Purple

2,054 words - teen sci-fi

I love days when I have green eyes. Green is so peaceful. So beautiful.

So normal.

But today, a Tuesday, I knew as soon as I woke up that I was doomed. When I looked in the mirror, it was worse than I'd thought. My eyes weren't blue, which was alright, or even gray, which I could tolerate. They were purple. Straight-up flamboyant purple.

I hate days when I have purple eyes.

Today was important. Today, of all days, was not the time for purple.

My jungle of brown curls wouldn't be tamed either no matter how much sleek and shine shampoo I used or how hot my straightening iron got. When I stumbled downstairs at five minutes to seven, trying to tie my shoe and walk at the same time, I felt more like a hurricane than a human. Mom handed me my paper bag lunch and tried to put a slice of toast in my mouth.

"I'm going to miss the bus!" I said, stuffing my arms into my jacket sleeves. One of the seams popped and instead of coming out the armhole, my hand went right through the new rip in the shoulder. I made a face and tossed the jacket on the floor. "It was getting old anyway," I said.

"Looks like you're going to have an exciting day today, Indra!" Mom grinned.

I'd thought about faking sick and skipping school, but I couldn't. Not today.

"Got to go!" I grabbed my backpack, permitted mom to kiss me on the cheek, and let the screen door bang shut behind me.

As soon as I was out of eyesight of the front window, I crouched down behind the neighbor's dead bush and pulled a box of contact lenses out of my pocket. It was always tricky getting them in without a mirror, but I was getting pretty good at not poking my eyes out.

Blinking, I felt them settle into place. When I stood up, I had green eyes. Well, at least green on the outside. There was no way to disguise the inside.

This was going to be a purple-eyed day, and I was dreading it.

It was raining by the time I got to the school bus. Big fat drops of rain that looked like quarters when they hit the sidewalk. I was soaked by the time the bus came. The water made my hair even frizzier.

Just what I needed.

When I walked into school and saw the neon orange banner yelling, "Girl's Choice Spring Dance" over our heads, I almost turned around and walked right back out.

"Are you excited, Indra?" Betsy whispered from the next desk over when I plopped into my seat for first period English.

“Oh. Totally,” I said.

She made a face. “You’ll end up thanking me, you know.”

In Chemistry class, I twiddled with my pencil instead of balancing chemical equations. When the bell rang, I accidently snapped my pencil in half.

This was the part I was dreading. Lunch.

Spencer Ramikin always sat at the same lunch table with the same group of boys. They were all on the football team, except for Nate Stelling who had broken his foot at the beginning of the year. Their table was the loudest, messiest, and most envied place in the cafeteria. Usually a few of the football guys had a girl or two at the table. The kind of girls who had hips and knew how to walk in high heels. The kind of girls who woke up every morning with the same color of eyes. The normal kind of girl. Usually one of those girls was next to Spencer Ramikin, but he and Lipstick Lucy had broken up almost two weeks ago, and so far no one had replaced her.

That was what had started this whole plan. It was Betsy's idea at first, and if it failed I was going to blame my social humiliation on her.

Standing at the entrance to the cafeteria, I clutched the doorframe to keep myself from being carried away on the current of students. I could see Spencer Ramikin carrying his tray to the football team table. There still wasn't any girl with him.

Betsy grabbed my arm from behind. "Are you ready?"

“No.”

Betsy rolled her eyes.

“If this fails, I am becoming a homeschooler.”

"It won’t be that bad." Betsy dragged me into the cafeteria and gave me a shove toward the table of terror.

I filled up my lungs with air, like I was inhaling armor. The worst that could happen was that he would say no. That was it. A simple no. I could handle that.

Squaring my shoulders, I locked my eyes on Spencer Ramikin. This would take five minutes tops. I could do this. I could so do this.

Marching forward, I smacked straight into Derek Jackson. The corner of his tray went into my ribs and his chocolate milk went all over my face.

I gasped. Derek said, "Watch it girl!" I heard the tray clatter. Spencer Ramikin looked up.

I jumped backwards. My eyes were burning from the chocolate milk and the contacts were making it so much worse. Poking a couple fingers in my eye, I fished for a contact and pulled it out. But I still couldn't see well.

