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The next words out of 13-year-old Pete’s mouth are, “She likes the ladies now!” Just before the room falls silent.
The word mortified has been in 12-year-old Myka’s vocabulary since she was five-year-old Myka and her two-year-old sister practically sang a chorus of “oh shits” at the grocery store, much to her several-years-older mother’s dismay.
Myka recalls hearing her mother use that word, mortified, when later explaining the days’ events to her father, and she immediately began implementing it into her own vocabulary.
"I’m absolutely mortified by my cookie sales.” She said once. “I was so mortified when Kurt Smoller tried to kiss me on the playground.” Was said another time. “I am way too old for a babysitter, this whole thing is pretty mortifying.”
But now, she realizes, she has used it far too frivolously because now Myka knows the true definition of what it means to be mortified. And she would take one thousand attempted kisses from Kurt Smoller any day of the week over this level of absolute mortification.
Before Myka involuntarily drops her bear and her pillow, and starts backpedaling out of the room where she is now face to face with three very curious and quiet, and super duper cute, if you ask Myka, older teen girls, she decides that Pete Lattimer will not live to see his 14th birthday.
Myka has buried herself upstairs in Pete’s bed, under covers and beneath tears and at one point she’s sure she’ll suffocate from hyperventilating. And when Pete tries to step into the room, she launches three pillows at him and curses his future children and then really highly considers hiding his video games, but eventually decides that that might be crossing a line. So, instead, she unplugs his TV and his Nintendo and his Sega Genesis and his N64 and his PlayStation and his cable box and, to no one in particular she says, “Have fun putting that back together, Lattimer!”
Then she turns off the light and buries herself in bed covers, where she will stay until morning, or until she’s eighteen. Whichever option will keep her away from her parents when they eventually find out the truth about her now that EVERYBODY knows.
There’s a light tap on the door.
"Go away, Pete! I don’t want to talk to you!" Her voice is muffled through Pete’s Ninja Turtles bedspread and so is the voice that calls back to her, but she is very very aware that it is not Pete.
"Well, it is a good thing I’m not Pete then." The voice confirms.
The voice that belongs to Helena Wells, the Helena Wells, one of the most gorgeous girls that Myka has ever known, is speaking to her. She stills under the covers, laying flat on her back and praying, praying, praying, with her eyes shut tight and her fists clenched tighter, that Helena Wells does not find her.
When the bed dips down beside her, not only does she realize her attempts are futile, her body has the nerve to betray her and start doing that weird thing that it has been doing when she thinks about girls like Helena.
Girls like, well no, mostly just Helena.
She feels the covers being pulled from over her head, registers the change in light as a bedside lamp flicks on, hears the soft sigh of too-familiar breath, and the sweet hum of that too-familiar voice.
One time, when Helena had been babysitting Myka and her sister in their apartment above the bookstore, it had gotten really late before Myka’s parents were due to return home. Helena had sent both her and her sister to bed and returned to the living room to lay down on the couch.
Myka thinks she was ten years old at the time. She also thinks she was far too old for a babysitter. But she also also thinks that she would have never told her parents that in one million years, so long as they kept hiring her father’s English colleague’s only daughter to do the job.
Myka had eventually gotten up to get a drink of water and as she entered the living room, she called out to the older girl by the nickname she had always insisted they call her.
"HG?" Myka had whispered. She tip toed her way around the couch. "I’m just going to get some water." But the girl was knocked out.
And that could have been that, but the curiosity that was Helena G. Wells pulled her in like a moth to a super-charged fluorescent light bulb. She could not stop staring at the older girl, she wanted to touch her face, touch her hair, feel how warm her skin was, test the softness of her. And then, all at once, Myka began to wonder if this is what all the girls felt like at school when they talked about kissing the boys on the playground.
They had played the game more than once, where you chase down the boy and you kiss them on the lips, but Myka had never run very fast at all because she had no interest in kissing those boys on the lips. And even when she kissed Sam Martino, the only one slow enough for her to have ever caught up to, she didn’t see the point.
It was so lost on her, in fact, that she stopped playing the game altogether.
But then, looking at HG asleep on her couch and inching her way closer to hear the soft breathing of the older girl resting, Myka thought that she wouldn’t mind chasing her on the playground.
She tried to imagine HG running as slow as Sam. Slow enough to want to be caught, slow enough to want to be kissed by Myka.
Ten isn’t so young anyway. HG was only fifteen. Five years could work, Myka was sure. Besides, she was tall for her age and a lot more mature than the other boys in her grade. And even the girls.
