"He's going to sue you, Genie," Jenny Rolston said while we were changing in the locker room. "Once he learns that's how we do things in America, he's going to find a lawyer."
I slammed my locker shut. It immediately bounced back open, more than a year of my rough handling having misaligned the latch. It took the weight of my shoulder to close the dented gray door for good.
"Hey, he got in my face," I said, my head still buried under my jersey.
"Yeah, he was rude. And crazy. But you totally overreacted. He's probably blind now."
"Big Joe from SafeStrong would have approved of my reflexes. And my use of thumbs."
Jenny sighed. "If they suspend you for gouging out the eyes of a transfer student and I have to use a sub during regionals, I'm going to murder you."
I let the team captain have the last word. After today's double-dose of unpleasantness I just wanted to focus on practice. I had better things to worry about than a wackjob new student who'd latched on to me like a newborn duck. I laced up my sneakers, tied my hair back, and joined the rest of the girls on the court.
Jenny's death threat had been a compliment, sort of. I'd been pretty instrumental to the SF Lady Sharks' sudden surge of victories in the last year and a half. But it's not because I'm the greatest athlete in the world. I have no illusions as to why I've been on varsity volleyball since I was a freshman.
It's because I'm tall.
Ridiculously tall. Grossly tall. Monstrously tall.
Tall like a model, Yunie says. She's allowed to lie to me.
Jenny had her eye on me from day one. She didn't have to twist my arm to recruit me; it's safe to say this has been a mutually beneficial arrangement. I lead the league in career stuffs despite only having half a career, and I can probably get the attention of a college coach for a few minutes come admissions time. At least until he or she realizes I have the jump serve of a walrus.
The one thing I'm not too keen on is being nicknamed "The Great Wall of China." But then again, there are too many Asian students here to make it a minority slur. I'm pretty sure one of them came up with it in the first place.
My feet squeaked against the hardwood as I took my position in middle blocker. The time flew by as I sweated and grunted and spiked out the minutes in the echoing gym. Our only audience besides Coach Daniels were the shoddily painted murals of fall and spring sports athletes covering the walls.
At first I'd only joined this team to look well-rounded. I didn't have Yunie's gift for music, and I needed some extracurriculars. But over time I really came to love the game. When people asked why, I told them I thrived on the camaraderie.
In reality, though, I liked destroying people. Single-handedly.
I liked ruining the carefully crafted offensive schemes of the other team simply by existing. For five sets a week, the world was unfair in my favor. That didn't happen very often.
I was in the zone today, carrying the rookies that had been intentionally loaded on my side. Until I saw him standing in the bleachers.
"What the hell?" I said. "Get him out of here!"
"Can't," said Jenny. "Practice is over and we're in extra time. We don't have claim on the gym anymore. Just finish the scrim."
I grunted angrily and turned back to match point. I could still feel his eyes burning into the back of my head.
"Someone's got an admirer," Maxine Wong said from the other side of the net.
"Shut up."
"I heard all about it from Rachel," said the girl whose starter spot I'd taken. "You wigged out because he wanted to have an arranged marriage right there in class? I thought FOBs were into that kind of thing."
My eyes widened. The serve from my side was bumped and set for her.
"Shut UP!" I screamed as I went for the block.
Maxine wasn't beyond playing mind games. She was the same year as Jenny, but she crossed the line way too often with the sophomores and freshmen, at least in my opinion. I didn't like her at all.
Her taunts worked this time. She was better at playing while trash-talking than I was. I was off-balance and didn't have enough off the jump. She was going to get the winning kill—
"Gah!" Maxine yelped, landing hard on her butt. The ball bopped her on the head and rolled over the sideline.
"Dang, girl!" Jenny shouted from behind. "I wanna see that come game time!"
I looked at my hands, puzzled. I could have sworn I didn't have that block.
"Freak," Maxine said, as she got to her feet.
I glanced toward the bleachers. Quentin was gone.
Damn it. That scumbag was throwing me off so much that he was throwing me on.
"All right, this has gone too far," I said. "You crossed the border into stalker territory a long time ago. I don't mind talking to the police twice in one day."
Quentin was "walking me home." Or at least that's what he'd asked to do as I left school. I should have told him off right away instead of giving him the silent treatment. Now any uninitiated observers would think we were hashing out a misunderstanding like civilized people.
"Go ahead and call them," he said. "I'm told it's a free country."
Wait, had his English gotten better?
"I don't know what kind of game you're playing," I said, picking up the pace so that he fell behind and hopefully stayed there. "But it stops now. I don't know you. I don't want to know you. Just because I found you getting your ass kicked doesn't mean a thing. And you're welcome, by the way."
He snorted. "A lot of help you were. You didn't even tell anyone at school it was me you saw getting beat up, did you?"
I growled in frustration. There were actually a bunch of things I wanted to ask—like how he'd healed up so quickly, or what had happened to his old raggedy clothes, or how his speech seemed to randomly fluctuate between a Bay Area teenager and a Confucian bard—but I didn't want to encourage him.
"You dream of a mountain," Quentin said.
I stopped in my tracks and turned around. We were completely alone on the block, a splintery picket fence hemming us in on one side, and an empty lot with more abandoned bicycles than grass across the street.
"You dream of a mountain," he repeated. "Green and full of flowers. Every night when you fall asleep, you can smell the jasmine blossoms and hear the running streams."
He said this with real drama. Like it was supposed to hit home for me. Forge some kind of a connection between us.
I smirked. Because it didn't.
"Last night I dreamed I was floating in space and watching the stars," I said, feeling smug. "But you should keep trying that pickup line. I know at least a couple of girls at school like cheese."
Quentin didn't respond for a second. Apparently I was the one who'd floored him.
He broke out into a gigantic, ear-to-ear smile. Under better circumstances it would have been gorgeous.
"That's it!" he said, hopping in excitement. "That proves it! You really are mine!"
Okay. That kind of talk had to stop right here and right now. I inhaled deeply to unleash both a torrent of verbal abuse and a refresher in women's history over the last century.
But before I could give him what he asked for, Quentin jumped onto the neighboring fence, taking five feet in one smooth leap as easily as you'd take the escalator. He laughed and hooted and cartwheeled back and forth on the uprights, balancing on a surface that must have been narrower than a row of quarters.
My head began to spin. Something about his uninhibited display made it feel like there was a light shining behind my eyes, or like I was breathing in too much oxygen. I felt all the nausea that he should have, flipping around like that.
He wasn't normal. He must have been a gymnast or parkourista or whatever from online videos. Maybe a Shaolin.
I didn't care. I kicked the fence in the hope that he would fall and crotch himself, and I ran straight home.
A few minutes later I crossed the finish line into my driveway, gasping for breath.
I hurried with the keys to my house, my hands clumsier than usual. The click of the lock never sounded sweeter. Finally, finally, I slipped inside and sighed.
Only to find Quentin sitting at the kitchen table with my mom.