"Oh my goodness!" Betsy said. I felt paper towels being wiped across my face and the contact get swept away with them.

This could not be happening.

"OMG! What happened to you?" A girl said.

I cringed, blinking and trying to see straight.

"Ugh, don't get to close," said a girl right behind me. "If you get this skirt wet, I will kill you."

"Are your eyes two different colors?" The first girl asked.

More paper towels were smeared across my face.

"OMG! They are!"

Now everyone was looking at me.

"Were you wearing contacts? Are your eyes really purple?"

"That is so creepy," said one of the girls. "That's like that one lady - what's her name?"

That one lady was my mom. But of course I didn't tell them that.

"OMG. You look so weird!"

"Are you, like, a freak?"

There was a bathroom connected to the cafeteria, and peering through the one eye that hurt less, I tried to bolt for it, shoving people aside.

The bathroom was empty. I turned the water on and peered at myself in the mirror.

Fishing the other contact out was worse than usual since my eyelid didn't want to let in any more intruders. Once it was out, I splashed my face with water and sputtered at how cold it was.

One of the stall doors opened behind me and I jumped, the contact slipping off my finger and down the drain. Whirling, I grabbed for the paper towel dispenser but it was empty.

"Uh..." The guy standing there was tall and scrawny with big glasses and bright red cheeks.

That was when I saw the urinals on the wall. The age Teri's bathrooms were flipped. I'd forgotten. My own cheeks went pink, and I fumbled with the faucet handle, trying to turn it off, but yanked too hard. The whole sink head broke off in my hands spraying water like a geyser and drenching both me and the bathroom. Dropping the broken piece, I darted past the guy who just stood there the whole time, staring and turning both redder and wetter by the second. Once I was back in the cafeteria, I realized I was dripping a lake onto the floor.

I heard laughing. Three girls were standing there, looking me up and down. More people were turning to see what was so funny.

"We wondered where you'd gone," said one of them, and I recognized her voice from earlier.

 My wet clothes were cold. More predators were gathering. 

"Wow. Look at those purple eyes!" Announced one of the girls.

Some of the kids closest to us turned and looked.

I ducked my head and tried to slide past the nearest guy and get to the girl's restroom, but one of the girl snaked out her hand and caught my wrist.

"Are they real?"

"Look!"

The space around me was getting more congested by the second as students clogged it, trying to see what all the commotion was about.

"Show us your freaky skills!" Someone said. 

Over the girl's shoulder, I could see Stephen Ramikin parting the crowd, his posey of football guys following him. I cowered down.

And I had thought the worse that would happen was Stephen Ramikin saying no.

Everyone was so close I could feel them all breathing on me, their words crowding the air and slithering into my ears. Their odors were all smashed together against my nose. I backed into the wall and pressed myself against it. There was no way out.

"I've never seen someone like her in real life!"

"Did anyone know she was a freak?"

"What's going on?"

"You know that one girl with the frizzy hair?"

"She totally has purple eyes!"

"Look!"

"What's her name again?"

"OMG!"

"So freaky!"

I could see Stephen Ramikin staring at me, and I wanted to melt into the floor. I wanted to disappear, turn invisible, evaporate, anything.

The students pressed closer, and my throat closed against the torrent of words and breaths and shouts. I gasped, and tried to slide away as someone stepped on my shoe and something - an elbow maybe - hit me in the ribs.

"Ow!" Someone said.

"Indra?" I heard Betsy call, but she was lost in the jostling crowd.

Without thinking, I slammed myself backwards into the wall. The plastered cement cracked. I felt a metal beam in the wall groan and shriek as I hit it. People gasped.

"She's a monster!" Someone yelled.

The hands holding me disappeared.

I turned around to face the destruction. It looked like a rhinoceros had charged the wall. Cracks were spreading out from the hole etching their way up the the ceiling.

"Look out!"

A girl screamed.

The ceiling collapsed.

I knew this was going to turn out to be a rotten day.

Thankfully, most everyone was intelligent enough to get out of the way. Except for that one girl with the new skirt she didn't want to get wet. She must have gotten knocked over in her pointy high heels and twisted her ankle, because as the ceiling fell, she sat there and shrieked.

