[Hemsworth Brothers 01.0] The Slam Read online

  There were no packs of pretty boys slapping high-fives and calling each other bro.

  It seemed as if no one cared about trying to look hip or cool or popular.

  No one cared.

  No one cared about each other.

  No one cared about me.

  No one cared. Period.

  It was sublimely surreal.

  If only high school was like this.

  Tears pricked my eyes and I almost started sobbing with relief.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ENDER

  “HEY,” I SAID, SLIDING into the seat next to Adelaide.

  “Ender!” A warm smile flitted across her face. “I forgot you were taking this course, too. Though I must admit, I had no idea you were into genetics and genomics and development.”

  “I’m not,” I said flatly.

  “Oh.” She blinked. “Then why are you taking this course?”

  “It’s a prereq for my major,” I said and quickly changed the subject. “How’s your first day of classes been?”

  “Couldn’t be better,” she said airily. “No one cared, Ender. No one cared at all.” Then she let out a deep, full-body sigh. “And it was wonderful. Marvelously wonderful.”

  “Okay.” I scratched my chin.

  “Now,” she said urgently. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a very pressing matter that I must attend to.” Then she turned her gaze back to her laptop, summarily dismissing me.

  I watched her for a moment. She seemed focused, almost fixated by whatever was on her screen.

  “What are you doing?” I said at last.

  Without taking her eyes off her laptop, she said, “Adding words to the Microsoft dictionary.” Her soft lips parted in concentration. “I can’t stand those little red lines that tell me I’m wrong.”

  The corners of my mouth twitched.

  Minutes later, Professor Kingsley’s gravelly voice carried across the lecture hall. “Today we’ll be discussing eugenics.” He adjusted his glasses and began arranging some papers on the stand. “Throughout its recent history, eugenics has remained a controversial concept. The idea behind eugenics is that we can improve the human race by eliminating defective and undesirable genetic traits. While eugenic principles have been practiced as far back in world history as ancient Greece, existing at least since Plato, the modern history of eugenics began in the early twentieth century. Many countries, including the United States, adopted eugenic policies meant to improve the genetic stock of their countries.”

  The professor paused, glancing down at his papers before continuing. “These programs included both ‘positive’ measures, such as encouraging individuals deemed particularly fit to reproduce, and ‘negative’ measures such as marriage prohibitions and forced sterilization of people deemed unfit for reproduction. Those deemed unfit to reproduce were people with mental or physical disabilities, people afflicted with diseases like autism, as well as criminals and deviants. All this was done to improve the genetic quality of the human population.”

  Upon hearing the word ‘autism,’ Adelaide stiffened in the seat beside me.

  While the moronic professor obviously had no idea his words had affected her, I did.

  Adelaide was on the autism spectrum.

  Clearing my throat loudly, I interrupted the professor. “Excuse me, but didn’t Hitler eliminate the mentally and physically handicapped years before he started killing Jews?”

  “That is true.” Professor Kingsley gave a crisp nod. “The eugenics movement was negatively associated with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. However, I really cannot see us going backward on this issue if technology and scientific advances allow for greater, relatively safer forms of eugenics. We already practice ‘soft’ eugenics as it is with prenatal care, abortions, and genetic screening for couples. In the near future, once scientists have identified the autism gene, we could routinely screen and abort fetuses that carry this gene. In short, we could potentially remove ASD or autism spectrum disorders from the entire population.”

  A muscle flexed in my jaw.

  Adelaide was visibly uncomfortable now, fidgeting and shifting in the seat beside me.

  I could tell she wanted to say something, but she remained silent.

  I decided to speak for her. “Excuse me, Professor,” I spoke before he could resume his lecture. “Many of the great minds in history may have been on the autism spectrum. Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson, Mozart, Michelangelo, Alan Turing.”

  “Bill Gates!” cried another student in class.

  “Michael Burry!” said another. “From The Big Short.”

  Soon more and more students were speaking up, their voices echoing loudly through the auditorium.

