From Twinkle, with Love
Page 20

She turned, her thin blond eyebrows sky high when she saw it was me.
“It’s not okay to interrupt someone’s conversation like that.” I heard the quiver in my voice, but I kept going. “Also? It’s not okay to roll your eyes or laugh at people. We learned all of that in kindergarten, Hannah. Or at least, we were supposed to.”
Maddie’s face was pale. Victoria’s eyes widened, and she whipped out her cell phone and hid behind it, even though her tall red hair gave her away. I could see Sahil smiling encouragingly in my peripheral vision, and I straightened my shoulders. I had no idea what had come over me. But I was starting to get reeeeally tired. There’s only so much being invisible you can take before you just want to go supernova so no one can ignore you anymore.
(Not that this sweaty, shaking confrontation in front of my locker was exactly going supernova, but still. You had to start somewhere.)
Hannah looked so at ease, it was like she was born confronting people. (She probably was, now that I think about it. I could see her as a wrinkly newborn, demanding that the nurse wash her immediately.) She crossed her arms over her chest, and her fifty-two charm bracelets clinked together. “Why are you so angry, Twinkle?” she asked, smirking.
Because you’ve turned my smart, funny, confident best friend into a total bowl of Jell-O, I wanted to yell. Because you just take and take and take and never stop to think who you’re hurting. Because you’re a spoiled little brat. “Why are you so mean to me?” I asked. “What have I ever done to you?”
She just shook her head and yawned. She actually yawned. “Let’s go,” she said, and began to walk away. Victoria quirked her mouth at me, shrugged, and left.
Maddie stayed for a moment. “You … Don’t, Twinkle.”
I waited, but she didn’t say anything else. “Don’t what?”
“You’re just …You’re not helping.”
We looked at each other. Disappointment burned inside me. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t for Maddie to just stay quiet the entire time and then imply I was making things worse.
“Fine,” I said, but my voice was so quiet, I wasn’t sure she heard me. Hitching her backpack up on her shoulders, she walked away.
I looked back at Sahil, my throat sore and tight. I wouldn’t cry in front of him. I would not.
“Wow,” he said, looking a little shell-shocked. “Are you okay?”
I shrugged. “I think so. That’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like that. Figures that I suck at it.”
“Hey. You don’t suck at it. You were awesome,” Sahil said, grinning.
I looked up at him. “Even though Hannah wasn’t swayed at all?”
“Pssh. Maybe she gets off on making people feel small. I don’t know. But you’re not small, Twinkle.” His eyes got serious, and my breath caught in my throat as I studied his face.
“Thanks,” I whispered. I knew there had to be people milling all around us, but I didn’t see any of them.
After a pause, Sahil nodded, still smiling. “I’ll meet you by your locker after school.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out—apparently my voice had pulled an Amelia Earhart. So instead, I just watched him walk away, my head all muddled and swimming.
Love,
Twinkle
Tuesday, June 9, post-hike at Red Fox Trail
My room

Dear Ava DuVernay, Um. Whoa.
More soon. A lot more. But for now—whoa.
Love,
Twinkle
June 9
The Reel Deal Blog
Posted by: Rolls ROYce
I knew it. I just knew it. It wasn’t my imagination. Sparkle likes me. SHE LIKES ME.
Still Tuesday, June 9
Later, still my room

Dear Ava DuVernay, Okay. I think I can talk about it now. I’m still not even close to being done processing it, but … maybe writing to you will help.
So Sahil and I went off to Red Fox Trail like we’d talked about. He met me at my locker (he was there even before I was—yay!), and we didn’t speak while we drove. The silence was easy; he mainly just played some new music he’d downloaded.
When we got there, Sahil texted Skid and Aaron, but they didn’t respond. So we just began walking, figuring they must be out on the trail, which didn’t have the best reception from all the giant pine trees and stuff. I asked Sahil if he knew what musk thistle looked like so we could keep an eye out for Skid, but he just laughed and said no, he did not.
It was nice. The air was cool and I was perfectly comfortable in my T-shirt and shorts. Then something rumbled.
“Is that thunder?” I asked, frowning up at the sky. Sure enough, these giant black clouds were rolling in, and lightning was glittering in the distance. “We’re pretty far into the trail. I don’t think we can make it back to your car in time.”
“It’s all good,” Sahil said. “We can take cover under the trees.”
I was beginning to panic. Colorado thunderstorms are freakishly fast. There are many things that don’t scare me, but being outside in a lightning storm is not one of them. I have seen way too many charred and splintered husks of trees to be blasé about something like that, let me tell you. “I don’t think so, Sahil.”
“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” Sahil smiled his gentle, calm smile.
“No, you don’t understand,” I said, finding it not a bit calming. “I think standing under a tree is the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do in a lightning storm.” The first drops splattered on my skin.
“Serious?” Sahil’s smile faded. “Crap.” The drops turned into streaks of rain. The ssshhhh sound of them hitting the trees intensified.
Another bright flash of lightning split the sky, and right on cue, we both grabbed the other’s hand and began to run just as a huge clap of thunder rumbled the ground under us.
“Um, where are we going, exactly? The car’s too far away, right?” I huffed after a while. I wasn’t even well-endowed, but my boobs hurt from running without a sports bra.
“It is! Let’s just find some other shelter!” Sahil said, shouting over the thunder and deafening rain. “I know that’s at least the right thing to do!”
“Stupid Colorado summer storms!” I yelled back.
“You’re joking.” Sahil glanced at me as we ran. He was barely breathing fast at all, but I felt like I was dying. Well, if you looked at our legs, mine were about half the size of his stilt-like numbers. It was no wonder. “That’s one of my favorite things about this place!”
“Let’s take it down a notch, please,” I panted, holding my side, and Sahil immediately slowed to what for him was a leisurely pace and for me was still a brisk walk. “I like storms when I’m inside and drinking chai and reading a book or watching a movie. Not when I’m apt to be the latest lightning victim. Although I did read once that this guy got zapped by lightning and when he woke up, he could suddenly paint and speak five different languages he couldn’t speak before. That’s the only way this will be okay.”
Sahil laughed and pointed with his free hand. “Hey, a cabin! Perfect!”
I looked at it through the needles of rain and then at Sahil. “Um. Doesn’t that remind you of the cabin in any number of horror movies?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Sahil countered. “Especially wet beggars.”
He had a point there.
The cabin was old and the floor was full of pine needles and the walls were full of spiders’ webs and it smelled like green, sludgy stuff, but at least if we stayed in the center, away from the holes in the roof, we would be dry. And I was fairly sure we were safer in it than out.
Sahil closed the crooked door behind us and blinked in the dim light. I could barely see him. I looked down at myself—and almost died. No. No. I was wearing a white T-shirt … which was now soaked through. My tattered old bra, the one I’d had since eighth grade, was on display. Immediately, I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to act casual.
Sahil was poking around. “Just looking for a lantern or something,” he explained. “It would be nice if we could see.”