The Firefly Field Theory

|11| Resistance Is Useless: Part I

PART I:

“You’re not a guy are you?” Omi says revving up the engine and only slightly angling his head around, enough to see my face.

And is my reaction worth it.

Hell yes.

He just put my emotional state in a blender and hit ‘Frappe’. I am feeling rather spectacularly bipolar right now. There’s a sudden prick of surprise that he actually saw through the charade. A pang of guilt that I was caught fooling around with his achy breaky heart. A strange disappointment that I kissed Bravo, only to be unmasked in the end. All the while, a little ray of hope that I may not be very low down on the flat scale shines through.

“Do you want me to hug you?” I ask.

He slumps and turns around with a huge smile on his face, “You don’t need to, I knew the first time I saw you.”

“Oh really? Was it my amazingly curvy body or my long wavy locks that gave me away?” I ask smiling back.

He steers the car down the lamp shade lit street, crowded with congested houses on both sides.

“Tell me all you’ve gathered about your cousin, Bravo.” He says suddenly.

“Why?”

“Just tell me everything.”

I speak up over the hum of the car engine, “She thinks she’s the boss of everyone. I used to dislike her pushiness when I first met her, but I guess she had her reasons. She’s secretive and I think she’s a born leader. She seems so sorted out and calm, it makes me jealous.”

Just as the last syllable leaves my mouth, Omi speaks up with his analysis, “Bravo’s afraid of the dark. She’s afraid of dogs. She’s insecure and under the illusion that she’s misunderstood. She may be bossy but she’s extremely childish. She bears grudges with people and never tells them what bothers her. When her mom called me she had already told me that a guest from America was with them too. And I knew she’d try to play this fake boyfriend card on me.”

“So you pretended that you were jealous?” I ask, disappointed.

“Partly but I am jealous. She looks close to you.” He steers the car onto the main road.

“Well, we’re cousins so…” Before I can finish he says.

“I like the verse you said.”

I’m fundamentally uncomfortable telling a guy I just met, about what it symbolizes. About how I've survived because of it. But he feels like an open book to me, and it makes me think it would do me no harm, “It’s…my legendary method of survival.”

“Write it down somewhere.” He suggests.

“Maybe I will.”

“What do you know about Z?”

“He’s a weirdo.”

He erupts into another laugh, “Correct, and?”

“He’s bipolar, I think. One moment he’s all serious and the next he’s gone wild. But I like him because he answers my questions and doesn’t hold back like Bravo. He obeys his little sister a bit too much.” I finish, thinking Omi will automatically state what he thinks, but he stays quiet, so I say, “You tell me now.”

Without missing a beat, “Z has a liking for smart people and he’s a total softie. I mean the dude cries every time he watches Titanic. He’s this peacekeeper, kind of guy. But he loves his siblings, so if anybody messes with them he loses it. I remember this one time, when we were kids and this other kid stuck a piece of gum in Bravo’s hair and she came crying home, that was the first time I saw Z ever beat someone up.”