  “Socrates.”

  “Beethoven!”

  “Robin Williams.”

  “Andy Warhol, Van Gogh.”

  “Carl Jung, Ben Franklin.”

  “Emily Dickinson, Bobby Fisher.”

  “Howard Hughes.”

  “Isaac Asimov.”

  “Bob Dylan.”

  “Frank Kafka, Henry Thoreau, Jane Austen, Charles Dickinson. Even Charles Shultz,” said a petite girl sitting up front. “He’s the cartoonist and creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown.”

  “I know who Shultz is!” Professor Kingsley removed his glasses and regarded the class evenly. “What is your point?”

  “We need people like them.” My voice was strong and it was certain. “People who can see things from a different perspective. People who have a gift for finding and analyzing information with their obsessive acquisition of hard facts, their insistence on logic, their ability to see things the way most of us aren’t able to. Many of the advances in science, math, art, and literature have been made by people who had a different perspective from everyone else, and the single-mindedness to pursue that perspective. If we eliminate the autism gene, we may no longer have those kinds of people.” When I finished, I cast Adelaide a darting glance.

  She caught and held my gaze, a subtle smile curving her lips.

  After class, she gathered her things and I hung back so we could walk out together. “You doing okay?” I asked as we stepped out into the hallway.

  “I’m fine,” she said, bumping her shoulder against mine. “Thank you for saying what you did in class, Ender. You’re a dear friend; it was really sweet of you.”

  “How come you didn’t say anything?”

  “Honestly.” She exhaled sharply. “I have mixed feelings about eugenics. I think it’s inevitable and those tests will prevent many children from being born into homes where they will never be wanted. I’ve been able to get by in mainstream society and live a somewhat ‘normal’ life. But I’m aware of others who can’t cope with anyone apart from their parents, and sometimes not even them. And there are also those who are completely locked in their own world and require round-the-clock care. But of course it hurts my feelings knowing that so much time, money, and energy is being poured into creating a test so that people like me will never be born. I guess what I’m trying to say is, eugenicists are looking for a cure. But all I’m really looking for is acceptance.”

  Adelaide drew a deep breath before continuing. “Professor Kingsley called autism a disease. For me it is not a disease. It’s a condition, a syndrome. He could’ve called it a disorder or a developmental delay. But he called it a disease. And it’s not.” There was a small break in her voice. “A disease is something you have. Something that happens to you, but it’s separate from who you are. My autism was there from the start, it was there when I was born, and it will always be there. It’s how I think and view and interact with the world. For me... it’s an identity.”

  I chose my next words carefully. “Hypothetically speaking, let’s say there was a way to edit the Asperger gene out of your genetic makeup, would you go for it?”

  The look she gave me was long and considering. Finally, she said, “Asperger’s has made my life so much harder than it should’ve bee
n. It’s made me different, it’s made me stand out, and it’s made my life incredibly lonely. Sometimes I feel like an earthbound alien.” She gave a tired laugh. “Trust me, my life would be a whole lot simpler without it. But... without it, I wonder if I’d have the same friends. Friends like you and Edric and Camille. I might have been the popular kid with lots of friends, but none who are true and genuine.” She tilted her head, curiosity shining in her eyes. “And I wonder... would I love the same things? All the things I love... paleoanthropology, paleontology of primates, evolutionary biology... would I still love them as passionately, as obsessively as I do now?” She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. And yes, I’ve felt lonely and isolated at times. But you know what, Ender? It’s taught me how to stand alone. Without Asperger’s, I just wouldn’t be me, you know what I mean?” A sexy smile tilted her lips. “And sometimes the world can be an amazing place when you’re slightly strange.”

  For a moment, I was so taken by what she’d said that I completely lost my train of thought. “What is it like?” I said at last. “To be you.”

  “Gosh,” she breathed. “It’s not easy to put into words. It’s almost like trying to explain red to a blind person.”

  “Try me,” I said.

  She bit down on her lower lip. “Do you mind if I use an analogy?”

