eyes the pair leaning towards one another, I figured they were just another horny couple that couldn't keep themselves in check for 20 seconds. As I came to the auditorium door, I looked at the couple again. I recognized her first; it seemed to take my brain an eternity to process who was in front of her. I don't know why I took another look in the first place; I usually avoid watching spit swapping at all costs.

My breath caught unwillingly in my throat and I leaned into the lockers beside me. I knew she had a thing for him. Anyone with eyes knew she had a thing for him. Her hands were on his shoulders, and his hands were at her waist as they explored one another with their lips. Why couldn't I move? I didn't want to be there.

They pulled apart, and she stared at him, with the same nervousness she always had around him, then grabbed her things and rushed pass. I supposed it was inevitable that they would hook up. They made sense. More sense than—well, more sense than any other ideas he might have been entertaining. He turned to watch her, and caught my gaze. They'd be good together. She would know that she was lucky to have him, and he'd get what he deserved. I felt my face quirk into a smile before I turned, and walked into the auditorium.

She's just the type to get all giddy when he says stupid things like, "I feel like our intellects and approaches really complement each other."

Unbidden Delight

"Hey, geek." I said as we met in the hall to study for the Chemistry test.

"Grace," He greeted, "Have you seen Adam or Joan?"

"Uh, I think Joan might be looking for something to give Adam, for some inexplicable reason." I had a suspicion what the "gift" was going to be, but it's not like I was going to tell that to her brother. All I need is a freaked-out geek on my hands. Better for him to think that the gift would be an actual thing "I think this whole gift giving thing is just a merchandising ploy to keep the capitalism machine moving."

"I don't know," he hedged, as though he thought there might be something to the boyfriend/girlfriend gift-giving idea. We were stopped at his locker, and his back was turned to me.

"You got something for Glynis? You guys were together for what, like, 3 weeks?" It was longer than that. Closer to 2 months, although that is not something I kept track of.

"No," He said, turning to me. "I thought about it. Getting her Richard Fineman's lectures on Physics, but it just seemed so..."

Richard Fineman's lectures on Physics? Boy, this guy knew how to be romantic. "Lame?" I offered, highly amused.

He offered a small shrug and looked at me, sheepishly. "Yeah."

As we continued walking to the study hall, I couldn't help the smile that tugged lightly on my lips. Once he and Glynis started dating, we'd fallen into a safe, comfortable quasi-friendship. He, along with his sister and Rove, was one of the few people I could stand being with. He was nothing like Friedman, and although I knew they hung out together like some kind of geek duo, he could hold an intelligent conversation without making stupid innuendos every 5 seconds. He was with Glynis too long to be carrying any previous torches, so I wasn't concerned about remaining friends once they broke up.

"I don't know," he continued, "A gift should just happen, shouldn't it?" I turned and waited for him to continue, mildly interested in where he was going with this. "If you think too much, then..." He gestured helplessly, and shook his head in resignation "Forget it."

It wasn't like him to ramble on about something that had nothing to do with science. My curiosity piqued, I watched as he turned and walked into the classroom, then followed him and joined him at a table.

"You were getting all poetic there for a minute, Spock."

"No, it's......you know," he shrugged.

I knew he wanted to drop it, and usually, I wouldn't be much interested any. But I was sort of humored by his nervousness, and couldn't let it drop. "Actually, no."

"I mean, haven't you ever walked by something, and gotten the feeling that someone you knew would absolutely love it?"

My eyes narrowed at him, as realization dawned. "Are you interested in somebody else, already?" Suddenly, this wasn't as amusing.

"I'm just having a theoretical discussion." He muttered, avoiding my gaze.

"So there is somebody?" This guy's interests went from girl to girl to girl faster than I could find a new authority figure to subvert. It was typical 15-year-old, male behavior I guessed, but for some reason, I'd expected differently from him.

"Guys should be sprayed down with could water every hour," I declared, flipping through my Chem notes.

"Maybe we should study later, when Adam and Joan are here. They're going to get so far behind." He suggested.

"They knew we were meeting, if their thing is getting so hot that they want to blow finals." Waiting for Joan to be where she had said she would be was, I had learned, a futile exercise.

"What?"

"What, what?" I asked, realizing my mistake. How was I gonna out of this one?

"They're getting hot? How hot?"

"OK, take a nap, I'm not going there." It's not often that I say things I don't mean to say, and it was vaguely unnerving that I'd been thrown enough to let this information slip.

"I think you just did," he countered. Of course he understood my full meaning.

Pushing everything else to the back of my mind, I concentrated on damage control, which entailed swearing him to confidentiality, and making sure he didn't wig out because of his sister. His concern for Joan was refreshing, even if it was a little chauvinistic, and I couldn't help but consider it further proof that he was at least half-way decent.