The shriek was cut off by the thud of plaster and dust. Coughing erupted.

I ran forward and lifted the sheet of ceiling off the girl. She stared up at me with terror as I tossed the ceiling piece aside.

That's when I realized the floor was cracking too.

Great.

I went to grab her just as the floor gave way. One second ago, I had no idea our school even had a basement. Now, very suddenly, I became intimately acquainted with the basement floor as my face collided with it.

Wincing, I looked up and heard more gasping.

There, right above me in the air, was none other than Spencer Ramikin. He was holding the unfortunate girl, and he was flying.

Like, literally flying. Like, his feet were not on the floor. Because there was no floor.

It's one thing to know you have weird powers, but it's totally different to realize the coolest kid in school is just as much of a hidden freak as you are.

The girl looked down and started screaming again.

Spencer floated over to the place where there was still floor to be had and set her down. She shoved him away and started crying.

"OMG!"

"Did you see that?"

"How many freaks are there in this school?"

 Spencer looked down over the edge of the hole to where I was sprawled.

Maybe it was my imagination, but I was pretty positive he was wearing colored contacts.

"Um..." I said. "Would you like to go to the spring dance with me?"

(photo by CurioSEOty)

A Boy Who Might Have Been a Monster

1,106 words - teen fantasy

Once upon a time, there was a monster and a girl. The girl’s name was Soray, and she was fifteen years old. The monster didn’t have a name, not a real name anyway.

Once upon a time, there were monsters everywhere. Monsters with teeth and claws. Monsters that could hide anywhere, be anything.

Once upon a time, a monster and a girl met in the forest. Or maybe it was a boy and a girl. It was always hard to tell with monsters. The boy had an ax. The girl had a basket and her mother’s crossbow. Inside the basket were two pats of fresh churned butter, one jar of strawberry jam, and a bouquet of wild honeysuckles. Inside the crossbow was an arrow. The basket was for her grandmother who lived in the forest because she wasn’t afraid of the monsters. The crossbow was for staying alive.

When Soray was seven, a stranger knocked on the door, and her father let him inside. The snow was as deep as Soray’s shoulders and the stranger was shivering so hard he was making his own windstorm inside their cottage. Her father gave him a blanket by the fire, but before the tea was hot the stranger had thrown off his disguise and her eaten her father in three dripping bites. The monster had more teeth than Soray could count. It would have eaten her too if her mother hadn’t shot it through three times.

Monsters were everywhere.

When the boy and the girl saw each other, the boy dropped his ax and Soray dropped her basket and her bow. The honeysuckles and the jam and the butter spilled out. The crossbow hit a rock, springing the arrow and almost hitting the boy.

“I’m not a monster,” the boy said.

“I don’t believe you,” Soray said. That was her last arrow. “Only monsters live in these woods.
“You’re here,” the boy pointed out.

“I’m visiting my grandmother.”

“Is she a monster?”

Soray narrowed her eyes. “No. She’s a fool.”

She had the crossbow. But she didn’t have any more arrows. She didn’t know how long it would take to run to her grandmother’s house. And she knew there was no one else nearby to hear her scream.

 So instead of shooting, or running, or screaming, she knelt down and gathered up her honeysuckle bouquet. Some of the flowers had fallen off, but she swept them into the basket anyway. The butter’s cloth was dirty, but she brushed it off. The jam jar was fine.

“If you’re going to eat me,” she said, “I can’t stop you.”

“I’m not going to eat you,” the boy said.

 Soray put the crossbow on her back. “Good. Because my grandmother would find you and shoot you if you did.”

 “Where does she live?” the boy asked. He still hadn’t picked up the ax. But monsters didn’t need axes to eat people.

  “I’m not telling you,” said Soray.

  The boy looked at her basket. “There are more honeysuckles just off the path.” He pointed.

  Soray didn’t look where he was pointing. If she turned, he might change into something with too many teeth and then it would be too late. Maybe it was already too late.

  “Why do you have an ax?” she asked.

