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I looked at her for a minute. “Let me guess, National Merit Scholar, chess club, math team, top of<br />
your class? And you play an instrument, maybe a violin or cello, something with strings. Your dad<br />
worked in Silicon Valley and your mom was a college professor, I’m thinking physics or chemistry.”<br />
She didn’t say anything for a couple thousand years. <strong>The</strong>n she said, “Anything else?”<br />
I knew I should stop. But I was in now, and when I go in, I go all the way in. That’s the Sullivan way.<br />
“You’re the oldest—no, an only child. Your dad is a Buddhist, but your mom is an atheist. You were<br />
walking at ten months. Your grandmother raised you because your parents worked all the time. She<br />
taught you tai chi. You never played with dolls. You speak three languages. One of them is French. You<br />
were on the Olympic development team. Gymnastics. You brought home a B once and your parents<br />
took away your chemistry set and locked you in your room for a week, during which time you read the<br />
complete works of William Shakespeare.” She was shaking her head. “Okay, not the comedies. You just<br />
couldn’t get the humor.”<br />
“Perfect,” she said. “That’s amazing.” Her voice was as flat and thin as a piece of aluminum foil fresh<br />
from the roller. “Can I try you?”<br />
I stiffened up a little, bracing myself. “You can try.”<br />
“You’ve always been self-conscious about your looks, especially your hair. <strong>The</strong> freckles are a close<br />
second. You’re socially awkward, so you read a lot and you’ve kept a journal since middle school. You<br />
had only one close friend and your relationship was codependent, which means every time you fought<br />
with her, you slid into a deep depression. You’re a daddy’s girl, never that close to your mother, who<br />
always made you feel like no matter what you did, it wasn’t good enough. It didn’t help that she was<br />
prettier than you. When she died, you felt guilty for secretly hating her and for being secretly relieved<br />
that she was gone. You’re stubborn and impulsive and a little hyper, so your parents enrolled you in<br />
something to help with your coordination and concentration, like ballet or karate, probably karate. You<br />
want me to go on?”<br />
Well, what was I going to do? I saw only two options: laugh or punch her in the face. Okay, three:<br />
laugh, punch her in the face, or give back one of her own stoic stares. I opted for number three.<br />
Bad idea.<br />
“Okay,” Ringer said. “You’re not a tomboy and you’re not a girly girl. You’re in that gray area in<br />
between. Being an in-between meant you always secretly envied the ones who weren’t, but you saved<br />
most of your resentment for the pretty girls. You’ve had crushes but never a boyfriend. You pretend you<br />
hate boys you like and like boys you hate. Whenever you’re around someone who’s prettier or smarter<br />
or better than you in any way, you get angry and sarcastic, because they remind you of how ordinary<br />
you feel inside. Go on?”<br />
And tiny-voiced me: “Sure. Whatever.”<br />
“Until Evan Walker came along, you had never even held a boy’s hand, except on elementary school<br />
field trips. Evan was kind and undemanding and, as an added bonus, almost too beautiful to look at. He<br />
made himself an empty canvas you could paint with your longing for a perfect relationship with the<br />
perfect guy who would ease your fear by never hurting you. He gave you all those things you imagined<br />
the pretty girls had that you never did, so being with him—or the idea of him—was mostly about<br />
revenge.”<br />
I was biting my lower lip. My eyes burned. I clenched my fists so hard, my nails were biting into my<br />
palms. Why, oh, why didn’t I go with option two?<br />
She said, “You want me to stop now.” Not a question.<br />
I lifted my chin. And Defiance shall be my nom de guerre! “What’s my favorite color?”<br />
“Green.”<br />
“Wrong. It’s yellow,” I lied.<br />
She shrugged. She knew I was lying. Ringer: the human Wonderland.