"Ooh, why don’t you just kiss her, you’re halfway there?!" Tracy had suddenly appeared looking down at her from behind the couch and Myka waved a hand at her to go away while simultaneously hissing at her. And the combination of noises and a giggling Tracy and Myka pulling away from the older girl suddenly and falling backward over the coffee table and bumping her head on the TV stand, had woken HG up in a panic.
"Myka!" And it was worry, Myka remembers, that brought HG to her feet and to Myka’s side. "Are you okay?"
Myka was not okay. She already had tears in her eyes and the more she wanted to cry from the pain, the more she also wanted to cry from those tears that were caused by the pain. She was making good of HG’s title as babysitter because she was being a really huge baby. Over a little fall and a bump on the head and her sniveling little devil brat of a sister.
"Let me see." HG made Myka sit on the couch, asked her where it hurt, put her fingers to work parting thick curls and laughing softly when she told Myka she was jealous of the thickness of her hair, despite the trouble it’s currently giving her.
"I hate my hair." Myka told her.
"You won’t always." HG smiled and leaned in front of Myka so that she could see her. A delicate finger found the sore spot and Myka winced, more tears falling down her cheeks. "It’s just a small bump, you’ll be fine."
"Are you sure?" Myka asked with a genuine pout. "I need my brain to go to college."
HG laughed. “You, my clever little one, will have no problem getting into college. You are Einstein incarnate.” (Myka learned a new word to obsess over that night.) The older girl pulled Myka into a hug then and kissed the small bump that formed on the back of her head. “What are you doing out of bed anyway?”
"I was just thirsty."
"Hm." HG smirked. "Did you get lost on your way to the kitchen?"
Myka’s face flushed red.
"Come on, back to bed you go." HG said pushing Myka up from the couch. "I’ll bring you a cup of water in a minute, okay? I’m just going to check in on Tracy."
"Don’t bother!" Came Tracy’s voice from her own bedroom. "I know how to get a glass of water without doing a back flip in the living room!"
"Shut up, Trace!"
"Girls." HG’s scolds were not quite scolding but the way she demanded attention and order didn’t fail her in the Bering home.
"Myka." Nor does it fail her in the Lattimer home. "Open your eyes, Einstein."
She does. Reluctantly. And she’s met with the shiny eyes of beaded judgment from her abandoned teddy, dancing in the air in front of her.
"Why so blue?" Helena Wells is pretending to speak for Myka’s teddy bear in the very English accent that Myka had always imagined her teddy to have.
Myka’s eyes widen but so does her smile.
"You want to talk about it?" Helena-as-Teddy asks. Myka shakes her head and clamps her lips shut to rein in the smile. "Oh dear, it must be quite serious then."
Myka shrugs and averts her eyes. She can barely see Helena’s face behind Teddy and it at least quells those strange feelings inside of her.
"Shall I just take a guess then?" Helena-as-Teddy asks. Myka shrugs again and looks back to Teddy, biting back a smile. "Let’s see, you’re getting older, almost thirteen now, and you’re starting to become very… aware of certain feelings you have for certain types of people you may think you… shouldn’t have feelings for?”
Myka reaches a hand up over Teddy’s face and pulls him down and away from her view of Helena. There’s a moment of silence between them and Helena arches a brow at Myka and Myka finally, reluctantly, nods.
Helena smiles and tucks Teddy into the bed with Myka and pats at the bed spread over the young girl’s heart.
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with you, Myka.” Helena says softly. “Okay?”
Myka bites her lip again and looks away.
"Look at me, Einstein." Myka smiles, looking back at Helena whose face is more serious now. "There is nothing wrong with you. It is perfectly okay for you to be attracted to other girls. Sometimes that’s just how life works out for us. We like what we like."
"We?" Myka’s eyes widen.
"You are too smart sometimes, Einstein." Helena smiles. "Yes, we. Did you know that I have a girlfriend?”
"You have a girlfriend?"
Helena nods. “I do.”
Myka feels something else in her now that is not quite as nice as what she felt before. She knows it’s disappointment, but jealousy, too? And heartache? Yes, Myka can literally feel her heart ache and Helena must see her heart aching because her smile disappears and she sighs, moving her hand away from Myka’s now-aching heart and into her own lap.
"My parents will hate me." Myka whispers.
"They shouldn’t hate you." Helena’s smile returns. "You are so intelligent and you are such a good kid." Helena touches the tip of Myka’s nose. "And you are their daughter. They should not hate you. It’s not okay if they do."