  “In case I meet any monsters.” Hefting the ax handle, he unstuck the blade from where it had buried itself in the ground.

  Soray took a step back. “I’m going to go find my arrow.”

   The boy nodded and put the ax on his shoulder. “Okay.”

  Soray waited for him to move. When he didn’t, she sucked in her breath and marched past him, stepping off the path and into the tangled vines. She didn’t look back to see if she was going to be eaten. There was nothing she could do if she was.

    When she found the arrow, it was embedded in a tree trunk so deep she couldn’t get it free. When she turned around, the boy was gone.

  Her grandmother’s cottage was small with a vegetable garden out front. When Soray knocked on the door, she heard her grandmother shuffle to open it, lifting the latches that kept it locked one by one.

  Her grandmother was wearing a floured apron, and her house smelled like fresh bread. The aroma made Soray’s mouth water. She held out the basket.

  “My mother wanted me to bring you these, grandmother.”

 “Come inside, child. Come inside.” Her grandmother ushered her in and closed the door, doing the latches back up, one by one. “Where are your arrows, child?” she asked. “There are monsters in these parts.”

  “I lost them,” said Soray. She set the basket on the table. Her grandmother’s crossbow wasn’t by the door. Neither were her arrows. “Where are yours?”

  Her grandmother shuffled to the table, rubbing her back. “I ache something fierce today,” she said. “Let’s see what your mother sent.” Lifting the honeysuckles, she peered in at the butter and jam. “How thoughtful.”

Soray backed away. “Grandmother,” she said. “Where is your crossbow?”

“Why ever are you asking about it, child?” Her grandmother set the jam on the table with a hollow thunk.

 “I need a new arrow,” said Soray. “For my trip back home. There are monsters in these parts, you know.”

  “Yes,” said her grandmother. “Yes, there are.”

  Soray narrowed her eyes. “I’m hungry,” she said. “May I have something to eat?”

  “Of course.” Her grandmother smiled. Her teeth were sharp. “I’m hungry too.”

   Soray ran for the door, but the monster got there first, all resemblance to her grandmother gone. Only the apron stayed tied around the monster, drool dripping onto it.

    Soray knew it was foolish, but she screamed anyway. The sound was so loud it startled her. Grabbing the jam off the table, she threw it at the monster and ran for her grandmother’s bedroom, slamming the door closed behind her. There on the bed sat the crossbow and a quiver of arrows. Shucking the crossbow off her back, she slid an arrow free and notched it.

    The door banged open, hitting the wall. The boy from the forest was standing there. The ax was gone.

    Soray leveled the crossbow at him.

    “I told you I’m not a monster,” he said.

    “I wish I believed you.” Soray fired.

(photo by Orin Zebest)

100 Gigabytes

2,922 words - teen fiction

When I was born, my parents purchased the standard infant memory wetware package of 50 terabytes. Babies have to soak up a lot of new information, so you’ve got to start off with quite a bit of room in their brain or they'll turn out stupid. No one wants a stupid kid.

At three months, my parents upgraded my memory to a full 100 terabytes of wetware, giving me ample room to learn things like language and motor skills and to develop muscle memory.

The human brain can hold up to 2.5 petabytes, but the average person functions at 100 terabytes. Memory is $1 a gig. Since a terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, and a petabyte is 1,000 terabytes, storage room in your brain gets a little pricey.

I might not be rich, but I certainly don’t intend to be average. Since my sixteenth birthday, I’ve been working at a little burger and shake place on the corner of 9th and 27th. I make a nice $500 a month there, and mom lets me spend $100 of that on a H2735 100 gigabyte memory wetware package. I’m up to 1,600 gigabytes in my brain, and I don’t intend to stop anytime soon.            

The burger and shake place is where I first saw the tallest guy of my entire life. And by tallest I mean hottest. Because, let’s be honest, at 5’11” I’m a disaster of a prom date. Tall equals attractive. As long as he isn’t covered in acne. Obviously.

           This guy was wearing a t-shirt that said, “There are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary numbers and those who don’t.” So he fell into the hot category.

           While he was standing in line, I kept thinking, “Please come to my cash register!” But when he did, my brain shut off. It was like all those gigabytes I had in my skull got unplugged, and I couldn’t remember how to even smile.

