15 Chapter XIV
Police Officer: Tell me about the knife.
Jacob: She asked for it.
***
Sunny shot up in bed. She rolled over and reached for her phone which was buzzing on the nightstand table.
"Hello?" She said, still amid her dreams. "Who is it?"
"Hey..." Sunny rubbed her eyes and sat up straighter.
"Selena?" She questioned, pulling her phone away to see the time. "It's 3 am. What's wrong?"
"I need your help." She sounded desperate.
"What is it?"
"The math assignment... the," she said.
"You didn't do it?"
"No shit. I took a pic and sent it to you," she said, "It's just the odd questions in the textbook. The stupid teacher said if I don't make it up, I'm going to be expelled... for real." Sunny's eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her body tensed. Somehow, this didn't feel right. Lyssa wouldn't approve.
"We're in different classes though. Is this the same assignment?" Sunny said, trying to reduce the possibility of having to carry out such a dishonest act.
"Shut the fuck up and do it," she snorted. "If it isn't handed in tomorrow you're out of the group. Do you hear me?" It was as if she had been cast to the principal's office for doing something wrong.
"But this is cheating—"
"Just remember who you were before I made you somebody Sunny. You were an impudent Asian, and now look at you." A large part of her hated the idea, but a larger part of her couldn't go back to the way things were before.
"Hello? You there?"
"I... I really can't, Selena."
"Excuse me?"
"It's wrong."
"No it's not," said Selena, pissed off at such blunt terminology falling from the lips of a worthless Chinese. "What the fuck. You got water in your dumb-ass head? Half the shit we learn is useless you know. It doesn't matter if I do it or not."
"I disagree, Selena. I can't do something I know is wrong."
"Shut up about that stupid shit. School force-feeds information down our throats, hoping we'll be able to contribute with something when we "grow up". And then we grow up. We finish high school. And guess what? That shit we memorized by heart is useless!"
"If you hate it that much, then don't do it," Sunny whispered under her breath.
"Excuse me?" Selena, reluctant to argue with such strongly held views said, "Alright, Sunny. The choice was yours. Things are going to get a lot worse for you now." She hung up the phone and Sunny was left feeling robbed. She was at war with herself, with one side drifting right and the other pulling left. Still, she knew she had done the right thing. Cheaters never prosper.
***
"Mom, have you ever cheated?" Sunny said chewing on hard rice the next day.
"What?"
"I mean like on assignments."
"No! Are you crazy?" Lyssa was horrendously angry that such a ridiculous idea could be roaming around in her daughter's head. "You aren't getting any ideas, are you?"
"No, Mom. I was just wondering. I would never. It's so wrong." Sunny was grateful for Lyssa. Her words confirmed that she had done the right thing, dodged a nasty bullet thrown her way.
"Exactly. And we never do anything so wrong."
"What about the other kind of cheating?"
"That's worse."
"Why?"
"It fucks with people's minds and ruins self-esteem. Trust is a fragile thing, and when someone cheats, the safety within the relationship is shaken to the ground. We lose trust," said Lyssa, stirring the chicken into the rice. Sunny could tell that the conversation was no longer about cheating, it was about her marriage. Lyssa was clouded in her thoughts, thinking of other things. It seemed as if Lyssa had thought about this topic a lot— perhaps contemplated it in the shower.
"Are you okay?" Asked Sunny. Lyssa smiled warmly, adjusted herself quickly.
"Of course. Hiram loves me," she said, putting down her chopsticks. Lyssa didn't know, but Sunny heard the crack in her voice. Sunny shifted the subject.
"Where's dad?" She asked, just noticing his absence.
"He's staying for overtime. Gets paid double if he does."
"Double?" Sunny had no feel for numbers, but this just felt instinctual. This was too good to be true.
"That's just one of the benefits of this town," she said, with rice in her mouth.
"Why do you need that money anyway?" Sunny asked. "We're not poor."
"No, we aren't."
"And we have so many houses..."