"My dad barely likes me on a good day." Myka can feel her tears returning and she cries through the next sentence. "He barely accepts having a daughter, he wouldn’t accept having a daughter like me if he knew the truth."
"Hey, hey." Helena’s face is empathetic now, she tries to smile through the pout but Myka can see her eyes watering, too. The older girl wipes tears away from Myka’s face. "Don’t cry, Darling, it’s okay." Then she’s wiping tears from her own eyes. "You’ll be okay. If you ever have a problem with anyone, I mean absolutely anyone, you come find me, okay?”
"But you’re going to college after next year."
"You come find me, I don’t care where I am. I will tell you how to get a hold of me. Understood?"
Myka nods.
"Good." Helena smiles. "Now, I will leave you and Teddy here to your sleep."
"What is your girlfriend’s name?" The question spills out of Myka just as Helena moves to leave and she stops, sits back down on the bed, looks back at Myka and smiles.
"Her name is Giselle."
"Giselle." Myka smiles and she pulls Teddy into her arms and buries her nose in the top of his head before she asks, "Is she as pretty as you are, HG?"
Helena smirks at Myka then turns away. “Actually, yes. More so, if you ask me.”
"Does she love you?"
Helena laughs now. “Love is a strong word at seventeen, Einstein.” She gives Myka a sideways glance. “It’s a strong word at twelve, too. But I imagine she loves me as much as can be reasonably expected at seventeen.”
Myka sits up straight now, with her brows furrowing and Helena sits back as the young girl protests, “And what if I love you as much as can be reasonably expected at twelve?”
"Woah, woah, Einstein." Helena holds her hands up in surrender, then places them on either of Myka’s shoulders. "If you have feelings for me, that’s okay. But I need you to understand something, okay, Little Brain?"
Myka narrows her eyes at Helena.
"You’re twelve and I am seventeen, and that is not okay with me. Two girls? Okay. Adult and child? Not quite.” Helena guides Myka back down to the bed until her head is resting on the mattress again.
"But you’re not an adult yet and I am not a child! We’ll both be in high school next year.” Helena rolls her eyes up to the ceiling and back down to Myka, who is all but glaring at her.
"You’re very intelligent and quite mature for your age, Myka. You are also very beautiful and I do care about you, but you are my friend and you will remain my friend, okay?” Helena explains softly but sternly. “Come talk to me when you turn twenty and we’ll see about a date.” She winks now.
"That’s in eight years." Myka scoffs. "I’ll be older and uglier by then!"
Helena laughs. “You’re not ugly now. I don’t suppose you will be at twenty either. As a matter of fact, I am sure you will grow up to be a very beautiful young woman and you’ll have so many girls wanting to date you by then, you won’t even think of me.”
"Impossible." Myka rolls her eyes.
"I’ll tell you what," Helena smiles, "if both of us are single on your 21st birthday, I will take you out on a date. Okay?"
"That’s one more year than you said before!" Myka is serious and this only seems to amuse Helena more.
"Yes, but I’ll want to go somewhere fun and for that, you have to be twenty-one."
"You mean like, a bar?" Myka’s face twists in disgust and Helena is even more amused.
"Dinner and a movie? And maybe a bar afterward."
"And who is paying for this date?"
"My treat, Einstein. Since, I am sure you will be living off of ramen packets by then."
Myka doesn’t know what that means, but she holds her hand out to Helena with a huge grin on her face. “It’s a date.” She says. “Make sure you tell Giselle, so she’s not blindsided in nine years.”
And Helena laughs and takes her hand, then shakes several times to make the younger girl laugh, too, before she yawns and cuddles into her Teddy with heavy eyes.
"Tell your girlfriend that I’m sorry I tried to take you away from her."
"How about I just tell her you say hello?"
"Okay." Myka yawns again and shuts her eyes. "Goodnight, HG."
Helena smiles, tucking an errant curl behind Myka’s ear, then leaning down to set a kiss on her cheek as a soft snore escapes the young girl’s nose.
"Goodnight, Einstein."
When Myka wakes up the next morning, Pete is practically by her side begging for forgiveness because he really wants to live to see his 14th birthday. And when Myka, instead of punching him, throws her arms around him and plants a sloppy wet kiss on the side of his sometimes too-big head, he just stands there, in the doorway of his bedroom, completely dumbfounded.
"What was that for?” He asks as Myka continues walking past him with a smile on her face.
"That’s for me to know and you to find out in nine years."