Farah Rishi - I Hope You Get This Message

Shit. Note to self: think of other kinds of appointments. “Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “All that applesauce, I guess. Eroding my enamel.”

She wasn’t convinced. Her eyes bored through him, and her face contorted as though it was straining to hold back her accusations. If he was lucky, the smell of alcohol solvent would hide the smell of his bullshit. Behind her, the flyer for the National Robotics Challenge still hung on the corner of the whiteboard. She’d probably put it there on purpose.

It was times like this he wished he could ask Leyla for advice. Leyla, the one person responsible for his love of computers and old tech. Leyla, the one person who could always make sense of him when he could not.

Leyla, the one person who he’d been sure would always be there. Until she’d ninja’d her way out of his life.

Adeem flexed his stiff fingers and smiled through gritted teeth. “I’ll start showing up again soon. Just been busy with other stuff.” Like avoiding you.

Miss Takemoto’s expression was unreadable. “I’ll hold you to it,” she said. And Adeem knew she would.

Maybe Derek was right. He was starting to regret signing up for her class. He needed to avoid her altogether.

Derek was still standing by the doorway, waiting. He always waited. And it surprised Adeem every time. He was starting to get convinced Derek would always stick around, a feeling so uncomfortably unfamiliar to Adeem.

Because when Leyla left, Adeem was sure everyone else would, too.

Adeem grabbed his backpack off his chair and followed Derek into the hallway. They walked side by side, making their way toward study hall.

“Everything okay?” Derek asked casually, but his eyes spelled out worry.

“Oh, that. I’m grounded from applesauce, apparently. Guess I’ll have to start bringing corn chips and Pop Rocks to class instead.”

Derek snorted. “I honestly don’t know why Miss T puts up with your ass.”

“Honestly? Me neither.” Adeem pulled his hood back down, letting cool air hit his neck. “Me neither.”

ADEEM: CQ, CQ, calling CQ. This is Alpha Eight-Romeo-Delta-Sierra. Hello, world. This is Alpha-Romeo—

RESPONDER: A8RD… S? Is that correct?

ADEEM: Yeah. I mean, affirmative. Over.

RESPONDER: This is November-Seven-Foxtrot-Victor-India, coming in from El Paso, Texas.

ADEEM: N7FVI… got it. Okay. Uh, I’m Adeem, from Carson City, Nevada. I just got licensed. As an operator. So I’m just testing out CQ for the first time. Kind of amazed it actually worked. I mean, I’ve fixed radios. But never actually transmitted anything.

RESPONDER: Well! Nice to meetcha, Adeem. I’m Jim. Let me be the first to welcome you to the world of amateur radio. It’s a fun little hobby we have here, but you never know when it might come in handy, and you never know who you’ll meet. Go ahead.

ADEEM: Sounds like it. I heard you can talk to astronauts if you’re lucky.

RESPONDER: That’s radio for ya. It’ll connect you to just about anyone. Got anything to report?

ADEEM: No. I mean, nothing yet. Was just testing it out, in case, you know? And I just… wanted to see if anyone could hear me.

RESPONDER: Ha. I know the feeling. Well, rest assured, you’ve been heard loud and clear.

ADEEM: That must be a first.

RESPONDER: Come again?

ADEEM: Nothing. Thanks, sir.

The glass door chimed behind Jesse as he entered the QuikTrip and narrowly missed slipping on a giant puddle—of water, he hoped—that someone had forgotten to finish mopping. A yellow CAUTION: WET FLOOR sign lurked stealthily to one side.

Great. Thanks.

He pulled his baseball cap farther over his face, his dark curls stubbornly peeking through, and peered at the counter. Monday meant Marco’s shift.

Usually, when Marco wasn’t out smoking, he was bent over his phone, or cabled to his earphones, listening to music on blast. But today he had his back turned to the door, and his eyes glued to the small TV wedged between stacks of shitty one-ply toilet paper in the corner. The usual crowd of reporters were working themselves into a lather over the same alien planet bullshit as always. Dimly, Jesse remembered hearing the president was meant to deliver some urgent message to the nation.

More scare tactics, he’d bet.

Marco was so engrossed, he didn’t even glance over his shoulder when Jesse entered.

But just in case: “Hey, my man. Workin’ hard or hardly workin’?” Jesse asked cheerfully.

Marco only grunted in response.

Jesse smiled. Ah, Marco. Always dependable. The manager, Randal, was onto Jesse, and if he was manning the storefront, Jesse’d have to scrounge for loose change to buy a pack of gum just to snuff any suspicion. A waste.

Long ago, Jesse had learned that swallowing his guilt, stuffing it deep down inside him, made for pretty good sustenance. And though his mom never knew why the bread and peanut butter kept popping up on the shelves even when she had no money to buy them, she never questioned him, and neither did Jesse’s stomach.

After Dad died, Jesse’s mom used to recite fortune cookie proverbs like, “You always have a choice in anything you do.” Her way of doling out motherly advice, or comforting herself. But if they had a choice, it wasn’t much of one. Money was tight, had always been tight. When the hotel closed down, one of Roswell’s last, Jesse’s part-time job prospects looked dim; almost no businesses in town were hiring, except for a new Citizens for a Safer World branch—and his mom called them a hate group, so Jesse steered clear. Even if it did make him feel helpless. Useless.

But his mom was already taking about a million shifts a week waiting tables at Pluto’s, and there was a limit to how much he would watch her work herself to the bone for him. Even if his mom kept insisting she had everything under control, Jesse wasn’t stupid. He’d seen the piles of used tissues in her trash can, heard the arguments she had with Mr. Donovan, the landlord, on the phone. Jesse had to pull his weight, somehow. Unlike Ian, Jesse and his mom couldn’t up and leave when things got rough. They didn’t have a grandpa in Nashville they could run to. They only had each other.

Now safely out of sight, tucked between the aisles packed with pork rinds and potato chips, Jesse surveyed the meager food options. His mom had never been a fan of white bread, but the QuikTrip carried nothing else. Maybe he’d get her a loaf of real bread from some bakery for her birthday. The fancy kind with poppy seeds on the crust, the kind that Dad used to get early in the morning every Sunday, when it was still oven-warm. When he wasn’t on one of his “business trips” to California. Or when he wasn’t obsessed with building his weird machines out of scrap metal in the work shed behind the house.

Poppy seeds always made him think of Dad. Poppy seeds, lottery tickets, lug nuts, and Bud Light: dear ol’ dad in a nutshell.

Jesse shoved a loaf in one inside jacket pocket, a jar of Jif into the other. If there was one good thing his old man ever did, it was leaving behind his giant-pocketed, oversized motorcycle jacket with the ugly crow patch. That and his old shed full of failed contraptions and dented metal parts—a freaking temple of fool-headedness and rust.

If only the guy hadn’t left behind a pile of debt, too.

Pockets full, all Jesse had to do now was casually exit without making Marco suspect a thing. It was all about attitude. He eyed the security cameras—no red light blinking; they probably couldn’t afford to keep them wired anymore—and pulled his hat down even farther, just in case, as he slid once again into view of the counter.