           “Hey, Sienna,” he said.

           This guy knew me?! I forgot how to breathe too.

           “We missed you at Todd’s on Friday,” he said. “Did you have to work?”

           I guess my muscle memory kicked in because I said, “Would you like a shake with that?”

           He laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

           I gave a nervous laugh back. James at the next cash register over gave me a weird look.

           “You get off at 7:30 tonight?” the tall guy asked.

           He also knew my schedule? It would have been creepy if he wasn’t so tall and nerdy.

           I managed to nod.

           “Want to see a movie or something?”

           Was he asking me out? I said, “Uh….”

He laughed again, only this time it sounded a little concerned. “You okay?” he asked.

           I nodded again.

           Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the dinner line stacking up. “I’ll text you.”

           I nodded again. Once I had remembered how to do something I couldn’t stop doing it.

           “’Kay,” he said. “See you later?”

           I nodded for the hundredth time.

           He gave me a hesitant smile on his way out the door. I nodded back.

           “You sure you’re alright?” James asked, leaning over to me.

           “What?” Now that the tall guy was out of sight, my brain rebooted. “Yeah, of course.”

           James raised his eyebrows.

           At 7:30, two hours after the tall-guy encounter, I clocked out and checked my phone. There was a text. I didn’t recognize the name, but my phone knew the number.

           Keene: You up for a movie tonight?

           If I had entered this guy’s number into my phone I had to know who he was, right? When I opened the text, there wasn’t just one message. There were dozens of previous conversations. More than I could scroll back through. Clutching the phone, I stared at the black letters against the glowing screen, at all these texts I could not remember sending or receiving.             

Keene: Morning sunshine :)

           Me: Morning handsome :)

           Me: I got the sticky note you left on my locker. Did you have to skip school to do that?

           Keene: <3

           Me: Happy three-month anniversary!! :*

           Keene: Best three months of my life! :D

           Keene: P.S. Have I told you you’re gorgeous?

           Me: Have I told you you’re the best boyfriend ever?

           My phone rang making me jump. The caller ID said it was Keene.

I answered automatically. “Hello?”

           “Hey, Sienna!” It was the tall guy. He sounded relieved. “How was work?”

           “It was fine.”  My breath was making misty air in front of me. He had my number. Was he a stalker? He seemed geeky and attractive, which I was all for, but how had he gotten my number? How had I gotten his?

           “Great!” he said. “So, are you up for a movie tonight? Or do you want to get home early to study for the competition tomorrow?”

           “A movie sounds nice. I like movies.” What was I saying? Words were just coming out of me. How did he know I had a math competition tomorrow? “But I’d better ask my mom.”

           “Oh,” he said. “Sure. I mean, do you guys have something going on this evening?”

           “No,” I said. “No, we don’t. I don’t think we do. I just don’t want her to worry.”

           “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. Of course. Let me know?”

           “Yeah.” My voice was too high. “Yeah, I’ll text you.”

           “Okay,” he said. “Talk to you soon.”

           I nodded, which was stupid. He couldn’t see me.

           “Hey, Sienna?”

           “Yeah?”

           He paused for a second. “Are we okay?”

           “What?”

           “You are me? Are we… you know, okay?”

           “Uh…” My brain was rifling through all 1,600 gigabytes of memory storage, trying to dig up something on this guy. I pictured papers flying as little people inside my head tore through filing cabinets full of folders of information on my life. I was coming up blank.

           “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to answer that. We can talk about it later. Let me know if you want to do something tonight.”

           “Yeah.”

           “Love you.” He disconnected.

           I held the phone to my ear for a few blank seconds. Then I sat down on the curb so hard my butt hurt. I was crazy. That was the only explanation. My phone thought I’d had a boyfriend for over three month. Either the phone was crazy or I was. I typed out a text to my mom. I didn’t want to admit I might be losing my mind, but I needed some sort of confirmation from her that I wasn’t hallucinating this guy. I debated what to say for a few minutes before texting her.

           Me: A guy named Keene asked me to go to the movies tonight. Is that alright?

