Exorcising Aaron Nguyen

A Kick in the Head is Better than Nun

I'm all for breaking rules, but as we stood outside Sister Robert Catharine's office window with its stained-glass cross of a sun-catcher, I seriously felt like giving Hiroki a good kick in the shins. We'd gotten away with cutting class because Brother Whatawaste is a font of all that is amazing and forgiving and gorgeous about life, but breaking into a nun's office to look at private records seemed like a much bigger deal.

The pile of cigarette butts under the window was a surprise. "Are those..."

"I told you I bummed off the science teacher," Hiroki said, flashing the inside of his jacket, where a half-crushed pack of Camels peeked from the inside pocket. "How did you think I knew which window was hers?"

"Sister Robert Catharine smokes? But she's a nun!" I realized at once how naive that sounded. Nuns were human, after all. Plus, the lady was old as the Borden Cow-she probably thought doctors still recommended their favorite brands.

Hiroki kicked the crumpled filters. "Yep. She litters too."

"And peddles to students." Okay. I suddenly felt significantly less bad about the premeditated breaking and entering. "How much does she charge?"

Hiroki's eyes narrowed in the hint of a smirk. "I made a convincing argument why she should give them to me free." He shook his phone.

"You're blackmailing a nun. Unbelievable." My hand found the brick wall, the other covered my eyes, and I tried not to laugh in resignation.

He shrugged. "I don't discriminate. Plus, Dr. Evans only smokes Marlboro, and those taste like butthole."

I didn't want to ask why he was capable of making that comparison so I looked up. The window was six feet off the ground-not impossible, but it would definitely be his scrawny ass going through. I cracked my knuckles, then my neck.

"A'ight, bucko. Hit me," I said, crouching a bit and lacing my fingers.

Hiroki squinted into the glare of the setting sun off the pane and grunted. "Unless you secretly have a football player's upper body, I think I'll need to climb on your shoulders."

I looked down at my "hey look I'm no longer in class" outfit-a sexy purple scoop-neck tee with buttons from shoulder to sleeves-then back up at Hiroki. He sucked in his lips and bit them, eyebrows raised in a pleading look.

"I really hate you," I said.

The next few moments were extremely awkward as I squatted and Hiroki stepped into the stirrup of my laced fingers, desperately trying not to grab me by the shoulders for balance. After our first failed attempt sent him flailing back into the rhododendrons, he decided the momentary discomfort of holding on was better than significant injury. I stood, grunting, and Hiroki straightened his leg, grabbing the windowsill.

"Jesus, I thought you were, like, ninety pounds!" I staggered under his weight, half falling, half leaning against the wall as his Chuck Taylor's dug into my belly and rubbed at the skin on my hands.

Hiroki responded by planting his foot on my shoulder, where it ground the buttons against my skin. The foot I was still holding threatened to push through my grip, and his knee jabbed hard into my left boob.

I have to say, when I imagined being at thigh-level on Hiroki, it didn't go down quite like this. Well, I didn't.

Hiroki shoved the window open, showering me with ash and flakes of mildewy paint. I spat and snorted, trying to get the stuff out of my face. Then his foot ground my bra-strap into my shoulder and he pushed off, slithering up over the sill.

I looked up, planning to yell at him, when one flailing leg lashed out and slammed against my temple. A starburst of red exploded across my vision, blinding me for that brief limbo between the expectation of pain and its actual arrival. For a glowing few seconds, I stared up at a gauzy pink sky and felt nothing.