Thinking that we had dealt with all immediate crises, I watched as he reached into his backpack, and drew out a large stone. The light, smooth surface on its outside contrasted with the darker shade in it's cavity, where flecks shimmered as it caught the light.

I looked up at him. He didn't meet my eyes, but pressed the stone towards me. I gingerly took it from his hands, and slowly turned it over in my own, as I began to understand. So, his interest went from girl, to girl...back to...the first girl?

Oh.

"OK, dude, this is just weird." I told him, wondering why I was unable to keep myself from grinning like an idiot.

"I know," he said, looking at me. "I don't care." And I believed him. I got the impression that he had fully expected me to laugh out loud in his face, but had gone ahead and gave me the stone, anyway. The thing was, I didn't feel at all like laughing at him.

Biting my lip, I turned my attention to my Chemistry notes, hoping that once we focused on the reason we were meeting, the awkwardness would subside. "OK...Exchange reactions."

As he began to give his answer, he slipped back into the science geek and was caught up in describing how solutions of ionic compounds are mixed, that cations of one encounter the anions of another. I looked at him, and couldn't help but smile as he began to ramble, giving far more information than I'm sure Lischak ever gave us in class.

Demolished Resolve

I wasn’t expecting him to walk me home. His brother was heading home, and I figured that he’d go with him. Of course, he asked me if I wanted a ride. I just shrugged, said I wanted to walk, and made my way to the exit. I heard murmurings behind me, and footsteps running to catch up with me before I had even left the hospital waiting room. I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was just like him to have some code of honor that wouldn’t let me walk home alone.

Thankfully, he was uncharacteristically quiet for the first ten minutes. I assumed he was worried about Joan. The doctor had said that she could have been having the hallucinations for months. I made that crack about how that explains things, but I was as freaked out as Rove was. This was Joan, the person we had gotten to know and accept as one of us. Formed the us, actually. Rove and I weren’t always tight. Friends, yes, but not friends. Not like we are now. Before Joan came, we were like two balls, floating in water, bumping into one another, but then drifting apart.

I was the closest thing to what he had as a best friend when his mom died. My father told me about the letter from Adam’s mom, after he met with Adam’s dad. Mr. Rove had come to the Rabbi searching for advice after his wife killed herself, even though he wasn’t Jewish. I guess the fact that my dad and Mr. Rove knew each other for over a decade, although not very well, was more important than what religion they belonged to. When my dad ushered Mr. Rove out of his den and said goodnight at the door, I could tell that the conversation had been awkward, and my dad hadn’t been able to offer any comfort or advice.

My dad asked me to keep my eye out for Adam. Keep my eye out for him? Who was keeping their eye out for me? I almost envied Adam, then. His crisis was obvious. His mother had died, so everyone understood why he was having a hard time. No one knew what was happening to our family. Even my own father seemed oblivious to the fact that my own life was crumbling around me. Sure, my mom was alive, but that didn’t give me much solace.

After that, I put away all my hurt and fear and kept only my anger exposed. Anger at authority. Anger at the establishment. Anger at the entire world. I became steely while Adam became withdrawn. I never asked him about his mom, and Rove never brought it up because words weren’t adequate. The only bond we had was our respective grief and anger.

And then Joan came. I thought she was just another hair-and-makeup girl when she did dumb things like try to ascertain my sexuality, or tryout for cheerleading, but she always surprised me in the end by calling people on their pettiness and shallowness. It was enough for me to not completely write her off. I wasn’t looking for a bosom buddy, but I had to give her credit for being more than a cream puff.

We began going over to Joan’s house to study where there was so much love that it nearly choked you. I wanted to hate her for it. Hate her for having two parents that loved her and each other, and would lay down their very lives for any one of their children. Instead, I spent as much time there as I possibly could.

Her mom, who knew me by name by the third day of school, always looked at me that way my mom used to. Exasperated. Amused. Knowing. I’d never admit it, but sometimes I’d say and do things just to get that look from her, like the day I cracked that dumb joke, “The reason for my tardiness is I am late.” I’d work hard to be sure I was inscrutable to the world, but for some reason, I liked getting that knowing look from Mrs. Girardi.

Her father, the former chief of police, carried himself with authority, yet was obviously adored by all in that house. I always had problems with authority, and the fact that I was spending time at a cop’s house confounded me until I stopped trying to explain it to myself.

Then there was Kevin, whom I knew least of all. When I first started going over there he would come through the kitchen where we studied, saying nothing, or making some snide comment before taking his lift up to his room. I could relate to his anger and bitterness, but what struck me was the way the other four people in that house treated him. They didn’t walk on eggshells or act embarrassed or excused his behavior. When he was sardonic, they would razz him and move on, the same way his siblings razzed each other. They just accepted him, and as time went on, his comments were less in anger and more in jest, matching the amity of the rest of the family.