           I took slow breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth while I waited for her to text back. My sanity depended on her reply. But when my phone chimed, all I had was a winky face. What was that supposed to mean?

I rubbed my arms and looked up and down the street. I usually walked home, but if there was a chance I might be going on a date instead, I didn’t want to throw it away. I wondered if that made me stupid. I guess no matter how much brain capacity you have at birth, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll make smart decisions.

Texting Keene back took way too long since I deleted the text at least five times.

           Me: My mom doesn’t mind. Movie?

           Keene: Great! I’ll be there in five.

           Shoving the phone in my pocket, I huddled on the cement and waited. I wondered if this was a prank my friends were pulling to see if they could hook me up. Or if this guy was a serial killer who had stolen my phone for a bit before approaching me. Maybe my body would show up on the news tomorrow. There had to be some software to load fake texts onto a phone, right?

           A beat-up brown truck pulled up to the curb next to me and the window rolled down.

           “Hey,” said Keene.

           “Hey,” I said. I glanced at the license plate and committed it to memory, just in case. Good thing I had so much extra storage space. But I still got in the car, my heart jumping around.

           “So,” said Keene as we drove. “You want to talk about it?”

           I fidgeted with my phone. “Uh…”

           “You don’t have to,” he said. “But is it me? Am I doing something wrong?” When I still didn’t answer, his knuckles whitened as he said, “Is there another guy?” He looked like he was strangling his steering wheel.

           I gave a little laugh. “I’m a computer geek,” I said. “What do you think?” Until five minutes ago, I hadn’t thought there was even one guy.

           He shrugged but didn’t give his steering wheel a chance to breathe.

           “If it’s James,” he said, “you should know-”

           I burst out laughing. “James? Seriously? That guy is like an annoying little brother.” I turned my phone screen on and then off again. My hands were still shaking.

           “Then what is it?” He sounded angry.

           “Is this a prank?” I asked.

           His truck swerved as he turned to look at me. “What?”

           “All of this,” I said. “The texts, you showing up at my work, going to the movies- Did my friends put you up to this? I wouldn’t put it past Camille to engineer something that could load customized texts onto a phone.”

           “What are you talking about?”

           “You! I’m talking about you! This morning I was geeky and single and then you walked into the burger place and suddenly I’ve had a boyfriend for three months?”

           He pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car. “What’s going on, Sienna?”

           “That’s what I’m trying to figure out!” I didn’t bother unbuckling. “Who are you?”

           Keene took in a slow breath. “Are you telling me you don’t remember the last three months?”

           “Of course I remember the last three months! I have over a terabyte and a half of memory! I just don’t remember you being a part of the last three months. In fact, I don’t remember even seeing you before today!”

           Keene ran his hands over the wheel, up the sides and back down again. “Is this a joke?”

           “You’re asking me?”

           “I’m serious, Sienna!”

           “So am I!” Our gazes locked.

His lips were parted as he realized just how serious I was, and I realized what a nice kissable look his lips had. I pressed my own lips together and looked away.

           The interior of the car was starting to cool down now that the heater was off. I wished he would turn the car back on. I couldn’t tell if my shaking was just the cold or something deeper.

           “We’ve been together for three months, Sie,” Keene said. His voice was low. “You’ve known me for six. My name is Keene Jay Anderson. I’m sixteen. My birthday is October 25th, almost three months before yours.”

My shivering got stronger.

“I go to Seven Lakes High School on the other side of town from Kinaford High where you go to school. We met during the summer at a teen math competition. You creamed me.”

“I remember the competition,” I said. “I remember winning. But I don’t remember you.”

His eyes were an intense brown. They were the kind of eyes I loved - full of life and joy. I could see why I had fallen for him. If I actually had.

“I congratulated you afterwards,” he said, “but really I just used that as an excuse to talk to this gorgeous girl who had just made all us guys look like idiots. I asked you for help with some math problems because I was too scared to ask you out. You gave me your number.”

Massaging my forehead, I didn’t ask the questions I was too embarrassed to ask. Have we kissed? You said, ‘I love you’ on the phone. Have I ever said it back? How serious are we?