  “Use whatever you want.”

  “Thank you,” she said graciously. After a pause, she began. “When you look at a painting, you probably see the whole picture. You see the finished product. When I look at a painting, I see the stages from start to finish. And I see every detail... the lines and forms, the lights and shadows, the tiny brush strokes, the different layers. I see the contrast of colors, the saturation, and I see the work invested in it and I want to know more. I want to ask the artist how she got the concept for the painting. I want to know more about the artist herself so I can understand what she’s trying to convey with each brush stroke. I want to know the mindset she was in when she was working on her art piece. Above all, I want to know the story behind the painting.”

  As I stood staring at her, I found myself wanting to know the story behind Adelaide.

  A light bulb flicked on in my head. I knew how to get her to open up. “You wanna grab a bite to eat?”

  “Eat?” Her face lit up like the sun. “I thought you’d never ask. Where should we go?”

  “How ’bout Jupiter?” I suggested. “It’s a pub just around the corner; they’ve got a great beer selection, good pizza and—”

  Before I could finish my sentence she was already marching out of the building at warp speed.

  I had to start jogging to keep up with her. “Must you always walk so fast?”

  “Must you always walk so slow?”

  “You are walking too fast.”

  “I am?” Surprise marked her features. “Sorry.” The next thing I knew she was slowing down to a turtle’s pace. “Sometimes I forget. I don’t instinctively know what’s a socially acceptable speed to go at.”

  “Now you’re walking too slow.”

  She sighed and her frustration was obvious. “I’ll get this right eventually.” She picked up her pace and before long, she was walking at breakneck speed again. “It takes more effort on my part to walk slow. Honestly, I’d break into a run if it didn’t look so weird. Plus, it’s hard to match your speed when I’m constantly thinking about my pace.”

  “Why the hurry?” I asked casually.

  “It’s Minecraft Monday and I’m meeting Piper at the Mineplex Server in lobby sixty-eight in—” She paused briefly to check her watch. “Two hours. It’s already three, and we have to factor into account traffic—”

  “Adelaide.”

  “Time it takes to be seated and served and—”

  “Adelaide!”

  She jumped. “What?”

  “Relax. The pub is just around the corner. Anyway,” I said. “Who’s this Piper person?”

  “She’s my friend.” She started walking backward to match my pace. “Remember? I told you I met her the first day of orientation. And we’ve been hanging out a lot, especially during orientation week since we had so much free time.” She smiled. “We get on like a house on fire!”

  “So what do you and Piper do when you hang out, aside from playing computer games?”

  “Mostly we just chat and eat and chat some more. Sometimes Miguel hangs out with us, too.”

  “Miguel?” I said with some surprise.

  “Yes. Miguel’s a good friend and he and Piper are like totally sympatico.”

  “You introduced them?”

  “Correct. I figured we’re all lonely freshmen and it’s easy to feel like a little fish in this giant pond.” She shrugged. “So why not bring people together? We all get along famously now. Piper likes to plan little activities for us. The other day she invited me to her dorm to watch some shows on Netflix and we had a Making a Murderer marathon in the rec room.”

  “Really?” I said with interest. “What do you think of Making a Murderer?”

  “I think I have a major crush on Avery’s defense attorneys, Dean Strang and Jerry Buting.” She sighed dreamily. “So does Piper! She calls it ‘fangirling’ and she’s writing Strang and Buting gay fan fiction.”

  I cut my gaze skyward. “What do you think of the murder trial?”

  Frown lines appeared between her brows. “It made me angry, sad, disgusted, and completely cynical toward the criminal justice system. Guilty or innocent, those folks didn’t stand a chance. And those nincompoops completely railroaded that poor kid, Brendan. When his own lawyer was sending an investigator to pressure him into giving yet another false confession, you knew the kid was screwed.” She shivered. “It chilled me to the bone.” Then out of nowhere, she said, “Objection noted, and seconded. The motion to disallow carries. No objection to the suppression of the statue!”