If it had stopped there, I would have been able to watch, detachedly amused by this bizarre, yet tight-nit group of people. But, of course it didn’t stop there. Mr. and Mrs. Girardi had to give it a go one more time and produce one final human who, I feared, had the ability to throw me completely off balance. Their youngest son, the skinny teen walking beside me, made everything about that house more tangible. He was the embodiment of everything I felt every time I stepped into that house. Warmth. Kindness. Humor. I really wished he’d let me walk home alone.

My mind wandered to the stone he’d given me. Not sure what to do with it, I’d dumped it on the table beside my bed, and hadn’t touched it again. It’s the last thing I see when I go to bed, and the first thing-- I shook my head, refusing to finish that thought.

What was he expecting? Had he always had feelings for me? And if so, why Glynis? I didn’t have the answers, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want them. Suddenly I was very aware of his nearness as we walked and the questions became more pressing in the silence until I had to speak to keep from blurting out something stupid.

“You didn't have to walk me. You could have gone with your brother.” I said, my voice sounded harsh in my ears as I spoke into the night.

“It seemed un-gentlemanly.” He said, matter-of-factly. He wasn’t trying to woo me. It was just a statement of fact. I barely paid attention to the conversation between us as he started to ramble about the amount of walking we were doing and the finer points of distinction between being smart and intelligent. I don’t know why I thought talking to him would be easier than walking in silence. His chatter only exacerbated my inner turmoil.

“I like the quiet.” I said, hoping to rectify the situation. Of course it didn’t work. He continued to ramble for a while, and then mentioned the stars. Stars! Did I look like someone who appreciated the stars? The situation was quickly becoming unbearable.

“Why did you give me that rock?” I asked suddenly, unable to avoid the question any longer.

He stopped short, and looked at me, bewildered. “It’s a geode.”

“To me it’s a rock,” I countered keeping his gaze. Usually I welcomed diversion tactics, but not now. “Why?”

He shrugged. “It was a gesture...of friendship.” He paused and I waited, fearing. Hoping. “Possibly courtship.” He finished.

“Courtship?” I couldn’t help smiling at his choice of words. “That went out with the corset or the walkman or something.”

“I don’t follow trends,” he stated, looking into my eyes with determination that I didn’t know he had.

I’d started this, and now my only option was to finish it. “Did you break up with Glynis because of me?”

“Of course not,” he answered, breaking eye contact. “Don't be ridiculous.”

“OK,” I nodded, slightly. Maybe this would turn out the way I needed after all. “I won't. Because that would be ridiculous. So let's not go there.”

“Right,” he agreed, and I turned away from him and began walking.

“Why is that ridiculous?” he called behind me. I turned to him and frantically thought through the millions of reasons I kept telling myself why this could never happen.

“I'm friends with your sister.” I began.

“Right,” he said, unconvinced.

“I’m older than you.”

“A year. Eight months, actually.” He needed another reason.

“I have a reputation.” I continued, walking back to him. I had to make him understand. “I've worked hard to build it. Do you know what my reputation is?”

“You hate me?” he asked.

“I'm anti,” I replied, ignoring the question.

“OK. Anti what?” He challenged.

Anti anything that threatened my image. “What have you got?”

“So you're never gonna fall in love.”

Love. Me? “I'm never even gonna fall in like. And I'm certainly not gonna be courted by some rocket-head geek. If it got around school that you were giving me things?”

“What do you care what people think?” Again, he was challenging me, as if this were up for discussion. “I mean, if you're anti. You know, shouldn't you like the idea of us if you're so anti?”

“I'm not that anti.” This wasn’t going well. I had a rep. Everyone knew what it was, but here he was questioning my motives and feelings. No one did that.

“Oh, so you're moderately anti,” he stated.

He had to understand. I tried again, “Look, geek...” but he interrupted me.

“and besides, you know, love is irrational. It's like this anesthetic goes off in your brain eliminating all reason so the act of procreation can occur.”

“Hey,” I started, but he continued. The conversation was quickly degenerating, and I couldn’t let it go on any further. It wasn’t going to work. He just had to accept that.

Desperately grasping for the last argument I had, I interrupted him. “Look, I am not into you. Got it?” I cried, raising my voice to compel the words to ring true.

He stopped, and looked at me in the eyes. “Yeah.”

He was finally convinced that it wasn’t going to happen. I saw the resignation in his eyes, and suddenly I was terrified. I couldn’t pull away from his gaze. At that moment, the scariest thing to me was knowing that I successfully pushed him away. I reached for him without knowing it, and in the next instance, felt the pressure of his lips and his hand rest firmly on my waist.

I held him as our kiss deepened and only one thought that was able to penetrate its way into the back of my mind. Luke Girardi would be the cause of my complete and utter undoing.