My Secret Family

Victoria Falls

Mia

55 kg and falling

Dinah Chu sat on the ledge in the twilight looking out over the gray and green ocean of Colma city, her long black hair blowing in the light breeze that whipped around the library building. A group of first-year students milled around on the library roof, and despite it being covered in black tar and bird-shit it was the coolest place to share a smoke and occasionally a joint. In a dark corner a couple sat on a piece of canvas getting to know each other's anatomy. I walked over to Dinah and offered her a cigarette.

"You're in Asian studies, right?"

She took the cigarette and I lit it for her, using the proximity to check out her features.

"Oh, so because I'm Asian I have to take Asian studies?"

I stopped in my tracks, I could have sworn...

"I'm fucking with you. Surprising, right?" Dinah's eyebrows could cut sushi.

"I guess so. I want to take it next semester, " I lied, "but my boyfriend thinks I should study business instead."

"Is that right? You should do what he tells you. " Dinah blew smoke into my face.

"Hey, are you seeing anyone?"

"Yup. Totally hot guy, muscles out to here, " she mimed his biceps, "rides a Harley. All the Tattoos. Cliché, right?"

Yes he is. And he has just one tattoo, bitch. "Not at all. Sounds great. How long you been seeing him?"

"It's our first month together, it's been going so well. You know when you meet someone and you just know right away that they will be there for you no matter what?"

"I think I know him, he gets around. How many girls is he dating exactly?" I asked. Dinah didn't look at me.

"Yeah, he's a bit of a bad boy, but I can change him. " Dinah said, leaning back against the wall.

Poor girl, I thought, how little she knows of men.

"Why don't you rather date someone else, but exclusively? Being the other woman must eat at you, " I said, wanting to at least plant the seed of a breakup so that she would leave my Luke alone.

"He will end up with the prettiest girl, that's how nature works, Mia. " She looked straight into my eyes, challenging me. She knew who I was. She knew that Luke and I were sleeping together. Dinah Chu was much, much prettier than me and she knew it, but I had bigger boobs and I was more than capable of catering to Luke's needs. His little quirks.

Dinah shifted her weight on the thin ledge, her pretty little mixed heritage face twisted in a smirk of victory.

I looked around, all the others had left to go to evening class or out to get drunk, it was just me and Dinah on the roof. If I pushed her now... no one would know. I stepped forward but then she leaned back and, perhaps thinking that there was a wall behind her, perhaps reacting to my body language, she tumbled back over the edge. She didn't even scream, she just toppled backwards and was gone. It was as if an invisible hand had reached out and taken care of her for me. I peered over the ledge and looked down at the shadowy mass of her body crumpled on the pavement three stories below, unable to see from this distance in the dark if she was moving. I left the sudden emptiness of the roof, striding proudly like a soldier on the way to war and went home. There were no shouts behind me, no gasps. It was meant to be.

I lay on my bed and wondered if I could make it happen again, if it had been me specifically that caused her to fall, or if it had been some fundamental force in the universe that I controlled without knowing it. Maybe I had secret power.