BECOMING SUPRA

Chapter 19.3

RAË

It had to be done. If what Neel says is true, that I pawed Syrah's date at the senior ball, then I had to say something, if not apologize, at least something close to it. Frankly, Syrah is easier than having to burden myself with Æsh. I don't have time for a story like his, at least not now, when I'm about to sell the rights to my first video game and while I'm on the path to becoming supra.

I went searching all over campus, the Piano Blocks, the Lady Bug garden by the greenhouse, but eventually found Syrah at Snack Attack with a collection of her friends.

I called out to her. She turned, nose up – posturing superiority.

"Who are you?" she said. "Oh, you." Her clique of friends spurt out laughing in a scattering start.

"I'm here to apologize," I said, calmly.

"Apologize ... for what?"

"For manhandling your ... king."

"She's trying to be funny," said Janine.

"Raë's got crown envy," said someone else and her friends broke into laughter once again.

"Let me tell you something you don't know," cut in Syrah. Then she leaned in, pressing her thumb and ring finger into the small of my back and locked me into position. She moved in close, her lips grazing my earlobes and she whispered, "Æsh is a bland-pepper. He's a cracker gone damp." My neck stiffened, I took a step back but Syrah's fingernails dug into my skin. "You can have him," she said, aloud.

I inhaled and stepped back, I felt as though I had been smacked hard across the face.

Syrah caught my expression, laughter bubbled out of her. Heat filled my ears, I stood motionless waiting for their laughter to die down before spinning on my heels and clomping my way to my room and slapping the door shut.

I had work to do, see the idea written through, edit and iron the glitches of the narrative, run through it a couple more times before turning it in. School was going to end in a couple of weeks. If I missed this milestone, it would be another loss added to my long list of non-achievements. If I wanted this dream to actualize I had to buckle up and focus.

But Æsh keeps invading my mind; the more I resist the more he persists. It was reaching a maddening point. All the control I had managed to maintain so far was slipping away. Sometimes I felt like I was sitting on the axis of a wobbling top, with no understanding of how to get off.

Was I falling in love with Æsh? A prisoner, indicted for manslaughter, a man/boy habituated to violence? That broken soul, marred by life? His darkness was pulling me in, beckoning me towards him like sorcerer's fingers. I can't fall in love. Now is not the time. I am on the verge of tapping into my potential. How can I allow anything to derail it?