Bx Drops
Chapter V
EMILY
Man, it was so great catching up with Hannah! I was talking a lot, I couldn’t help myself. I told about my time on the debate team, how I made varsity my first semester, which was super cool, and how great I felt behind the lectern looking sharp in a jacket and pants, feet planted, feeling sharp and in control. And how Profession Samuel, Samuel, haha that was really his last name, Richard Samuel, wasn’t that odd? Anyway, he invited me to do some research with him after I wrote an essay on incarceration, I had done phone interviews, talked my way into communities, he was impressed, so now I was already working with graduate students, how much fun college was, and Hannah was nodding along and smiling just like her usual self…
Well. To be honest, she seemed a little off. What was up with her? I suddenly felt a bit awkward. Here I was, talking about myself so much.
“Hannah,” I said. “Are you… okay?”
She looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s up with everything? The cool fucking sleeve. And Jake. I mean, is he your… boyfriend?”
She laughed. She kept laughing.
“No,” she said, putting her hand on mine reassuringly. She smiled. “I’m fine. Never better actually. I think things might finally be looking up for me.” She started toying with my hair, just like she used to when we were kids.
“Finally?” I said, confused. “Hannah, you’re like, dominating! Your chamber group is going on tour in Germany in like, five months! You’ve been on fire for years!”
“I suppose so,” she said vaguely. “But how about you? Xiaowei? A boyfriend? That’s exciting. What’s the matter, Jason wasn’t enough for you?”
I laughed and hit her.
“Jason? That was like in fourth grade!”
“Xiaowei’s tall,” she said approvingly.
“Yeah,” I said. He was a big guy. Total unit. Honestly, standing next to him felt like standing next to a tree sometimes. It was something I admired about him from the first moment I laid eyes on him and… and… I frowned. A ludicrous image of a tiny Wei crossed my mind. Like a deflated wimp.
“Something wrong, Em?”
“No. No I guess not. I’m excited for you to meet him, though! I brought him along because he’s like you! He’s a music… a mus…”
“A musician?”
Uh. I sat there feeling a bit stupid. Was I really about to say a musician? Jesus! I think I had heard him play violin like, twice. He made a joke out of hit, mother made him take lessons, Chinese parents ha ha that sort of thing. He was scratchy, he couldn’t even hold the bow right. And we laughed our heads off when I pointed out that it was a ¾ size violin. God, it looked small on him! World’s tiniest violin, I had guffawed, tears streaming down my face, gripping myself, bent over. He was certainly not a musician.
No, his talent was in finding gaps in the line to dash through, short powerful plunges, hyper reliable first downs, a born football player, a fanatic for it, really. And how could he not be? That body. Vitality just… went through it. I loved clambering on top of him, like a mountaineer. A finger along his pecs…
I shook my head. I certainly hadn’t wanted Hannah to meet him because he was a football player. Why had I brought him? Just to show him off? That felt good, sure, but there was some similarity between him and Hannah. But now I was entirely blanking on what it was! What on earth was similar between Wei and Hannah? Both were… gentle? Um.
Hannah was looking at me expectantly. Thankfully, Wei saved me by walking in the door at that exact moment. He practically had to stoop and go sideways to get through our old, nonstandard doorway.
“Wei!” I said brightening. “This is that sister I’ve been telling you so much about! Hannah, Xiaowei. Xiaowei, Hannah.”
He smiled awkwardly—God he was sooo shy—and he raised his hand and waved it awkwardly in greetings. I watched Hannah’s eyes track briefly to his broad shoulders. They were clearly defined in a tight t-shirt. Briefly I felt a moment of pride. Such a meathead. Ripped and such a kind and lovely person. My own himbo. What else could you want in a man when you’re young? I looked at him fondly.
It was an exhilarating jump into adulthood. I remembered back to homecoming—he had gotten the winning touchdown final quarter. And this sort of huntress feeling of certainty came over me. He was standing awkwardly on the field after the game, something in me pegged him immediately, and it was like an instinct, I approached him after the game. He was all sweaty, I knew how good I look, I felt flush with a kind of coy aggression. “So can I watch you work out sometime?”
