Victor: Her Ruthless Crush by Theodora Taylor (beach read book TXT) 📕

I chuckled and rolled my eyes as Victor dropped down into his usual seat on the other side of the low table. “Of course, your favorite snack is fruit. You’re like my mother’s dream child.”

I was hoping my quip would calm Victor down. But he didn’t silently laugh, just grabbed his scratch notepad and started writing.

“Maybe we could learn the names of all these fruits in both CSL and ASL. Then we could—”

I cut off when Victor snatched the bowl of fruit away and replaced it with the notepad.

The words “Who hurt you?” were written out across it in angry slashes.

I lifted my hands to sign ACCIDENT again. But he took the scratch notepad and started writing again before I could.

He slammed it back down a few seconds later.

Now it said, “DO NOT LIE TO ME!” underneath his original question. In all caps.

I raised my hands to lie anyway, but then I lowered them.

Victor and I were friends, and the thing was, I didn't have a ton of those here in Japan. At school, I was too weird for the American kids and not the right kind of foreign cool for the Japanese kids. Victor was my friend, and I didn't want to lie to him.

Besides, he'd be leaving for Hong Kong soon. I might never see him again after this if his father didn't “make a decision” to send them back to Japan before I left for college. Would it really be such a huge betrayal of my brother’s secret if I told someone Byron would never meet the truth?

Letting out a breath, I wrote down the words PROTECT, BULLY, BISEXUAL below what Victor wrote. I slid the notepad back to him. “I need the CSL signs for these words to tell you the whole story.”

He looked at what I’d written, then frowned at me. I was wondering if I would have to explain what bisexual was or if CSL even had a sign for it when Victor suddenly gave me all three of the words I’d asked for in rapid, precise procession.

I took another deep breath. Then I spoke signed, “My brother…he liked girls back in America. But when he got here, he realized he liked boys too. One boy, at least. The grandson of my dad's boss.”

I told Victor the whole story. Signing-wise, it wasn't pretty. Even with the three words Victor gave me, I ended up subbing in a lot of ASL. And some signs I plain skipped over, hoping my spoken English would be enough to make up for them.

But once I started the story I hadn't told anyone else, it all came spilling out of me. How Jake and Byron had bonded over their shared love of basketball after we transferred into his elite international school. How they had been best friends. Until one day, Jake kissed Byron, and Byron kissed him back.

“I was the only one Byron had told about Jake. They snuck around for almost a year, dating girls for show and dating each other for real. Maybe they never would have told anybody, but Jake got too bold. He pulled Byron behind the lockers for a kiss after basketball practice, and they got caught by two of their friends. And did Jake choose that moment to finally come out and tell everyone the truth, like in an indie movie? Nope, of course not…”

I let out a huff at the memory of my brother confiding in me about how his secret boyfriend had shoved him away and accused Byron of kissing him out of the blue. After that, he’d told the guys who caught them and everyone else on the basketball team that Byron had “attacked” him behind the locker.

“Byron lost his reputation, all of his friends, and the guy he thought he loved. But that still wasn't enough for Jake. He's made Byron's life hell since they got caught kissing last semester,” I told Victor, overemphasizing the sign for HELL.

Then I explained to him what happened to my face. “They weren't trying to hurt me. I just got in the way, and the guy accidentally punched me instead of my brother. I told Jake he had to stop hurting Byron. That I would tell the basketball coach. But Jake just laughed at me. He basically said he could do whatever he wanted, which I guess is true because Byron ended up having to apologize to him for me interfering with his beat down. It was totally humiliating. And I can't do anything about it because Jake's grandfather is my dad's boss. Plus, my dad would flip if he found out Byron was bi.”

I deflated a little with the reminder of just how little power I had to help my brother. “So I guess I’m less hurt than upset for my little brother.”

I finished the long story with a sad sigh.

Victor’s response didn't take long. He scrawled more words on the notepad and pushed it toward me. “Not sister's job to protect brother.”

My heart sank, reading over the totally unhelpful note. I didn't know what I was expecting. Some kind of understanding, maybe? He seemed to be listening so intently while I told my story. But then again, he couldn’t talk. I guess I'd mistaken not interrupting as understanding.

Of course, he didn't understand.

We were friends. But we were from two very different places, and there were some cultural divides that our friendship couldn't bridge.

I didn't know why I felt so disappointed. But I shook it off and tore away the notepad’s top sheet to get to a clean piece of paper.

“Okay, let's just get back to this tutoring lesson,” I said forcefully to both Victor and myself. “I'm thinking we should dive into these way too healthy snacks of yours. Then we’ll go over some holiday words.”

6

VICTOR

Dawn was upset.

Sure, she put on a smile and guided him through new vocabulary as she usually did during their sessions. But it wasn't the same as before.

She didn't