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“That’s ... kind of awful, isn’t it? Men are half of people. We’re supposed to be scared of half of everybody?”
“Not afraid. Cautious.”
“Cautious is a polite way to say scared.”
“Okay, then, yes. Scared. You have to assume any man you don’t know well is dangerous to be alone with. For sure, you have to be careful with men you don’t know. But that might not keep you always safe. Sometimes men you think you know well will try to take something from you you don’t want to give.”
“Sex, you mean.”
“I mean sex. But also ... your self-confidence. Your self-determination.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Like, the way you know and value yourself. What you want to do and who you want to be. Your ability to choose those things for yourself.”
“Why would a man want to take that?”
Wasn’tthatthe cosmic question. She knew the answer, but it didn’t satisfy. “Men like power. They want to feel powerful. They’re taught in a lot of ways that to be powerful they have to push other people down, and they’re taught that women are weaker and easier to push down. So they come for us.”
Geneva’s head sagged, and she picked at the sticker on her cup. Siena tried to wait her out and let her feel what she needed to feel, but the quiet stretched too long, and she finally reached out and hooked her hand over her sister’s arm.
“I’m sorry to be such a downer. I just don’t want anybody to make you feel like you’re not enough, or like you deserve bad things.”
Geneva snaked her arm from under Siena’s hand. “Can I tell you something weird?” she asked her straw. “Without you getting upset?”
That was worrying. “You can tell me anything. I’ll try not to get upset.”
It took her a few seconds to get it out. “I think I want to have the mutation.”
“What?”
Though Siena would have preserved her sister’s innocence as long as she possibly could, how could she have? They were a tiny family of the two of them because their mother, grandmother and their aunts had all died the same way, some quickly, some slowly, but all gone. Siena had mutilated her body in a last-ditch effort to stay around for Geneva—an effort which, so far, was working. Since she was ten years old, Geneva had known about BRCA1 and the way it had ravaged their family and might ravage her.
But never before had she suggested shewantedit.
“Geneva, no. That’s not an okay thing to want.” Maybe she needed to go back to therapy. Siena would have to go back to regularly working nights to afford it, but ...
“You know when I went over to Jayce’s house the day after Christmas?”
Geneva’s non sequitur caused a minor collision in Siena’s head, but she managed a nod. “Sure.” Jayce, Henry, and Luis were Geneva’s D&D buddies. They all lived in Desert Lanes. They played pretty often, though not so much during the winter break. Siena had expected to have those oddball boys at the house, or Geneva to be riding her bike to one of their houses, the whole break, but she’d been on her own most of the time.
In fact, the day after Christmas had been the last time she’d seen her friends, now that Siena was thinking of it. Why was she bringing her friends up now, in the midst of this ... holy shit.
“Did something happen with those boys?”
Geneva shrugged, and it was all Siena could do not to leap to her feet and haul ass home to whip some ninth-grader ass. But she needed to keep her cool for her sister.
“What happened, Geneva? It’s okay. I’m calm.”
“It’s dumb.”
“Don’tsay that. It’s not dumb. Whatever it is.”
Still focused on her cup, still picking at the sticker, Geneva huffed a heavy breath and said, “We were playing, you know, and ... Luis was showing everybody the five-inch dryad figure he got for Christmas, and they were ... talking about how big her boobs were. Then Jayce said I was getting boobs, and they started talking about that, making jokes. It felt weird, but I laughed too, because ... I don’t know. Because they were laughing and I didn’t want ... I don’t know.”
Siena knew, and it broke her heart. “Because they’re supposed to be your friends, and if you laugh, too, it feels like maybe they’re not laughingatyou.”
Geneva’s blonde head bobbed slowly. “Yeah.”
