jealous that my parents don’t care, that sometimes, when Riley comes over for dinner I’m willing to fishhook my fingers around his beneath the table without a worry that they’ll catch sight and say something. They saw us, once, when we were walking home from school. I’d let my fingers get caught up in his and when we turned the corner onto my street there they were, unpacking groceries, my father’s arms snuggling a trio of paper bags. I could see the fringes of cilantro sticking out, obscuring half of his face. Riley tried to yank his hand away but I held it tight, and he looked at me and I tried to smile. My father waved and asked for some help, scanning us with squinted eyes. His gaze landed on our braided hands and he said that if we moved fast enough, he’d let us gorge on the gallon of ice cream he’d bought.
“They’re almost too nice,” Riley said once.
“Too nice?” We were in his bedroom. He was tacking up a fresh shirt. Riley had opened his window, and gusty spring air was flowing inside. My skin prickled.
“Like cakes that are too sweet or have too much icing.”
I didn’t argue, because I knew this was something Riley needed to say, even if it wasn’t something he really felt. When he was done tacking up the shirt, he didn’t mention it again. Instead he gave me a thorough stare and said, “Well?” and then started taking off his clothes. p My mother thinks I don’t know that she sits in my bedroom when I’m not home. She doesn’t rummage; I would know that, too. I spent my childhood taking meticulous care of my things: hiding magazines I pilfered, clearing my internet search history on the family computer, stacking t-shirts over my journals in a precise order with invisible pecks of paper stuck in the stacks so I’d know if they were disturbed. I lined my shoes up against my closet door in particular pointed patterns that my mother would never be able to replicate exactly if she shoved them out of the way to search. They were never once out of place. 45
I can picture her while I’m at school, her Chanel perfume