"Well... that's another thing that we wanted to talk to you about. Investment." The word investment made Sunny want to disappear. In this family, it was overused and scary. It suggested another thirty-minute economics class. Sunny placed her plate in the sink and told Lyssa that she had TONS of homework. She went up the stairs, held her knees tight, and prayed for no more new followers on Fishy Friday. Please.
***
In the next few weeks, Selena wasn't capable of kindness. She hated Sunny for treating her as equal— nobody had ever told her no before. And she just couldn't take that. There were a couple of occasions where the Kitties teamed up and pushed Sunny into a puddle of mud just before school started. Laughed. And slashed some guck into her eyes.
Other days, they would follow her into the toilet while she was pissing and try to choke her out. Naturally, she found ways to survive by knowing which toilets to use and when. When to leave school and which exist to use. Sunny was strong and was bearing it all. Until Selena showed up with a knife.
It seemed like an average day. Sunny arrived at school, plopped herself down in a chair, and began learning the trigonometric functions. Mrs. Lennie was in a happy mood. Her photo was on the 'Teacher of the Month' page in the yearbook. She played some music, allowed the students to chew gum, eat snacks. Still, she got mad at those slackers who confused freedom with no rules.
The bell rang and Sunny wandered into the halls. She strayed to the back of the school and dipped her head to the water fountain, which was clogged by a piece of chewing gum. Some water rippled over the side, and she stepped back to prevent a soaking stain. The gum that had once been turquoise was now a sticky pale, and the water was lukewarm. Sunny pulled way in revolt and bumped into Selena.
"Found you," Selena said, cornering her. Softly, Selena stroked her peachy cheek, then twirled her locks. Sunny looked frightened, and the air between them was tight like a blanket stretched far too long.
"What are you doing?" She said, like a fragile little critter. Vulnerable.
"Oh, nothing." Selena inched closer, placed an arm over Sunny. Sunny quickly unwinded herself from her arms. Selena stopped her immediately. Her right hand, which had been resting behind her all along, suddenly rose to Sunny's face. Scissors. A perfectly horrible scare.
"Are you insane? What are you doing?" Sunny said, shaking her head in fear. She jolted back. The ivory black hair on Sunny's head, particularly the long length of it, seemed designed to irritate Selena. She had tried growing her hair out past her shoulders, but it just grew so slowly.
Selena pawed and poked with her instrument in the most delicate and secretive places. Her unforgiving eyes slimmed as she grabbed a fistful of Sunny's dark hair. Sunny blinked slowly like a lizard, realizing that she was powerless. Then, snip snip snip.
Broken hair fell to the concrete floor. Sunny, I could tell, was on the edge of hysteria, left bare and fur-less, like a newly shaved Kitty Kat. Sunny made a mental mote, a small, vague one, given her exhaustion and the circumstance of it, to buy just such a pair of scissors, in case of a similar emergency. Or a knife, a good sharp knife to be carried on one person at all times.
"Sorry, chink." Selena dipped an apologetic courtesy and stretched her face into a long fake smile. Somehow by turning other people into hell, Selena felt more like heaven. It was a twisted kind of love.
"Easy as pi." It was at that moment that Sunny realized that this was all about the math assignment that she denied. "Smile honey, it's good for the scalp."
"I love you like I love my hair," Selena continued, chuckling down the hallway. "Unconditionally." Selena paused, turned around, and said in an almost sexual tone, "You still wanna play?" She drifted around and made slit-eyes at Sunny who was in the fine line between living and dying. She stood in her pile of hair trembling, forced to accept that if she didn't start following her orders, it would be sooner or later before she crumbled in Selena's flytrap palms. Sunny lowered her head. Yes, master.
"When is it due?"
"Tomorrow," said Selena with a wicked laugh. The bell rang and Sunny scurried off to the wheelchair-accessible stall to cry over her hairstyle change. She looked in the mirror. A scent of disinfectant. A degrading butch cut. A girl burrowed.
Sunny put her arms to her boiling face as streams of hot confetti-like droplets burst from the slits of her defeated eyes. She would have Selena slashed if it were up to her.
