Read Online Rules for 50/50 Chances by Kate McGovern - Free Book Online Page B

him over more closely, reacquainting myself with his face. His eyes, behind his thick glasses, are pure dark brown, not flecked with gray like mine, indecisive brown.
    â€œSo, um, do you want to stay here?” he goes on. “I don’t actually drink coffee.”
    â€œMe neither,” I admit.
    â€œIce cream instead?” he asks, his eyes flickering hopefully. “It’s not too cold for that yet, right?”
    â€œIt’s never too cold for ice cream. That’s one of my dad’s rules.”
    â€œHe sounds like my kind of guy, then.”
    We cross the parking lot of the shopping center, headed for the ice cream shop tucked in a tiny corner unit next to the drugstore. It’s takeout only, so we get our orders—coffee frappe for me, mint chip in a waffle cone for him—and sit outside. The cars on Mass. Ave. rush by and the breeze serves as a chilly reminder that sitting-outside-weather won’t last long.
    â€œYou go to Roosevelt?” he asks, and I nod. My school, the only public high school in the city, is sort of an institution. My mom and uncle Charlie went there, too.
    â€œWhat about you?”
    â€œBarrow?” he says, in that way that Harvard undergrads tell you where they go to school, with a little half question mark at the end as if you may not have heard of it. I wasn’t expecting him to name a private school. I guess my face reveals my surprise.
    â€œI know, I know,” he says. “Private school asshole, that’s what you’re thinking.”
    â€œNo, I mean—” I stammer. Barrow is known for being one of the snootier private schools around. It’s hard to imagine him there. “How is it?”
    â€œYou know, it’s not bad, honestly,” he says. “The people aren’t as obnoxious as you’d think. And the teachers have been cool with sisters, with the sickle cell stuff. They take it seriously. My parents sent us there so they’d get that kind of attention, so if they were having a bad day they wouldn’t just get lost in the crowd.”
    I’m pretty sure no one at my high school knows about my genetic situation, except my favorite teacher, Ms. Greenberg. In English, sophomore year, she assigned us an essay on a moment that “cleaved our lives in two”—I remember her using those words exactly. She wanted us to think about a time when a single event—meeting someone, making a choice, taking a risk—changed us fundamentally. I could’ve written about setting foot in the dance studio for the first time, or the moment I went up on pointe, but everything I tried to write felt false, so I gave in and wrote the truth.
    â€œOf course, half my classmates assume my whole family’s on scholarship,” Caleb says. “Because hey, you know, how else would we be able to afford it?” He throws up his hands exaggeratedly, pretending to be utterly baffled.
    I register that he’s making a joke about race, but I don’t know how to respond in a way that makes me sound smart/funny/race-conscious in a sophisticated way, so instead I overfocus on my frappe, trying not to slurp. Slurping is something I am particularly paranoid about. It’s almost inevitable when drinking ice cream through a narrow straw, but it’s also an early symptom of Huntington’s. My mother slurps a lot these days.
    â€œHey, so I read this thing last week that you’d find interesting, I think,” I say.
    If he notices that I’ve changed the subject away from his clever social commentary, he doesn’t indicate it. “Tell me.” He gives me a quizzical look.
    â€œHave you heard of the blog Teens with Bad Genes ?”
    Caleb laughs, hard. He has a big laugh, the kind that shakes his shoulders up and down. It’s a good laugh. “I have not heard of that, but I’ve obviously been missing out. What is that?”
    â€œIt was started by some kid whose sister