THE FIRST TIME Elora ever became familiar with the term 'adopted' surrounding Jasper Kobara was when she was in the fourth grade.
Her classroom smelled more like a putrid, nauseating sort of scent rather than a dittany of ethnic foods on their designated cultural day. And her mum had saran-wrapped a platter of store-bought samosas, with the tamarind chutney on the side, and stuck a mustard-coloured jewel bindi between her brows to match her bright yellow chudidar. So, Elora was busy watching Faye stomp her pink satin slippers in protest as she scrunched up her nose at the samosa's spiciness.
"Well, El, you can't just expect people to like your food—" Faye had proclaimed, spitting the bit of the Indian snack into a napkin before tossing it away.
"No," Elora admitted reluctantly. "But you could've, like, at least been a little bit more kinder about it, gosh."
She let it go, but Elora spent the next twenty minutes sulking by her desk as students lined up for Faye's apple and cheese danish pastries while her platter remained cold—and untouched—for the most part.
Jasper had come late to class, just arriving minutes prior with no cultural outfit or plastic plate of goodies in his hands. When Elora finally stood up slowly and stalked toward him with a heavy weight on her footsteps, he turned and saw her; the smile on his face was cracking.
She stepped closer and waited for him to say something about her prim and proper outfit, steamed to perfection. When he didn't, she asked curiously, "Why no food?"
Jasper tucked his hands into the pockets of his grey hoodie and shrugged carelessly. "I told my mother that I couldn't decide what to bring."
"Why?"
He turned his lips up to one side lopsidedly. "Because—I don't know. It's hard to know what to buy when you're adopted."
"You. . . never told me that." Elora blinked rapidly as she watched his face morph into something between barely-concealed annoyance and confusion.
"Ellie," his voice choked out, a strangled moan suffocating the tone as he tilts his neck to the side and watches her with hooded eyes, "my mom is white."
"And?"
"My dad is too."
"And?"
He carelessly flicked a piece of the hair hanging over his forehead with his second finger. "Well, I'm not."
Elora blew the wisps of hair dangling by her eyelashes and let out a soft noise of irritation. In indignation, she practically huffed, "Jasper."
He bursted into a laugh. "The look on your face is hilarious. What did you think happened—my very blond and very blue-eyed parents just managed to have me?"
"This isn't funny."
Jasper attempted to come closer—to throw his arm over her neck and smush her face, she was sure of it—but Elora quickly sidestepped and went to cross her arms over her chest. The sleeves of her chudidar squeezed tightly at the tops of her biceps, so she ended up just fisting her palms by her side; her eyes stayed trained on Jasper's amused expression, though.
"You think you're a real jokester, don't you?" Her fingers toyed with the strings coming off her top, and her jaw clicked when she saw Jasper's face die down into something straddling the line of sorrow.
"I didn't mean to poke fun," he admitted shyly. He rubbed the back of his neck and reached to pull up the hood of his sweatshirt over his mop of hair. "It's easier than just telling you the truth."
Elora gulped down all sense of anger and prompted him with a quick, "Which is. . .?"
"That my parents left me on the side of the road when I was nine months old, Ellie." Jasper managed to shrug a shoulder—letting this conversation and this feeling, this unmanned inkling of emotion, something between love and pity and the need to cradle him, splintered through Elora. He huffed, "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
He chewed on the inside of his gum, hollowing his right cheek, before saying, "Like you pity me."
So, she stopped. She smiled.
And when he gave her a cheeky grin back, she wanted to tuck that single image of him in her pocket, just so she can take it out whenever she wanted to and remember him like that—
Beautiful.
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a u t h o r ' s n o t e: helloOOooO! thanks to everyone who read this. maybe drop a comment if you want? much love <3
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only fools rush in
ContoIt took Elora all of about ten seconds to fall in love with Jasper. And it took him about ten years to do the same.