We worked out a lot together. Wei leaned close.
“Can I… talk to you. In private?”
Me? I was a bit surprised. He nodded, biting his lip. He looked worried. I slipped off the couch and we went into the kitchen. Jake was there, putting things in a brown bag, but when he saw us come in, he smiled kindly and gave us the room, squeezing my shoulder on the way out. I twisted to look at his ass on the way out, before grabbing Wei’s hand and leading him over to a corner where he stood anxiously, looking like a giant in our old kitchen, and I looked up at him. He was hulking about me. Ugh, he was even holding a football. Jesus, I can’t believe I was dating a football player. I bopped my forehead.
JAKE
I left Emily and Wei in the kitchen. She was so perfect. At this age, she was… ripe. Actually, she’d probably look even better in a few years. That’s not to say she couldn’t use an ass or tits Bx Drop. Hell, she could use a lot of drops. I was really having an excellent time with things. This was fun. I sat on the sofa next to Hannah and popped open the soda I had found in the fridge.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her.
“What did you put in there, Jake?” she asked, looking at her forearm. “Definitely not the ass thing, like you had.”
“I swear to god,” I said, looking as solemn as I could. “I put only in the ass thing. I don’t know what happened. I feel terrible about it.”
She looked at me for a long time. Would the lie work? Finally, she sighed and looked defeated.
“I believe you,” she said. “But can we find a way to make this right? Please?”
She even leaned against me. She was so gullible.
“Of course,” I said. I held up the bag of Bx Drops. “We can probably even find something in this bag to reverse everything. Except…”
“What?” she said, looking me in the eyes, worried.
“Well. Is there anything you wanted to do before we set things right? I mean, we could still take some. Or give them to someone.”
She thought about this for a long time. I could tell she was thinking about Emily. Her pretty blue eyes moving back and forth. It was almost comical. I loved seeming trustworthy.
“Should we look through the bag?” I asked. I lowered my voice. “I’m a bit embarrassed to say, but have you ever noticed that Emily is so… so beautiful?”
Hannah squeezed her legs together.
“We could… give her something?” I suggested. “Nothing bad, of course! Just… wouldn’t it be something if she were… different?”
She exhaled a bit. Her eyes were filled with longing. And resistance.
“C’mon,” I said. “Should we look through the bag? Maybe there’s one that will be fun!”
“Guys?” Emily said, coming out, leading Wei. “We’re gonna take a quick walk. We’ll be back in five! You don’t mind do you?”
“Of course not,” Hannah and I simultaneously.
“Afterwards we can pick up some pizza or something!”
“Sounds good,” Hannah said. “Mom left us some money until she got back tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’ll pay for it,” Emily said, looking at Wei meaningfully. I knew it. Wei was fucking rich.
“Oh, I’m sure we could…”
“Putting my foot down Han!” Emily said, zooming out with Wei. The door slammed. Hannah picked up the bag and started looking at the Bx Drops. She unwrapped one.
“Elf ears?” she read, laughing.
“Take it!” I said jokingly, and she hit me. I unwrapped one. “Forgetful,” I read.
“I want her to be a cheerleader,” Hannah said suddenly. I raised an eyebrow. “Like, totally. Entirely.”
Whoa. She was super serious.
“We might need to mix a few together.” I put down the soda. “Let’s make this into a fucking cheerleader potion.”
HANNAH
It felt wrong to be thinking about changing my sister.
It also felt achingly, achingly desirable. We could prod her into someone else. Not entirely else. Not unhappy. Just… different. A different Emily.
I thought I’d be able to resist a little longer. Nope. I already knew that there was no chance in any world without Bx Drops that I would be as close to Emily as I wanted. I felt like a faulty hose down there, just thinking about it. Oh my god. We could make her anything.