“What was our first date?” I asked instead.

“We played laser tag.”

That sounded plausible. “Did I win?”

He laughed. “You came in second.”

“Okay, I might have believed you up until you said that. I always win at laser tag.”

“Ha! That’s what you said when I asked you out. But you had never played against me.” He smirked. It was adorable.

How many times had I seen that smirk? How many times that I had forgotten? If this was true, I had lost moments of my life. Moments I desperately wanted back.

I said, “Please tell me we had a rematch?”

“Of course! We’ve had several.”

“And?”

“And you’ve won about half of them…”

“Half?”

He shrugged. “I’m telling you, I’m good.”

I shook my head and looked out the window. “If this is real, why can’t I remember it?”

“It is real,” Keene said. “It’s very real.”

Lighting up my phone screen again, I typed in my pass code and opened the first social media app I could find. I needed more proof. My chest was starting to ache and I didn’t want to grieve over losing something if it wasn’t real.

There were pictures. Lots of pictures. So many that it would have taken someone ages to photoshop them all if they weren’t genuine.

Pictures of Keene with his arms around me from behind.

Pictures of Keene and I taking selfies with laser guns.

Pictures of Keene kissing me.

I guess that answered that question. I could feel myself starting to blush.

Until I saw the ad on the side of the screen.

***Recall notice: Memory product H2735 is being recalled due to corruptible wetware. If you have purchased this 100 GB memory product within the last seven months, free replacements are provided at most memory facilities. Talk to your local memory specialist for details.***

I swallowed. It was real. All of it was real. A weight sunk onto my chest, the sorrow of losing three months of getting to know this handsome geek next to me.

“I think I just figured it out.” I turned the phone screen toward him.

He read the ad with a few flicks of his eyes. Then his jaw tightened. “If we take you in for a replacement, do you think they could reload your memories? The ones you lost?”

I shook my head. “I doubt it. It says the wetware is being corrupted. I’m guessing all my memories of you were all sorted together. And something happened to that file in my brain.”

“Are the memory centers still open?” he asked. “Where the nearest place?”

I looked it up on my phone, but they were all closed for the evening.

“We can go tomorrow,” I said.

He didn’t respond.

“Hey,” I said. “It’s not that big of a deal.” I could feel the lie as my voice caught. “I mean, I might not remember, but you can tell me everything. It’s not the same, I know. But-“

He shook his head. “I bought some of those too,” he said.

“Oh.” We sat in silence, watching the streetlights as it began to snow.

“We should get home,” I said. “Before the snow gets bad.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t move.

I put my hand on his. It felt weird, reaching out to him, but once I touched him my hand seemed to remember his even if my brain didn’t. “It’s okay,” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about. We can even skip school tomorrow if you want and go in first thing. They can exchange the memory on both of us. Transfer your files over.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He started the car.

Neither of us spoke the whole drive.

I woke up the next morning with a dull itch at the back of my mind. There was something I was going to do first thing in the morning. But I couldn’t think what it was.

All I remembered was being exhausted when I climbed into bed last night, like my brain had done aerobic exercises.

When the school bus pulled up, I looked around before getting on, that niggling feeling turning into a headache. It was probably just the upcoming math competition.

I was 30 minutes early to the competition. I liked to stake out my competitors. There was the usual – lots of glasses and braces and a general lack of hygiene. All geniuses I was sure. All about to get creamed. But there was one guy that stood out, and not just because of his height. While everyone else was scrambling through last-minute notes, he sat in his chair looking unphased. Something about him made me want to talk to him.

“Hey,” I said approaching him.

“Hey.” He stood and smiled.

He had a nice smile. Nice lips even. Kissable lips. Okay, what was I thinking?

“I’m Sienna,” I said. “I figured I should warn you that I’ll be winning this competition.”

He smirked. It was adorable. “I guess we’ll see about that.” Then a small frown creased his forehead. “Wait, your name is Sienna?” He stared at me for a moment like I was a math equation he was trying to solve, making my cheeks heat up under his gaze. Then he gave a small shake of his head and held out his hand. “It’s a beautiful name. Nice to meet you. I’m Keene.”

Photo by Schjelderup