  I stared at her. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing.” She smiled sheepishly. “That documentary just makes me lapse into lawyer lingo and mindless courtroom jargon.”

  I was about to say something but Adelaide was too intent on power walking to the pub, weaving her way in and out of people so she didn’t have to stop or slow down.

  “Hurry up, slowpoke!” she called after me.

  We made it to Jupiter in record time. After we took some time scanning our menus, a waiter approached our table. Both Adelaide and I ordered large pizzas. Not to share, of course. Not if I wanted my ass handed to me on a platter.

  “And to drink?” asked the waiter.

  “The house lager,” I said, snapping my menu shut.

  “Hot tea, please.” Adelaide smiled her thanks and handed him her menu.

  “Do you have a preference?” he asked her.

  “Darjeeling oolong,” she replied. “If you don’t have that, then any white tea will do.”

  “Would you like honey with your tea?” the waiter prompted.

  “Honey?” Adelaide gasped in horror. “God, no! Just some lemon on the side, please.”

  After our waiter took off, I leaned back in my chair and leveled my gaze at her. “What was that all about?”

  “Honey is bee barf,” she said. “And the thought of consuming vomit just turns my stomach.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” she deadpanned. “Of course this isn’t something the Honey Marketing Association is going to make the centerpiece of their next ad campaign. But the fact is, honey is made from nectar that worker bees regurgitate.”

  “I see.” I cleared my throat and decided it was a good time as any to change the subject. From what I knew of Adelaide, her grandfather, Jeff, had raised her. But I never knew why. Camille would never tell me, and Adelaide had never talked about it when we were kids. “How come you’ve never mentioned anything about your parents?” I said at last.

  She sat forward, leaning her elbows on the table. “What would you like to know?”

  “Why did Jeff raise you?” I held her
gaze steadily. “And not them?”

  “They couldn’t,” she said simply.

  “Why not?”

  The waiter chose that moment to return with our drinks.

  Adelaide sipped her hot tea before answering. “My parents were meth addicts. Jeff suspects they started using when I was four or five.” She was surprisingly upfront and candid about this.

  I took a long pull from my lager. “Did you know they were using?”

  “I did. I saw them. I remember watching the crystal melt into a liquid structure that cracked immediately upon cooling. I remember my mom’s sudden onset of sweating and shivering even though it was really hot inside our house.”

  I watched her closely, and she looked away.

  Seconds passed before she spoke again. “I didn’t understand it, but I noticed patterns... their cycle of mood swings. They wouldn’t sleep for days, sometimes weeks. They rarely ever ate, which meant I hardly had anything to eat in the house. I remember being hungry all the time. Most days they didn’t come out of their bedroom.” She drew a deep breath. “That’s where they cooked the meth.”

  “Jeff knew about this?”

  “Not at first. My parents lived in Melbourne and Jeff’s ranch was an eight-hour drive away. He came to see us once a year, usually in the springtime. That year, Dad didn’t want him staying with us so Jeff checked himself into a hotel. At the time, I was in and out of the emergency room with all sorts of respiratory problems. I was constantly sick, and I could never seem to fall asleep. As much as I wanted the world to go dark at night, my mind wouldn’t stop racing.” She gave a tired smile. “I never got much sleep in that house.”

  My anger spiked and I took another swig to cover my rage. “Third hand meth exposure?”

  “Correct,” she said. “My parents weren’t just meth users, they were dealers, too, and all that vapor from their home-cooked meth clung to every surface... the walls and floors, it accumulated in the carpets, it penetrated the drywall and insulation. For every pound of meth they produced, five to seven pounds of chemical waste were left behind. The entire house was contaminated. Every time Jeff came over to visit, he had really bad migraines. He complained of his skin itching and his eyes getting dry. Then one day he found light bulbs converted to smoking devices. He saw torches, straws, strips of burned aluminum foil, sandwich bags, the hodgepodge mix of meth paraphernalia.” She sighed. “That’s when he knew they were using.”