These little Bx Drops were fun. I licked my lips and pulled another one out of the bag, my sleeve was distracting me. I was kinda cool. I unwrapped it. Vain.
“I like this one!” I said. “Do I just… plop it in?” Jake nodded.
“You can also find out more about it by looking at it. It reads your mind or something.”
I looked at it again. Letters shimmered. So Vain—Physical features are high priority. Can list specifics when mixing.
I plopped it in the soda can. It started hissing. Vain Emily. What should she be vain about? “She’s vain about everything,” I said lamely. I wanted her totally self-absorbed. My hand was on my crotch, I had to pull it back.
Jake was unwrapping and rewrapping a few.
“Change her name?” he asked. I shook my head. “How about… Making her bad at something?”
“Academics!” I blurted. I felt this sort of intense happiness, imagining her taken down a notch. Jake reached to plop it in, but I stopped him. My hand was shaking. “No. No. Bad at intellectual tasks.” My throat was dry. He would judge me. Make me ashamed. I shouldn’t make that the way reality was. But he just shrugged and plopped it into the cheerleader soda, it fizzed wildly.
“Bad at intellectual tasks,” he said.
I unwrapped a few. Giving in here felt exhilarating. I was having fun despite myself. Muslim that was weird. Loves a genre. Boring. Athletic. Bingo. I made the additional text shimmer. So Athletic—Become an athlete. Generic, or specific.
I showed Jake, and he nodded, smiling. I plopped it in. “Cheerleader,” I said. The soda fizzed so hard, a bit splashed on the table.
“One cheerleader potion,” Jake said approvingly. He put his arm around me and hugged me. Somehow having his support made this so much easier. “If the person who mixes the drink isn’t present, they don’t notice it as much.”
“Good,” I said, satisfied. His arm fingered the hem of my sleeve. I was feeling almost crazed, thinking about Emily. I would just have to find some other drops that would… Just then the screen door banged. They had returned. Jake hesitated, and then pulled his arm away.
“How about Taco Bell!” Emily said marching in.
“It closed down!” I said.
“Frozen burritos then! To the grocery store! You guys wanna come?”
“I think I’ll stay here, if that’s okay,” Jake said. “Hannah, you should go!”
“Okay,” I said, nervously. I would have to give the drink to her? I stood there stupidly. He had to physically impress the cheerleader-spiked drink into my hand. He winked at me, and I felt a little better. I should have taken a confidence Bx Drop. Oh well. Just thinking about what Emily would be like, what she’d become, I became more confident.
“Let’s go!” Emily said happily. She was always so energetic. She pulled on her jacket from the stand at the door, something cool and leathery, with some sassy asymmetry. “Wei, you mind taking the back seat?” He shook his head.
We trooped out to the car. Emily got in to the driver’s seat. She looked small in the car, but she had developed this confident, jaunty posture in college, I guess. I buckled my seat belt.
“I can’t wait to tell you about this research stuff. You know, I had thought I might go into business, but now I’m really already thinking a PhD. It’s just… well. I want to PUBLISH. I could really make a difference in social justice related fields. I brought you our decolonization theory textbook, I can’t wait to show you!”
“Is this it on the floor?” I ask, picking it up. God, this looked complicated.
“Yeah!” she said, twisting to back out. Her boobs were poking my way. So smooth, the way the shirt stretched. “It’s like this vast world opened up that they kept from us in high school.”
“New flavor?” I said, handing her the drink. She absently minded took a sip and started driving down the road. The sip didn’t end, though, she just gluggled the entire thing down. Yikes, I hope she was safe to drive. I got butterflies in my stomach.
“Whow, that must be good! Sorry, I didn’t mean to down the whole thing!” she said. We drove a bit further, and then she laughed nervously. “I feel a bit funny.” Then she belched.
Cheerleader.
She felt feathery. She rubbed an arm. She resisted the urge to pull down the sunblock to check herself in the mirror. Was her makeup right?