“Don’t change the subject.”
I grabbed his hand and turned it over. His palm was red but otherwise uninjured. I blew on it as a mother might do to heal her small child.
“Hot,” I warned in a cautionary tone. “Ouchy.”
He laughed, yanking his hand away.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to play with fire?” I questioned.
“Not since I was eight and lighting matches in the bathroom.”
“Obviously,thatmessage didn’t stick. Why were you lighting matches in the bathroom in the first place?”
“To watch them burn. Duh.”
With Keith, often the simplest answer was the right one. Untouched by adversity, he knew the world to be a good place. I wasn’t as convinced.
“I also enjoy blowing things up. Does that make me a pyromaniac? I don’t think so.”
“Actually, yes, it does,” I answered, no longer able to suppress a smile. “How often do you blow stuff up, anyway?”
“You know.” Keith ran his fingers over his stubbled jawline. “A fair amount actually.”
We exchanged amused glances, and I could feel the sadness begin to fade. Some might say Keith was the only beneficiary of our tutoring sessions, since his rewards were clear to see. They could be measured in higher test scores and passing grades – tangible evidence of our partnership. But what Keith gave to me was far more powerful a force. Every smile, every laugh I attributed to him was another day I kept moving forward – kept breathing. So did it really matter that he refused to be seen with me in public? After everything else he’d given me, how important was it that he sit opposite me at the lunch table?
“Here’s today’s lab,” I said, passing him the assignment. “Take a look. If you have any questions, just ask.”
Without skipping a beat, he raised his hand.
I tried to block out the frantic arm waving, knowing he couldn’t possibly have formulated an intelligent question in the short amount of time he’d been allotted. Ignoring him, I dipped into my bag for my own work, all while keeping an eye on my smirking lab partner. I wished he weren’t so attractive. It would have made it so much easier to ignore him.
I sighed. “Yes, Keith?”
“I have a question.”
“Okay, go.”
“Is this the experiment where we boil acid to prove it contains hydrogen?”
I rocked back in my seat, surveying him with curiosity. Keith had come a long way from the boy who’d met me in the library after school that first day with just an unsharpened pencil to his name. Now, when he slid onto the seat beside me, he was prepared and thriving, as if a low-voltage light bulb had switched on inside his head. Yet Keith loved to get under my skin with stupid questions. The whole floating islands bit was just the tip of the iceberg. And whether his ignorance was real or faked mattered little, as Keith had an arsenal of dumb queries at his disposal.
“Wow, Keith,” I said, in deference to his intelligent inquiry. “You’ve done your homework. Good for you.”
He shook his head. “Nah, this is one of my do-over classes. I remember this experiment from last year. It was gnarly.” He pointed to the diagram on his sheet. “Gas is going to come out of this tubing, and when it does, get me a match – I’m gonna light this place up like the Fourth of July.”
“Uh, I think not,” Mrs. Lee intervened. She’d been standing nearby when Keith had made his loud declaration, and now she was on high alert. “Remember your promise, Keith. No fire.”
“Actually, I believe the deal wasIcouldn’t be on fire. No mention was made of the classroom.”
“It was implied.” She grinned, laying his test facedown on the table. “Let’s not ruin the good thing you’ve got going on here.”
She patted his shoulder, and as she walked away, Keith and I both dove for the test. I got to it first and flipped it over.
“An 88%,” I whispered, gripping his wrist and shaking it. There was no hiding my pride. Keith was proving no obstacle was too great if you set your mind to it.
“Are you crying?” he asked, skirting his eyes over me. “You’re that shocked by my grade?”
It was only then I felt the tears trickling down my cheeks. Swiping them away with the back of my hand, I tried to cover for my slip-up with a faked smile, but found that once the tears had started, there was no stopping their descent.
