Page 58 of To Love or to Lose
I can only wonder whether Genevieve feels the same way.
I find her later that day in sculpture class. “Hey, can you talk for a minute?” I ask her.
“That depends,” she deadpans when she looks up at me. “Are you going to advise me to pick up a sport? Or maybe drop me down a flight of stairs?”
I laugh. “I can’t make any promises.”
“Fine.” She nods toward the chair across from her, not looking up from her project. Winnifred isn’t sitting with her; she retreated to Logan’s and my table when she saw me approach. “What do you want?”
“Who are you working on?” I ask, avoiding the topic I really want to discuss.
“Why do you care?” She continues to carve into the Styrofoam.
“Just curious.” I lean over, trying to see what she’s working on. I catch a glimpse of a square shaped head and a large beard. “Aristotle?”
“How do you know that?” She finally looks up at me.
I lift my shoulders in a shrug. “I’m doing Plato. He’s who taught Aristotle.”
She looks at me in disdain. “Of course, you’re the one who took Plato.”
I quickly realize she wanted to do Plato too, but Ms. Geller made it so we all were forced to make someone different.I wonder if she likes Plato for all the same reasons I do, or if there’s something else about him that piques her interest. Slowly, I’m noticing all the commonalities we may have that we’re unaware of.
“Sorry, I didn’t know,” I say.
“It’s fine.” She brushes my apology off. “Now, why are you here?”
“We need to talk about this speech,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes. “It is not going to take a whole school year to write a speech.”
“But it may take an entire school year for you to agree to my idea for it,” I counter quickly.
She looks up at me through her lashes. That’s when I realize I can never tell whether this girl is wearing makeup.I’m a pretty observant person, so I usually notice things like that. But with Genevieve, it’s almost impossible.
Her eyelashes are long and flawlessly fanned upwards. Her eyebrows are laid perfectly, much like her sleek brown hair, and her lips are a shade of pink that I cannot decide whether is natural.
“Then, I wouldn’t even bother trying.” Her raspy voice breaks me out of my trance. “Because if you don’t think you will convince me, then you definitely won’t.”
“I want to write a speech that stands against the school.” I expel the words like they were burning my tongue.
She thinks about it for a moment, like she’s not sure whether to shoot my idea down immediately or ask more questions. “What exactly would we be rebelling against?”
“The morals of this school.” I look around, making sure no one is listening too closely. “It came to me when you brought it up in the Headmaster’s office. I know you’re not fond of me, but I think it’s important for you to know that I understand where you’re coming from. I would be frustrated too, and if we band together, we could write anincrediblespeech while also addressing the issues within the school system.”
I don’t know what I’m expecting Genevieve’s reaction to be. I’m not sure whether her subconscious would ever let her agreewith me, even if it was something that she finds as important as this.She has to know how much of an impact something like this could have though—how many people would come to realize the issues within the school like we did.
For once, she looks at me with eyes that do not hold any hatred and says, “Let’s do it.”
I finally take a breath, and the air that fills my lungs when she agrees has to be the best thing I’ve ever felt.
Right then, the bell rings.
“You’re agreeing?” I ask as I stand. My shock is probably evident, but I was not expecting her to agree as easily as she did.
“Yeah.” She nods slowly, looking at me as if I’ve forgotten how to speak English.
She exits the classroom first, and when I look back at the table, I notice she forgot her pencil case. I take it with me as I enter the hallway, and I find her already rushing toward the staircase, making it almost impossible to keep up.
