Alex as Well by Alyssa Brugman Page B

that special dinner for you, and you’ve hurt my feelings! And now you can clean up this mess, young…’ There is a pause. ‘Just clean this mess up!’
    I turn the music up. And sing, ‘Guess what? I’m having more fun. And now that we’re done, I’m going to show you.’
    I heart Pink, I tell Alex, picking up a belt and kajinking silver studs along the edges. You know why? Ifeel like I know her. Don’t you feel like you could hang with Pink? She just lays it all out, and she doesn’t care what people think.
    Alex has his head in his hands.
    What? he says.
    I dunno, I say. Sometimes I feel like I have no control over anything, you know? Like Julia. I don’t know why I care. We’re not even that close, but I wanted her to like me. I enjoyed the Whoolia high-five, air-kiss thing. It made me feel like I belonged somewhere.
    At last my mother goes away. I open the door a crack. The upturned plate is still there on the carpet.
    Are we going to clean it up? I ask.
    He shrugs. He is more worried about what will happen when I go to school tomorrow. Maybe they won’t even care.
    I tap compose again and I write, hey you, pressing send quickly before I can change my mind.
    Then I stare at the screen for the next ten minutes. Ok, two minutes, but it feels like ten minutes.
    Nothing.
    That was stupid, Alex tells me. Isn’t it worse knowing that she doesn’t want to speak to you?
    Twenty real minutes later Amina still hasn’t answered.
    I feel awful in my guts, as if I have eaten a bad hotdog. Because we’re really alone, Alex and I. At least I used to have my fantasies about Amina to keep me company.
    I hold up my ka-jinked jacket against my chest.
    Alex snorts. That’s so lame. It’s pathetic. It’s like something a five-year-old would do.
    Maybe he’s right. You know what it looks like? I say, giggling. It looks exactly like I have attacked my clothes with bedazzler’s cheap-arse cousin!
    Alex looks away from me. He’s embarrassed because he’s crying.

23
    WE’VE DECIDED THE best thing to do is get to school early, and that way I can sit there with my back against the wall, instead of walking into a situation all exposed.
    I stomp all the way to school in my steel-capped boots. My fists are clenched. Because if someone gives me shit I’m going to punch them in the eye.
    My arm is really itchy. I pull up my sleeve and there is a red rash there.
    When I arrive, Sierra is sitting by herself in the empty quad. She watches me approaching. Her face tells me nothing.
    ‘Are you always this early?’ I ask.
    ‘My mum,’ she explains. Sierra travels with the lady from the front desk, of course.
    I sit on the bench next to her, slipping my bag down between my feet. We are silent for a moment, and then I figure I should just say it.
    ‘So, umm, do you have a problem with me being’— there is only the slightest pause—’gay?’
    ‘What? No!’ Sierra says, blushing. ‘No! Not at all. As long as…’ Then she giggles.
    ‘As along as?’ I raise an eyebrow.
    ‘Don’t worry, I was just teasing.’ She waves her hand at me. ‘Never mind.’
    ‘What were you going to say?’
    As long as you don’t hit on me. That’s what she was going to say.
    ‘Actually I think you’re pretty cute,’ Alex says, and he holds Sierra’s eye contact for a moment too long.
    What the hell are you doing? I ask him.
    You don’t think it would make her feel good? Thinking someone had a little crush on her? Her name is mountain, for chrissake! And I watch her. Alex is right. She’s embarrassed, but I think she’s also flattered.
    You could pash her. She’s not ugly, Alex says.
    I don’t want to pash Sierra. We can’t have this argument right now.
    ‘It’s a bit gross for me,’ Sierra confesses, and her nose wrinkles just a little bit. ‘No offence. But you’re into what you’re into, I suppose.’
    I nod. Alex runs his eye over her. ‘Which part is gross?’
    Stop it! I warn him.
    What? We can make her say it, Alex