Some Side Effects May Occur

2. Healthy Volunteer-1

2. Healthy Volunteer

Sophie’s favorite crispy shrimp luckily come from a place with a decent salad bar, so I’m able to keep her company cheaply enough and without doing anything I’ll regret. I talk her into a few rounds of virtual soccer in her house’s enormous basement afterwards, and Mrs. Chen barely looks up when Sophie mentions me staying the night and getting a ride in the morning.

I stay over as often as not.

The only problem is that Sophie’s house is closer to school than mine, which naturally means we end up sleeping longer and somehow arriving later, getting stuck in the tide of students shuffling in right before the bell.

There’s one important reason why I prefer to get to the work scroll dispenser before the morning crowd does, and on this late morning, that reason comes barreling through that crowd toward us, as if the wall of bodies in the way are so many wisps of smoke to him.

I shove Sophie in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

“Rachel, seriously,” she says, watching his approach with cautious eyes. He hasn’t seen her yet, but he knows where to look. “You don’t have to-”

I wave her off forcefully, and with that slight, reluctant look of gratitude she gets, she disappears behind the door with the “Ladies” plaque.

I don’t particularly like having to deal with Craig Price, but I know it has to be less unpleasant for me than for Sophie, seeing as how I’ve never f****d him.

Or, rather, never let him f**k me. It doesn’t take any of the experience I thoroughly lack to know that’s how it would work with him.

And if intercepting that kind of fallout isn’t what friends are for, I don’t know what is.

I manage to enter my PIN and retrieve my work scroll from the slot before Craig slams it in my face, blocking my way to get Sophie’s as well.

Craig is tall and narrow for the team wrestler he is, with his dark hair buzzed unflatteringly short and a pale, sharp face that could almost be cute if he’d just shave his sparse, patchy excuse for a beard and maybe smile now and then.

That is, when he’s not laughing at someone.

Neither of those things are remotely likely, not with Sophie out of the way. He doesn’t bother to pretend he’s any nicer than he is when it’s just me.

No one bothers to pretend things for me.

“Where is she?” he demands.

I’m not crazy enough to risk escalating a fight with Craig, but lucky for me, whenever there’s something I’m not crazy enough to do, I’ve got plenty of stand-ins waiting in the wings to step in for me.

Scared Rachel retreats to the boarded up attic, and Clown Rachel eagerly takes the helm.

I look over my right shoulder, then my left, tap my chin thoughtfully, and then open my backpack and peer inside, as if Sophie might be hiding there.

Unamused, Craig knocks the pack out of my hands.

“You been talking to her about me?”

“Hmm.” I lean casually against the ancient, 2040s work scroll dispenser. Its metal knobs dig into my back. “Nope, I don’t think your name’s come up. It’s Greg, right? Or Cal?”

“I know it’s you,” he says, leaning closer to corner me against the dispenser. I have to crane my neck to see his face. “You’re the one who keeps messing with her head every time I think I’m close to making things right, but it stops now.”

“Or… what?” I raise one eyebrow expectantly.

Clown Rachel is f*****g suicidal.

Thankfully, the security cameras are enough of a deterrent to make Craig slam his fist into the dispenser next to my face, rather than into my face itself.

He means to make me flinch with the clang of sheet metal, and he’d probably succeed if I weren’t used to bracing myself for sudden blasts of stage light.

Instead, I grab my backpack and duck under his arm toward Sophie’s scroll slot.

Craig follows me, knocking aside three freshmen unlucky enough to leak between us in the crowd.

All I ever did to Craig’s relationship with Sophie was point out the obvious to her, repeatedly, like any friend would, and then share ungodly amounts of ice cream and tears with her when she finally started to believe it.

And sometimes before then.

“You’re going to tell her you were wrong about me!” he calls out, beginning to draw an audience around us.

That’s fine. I like audiences.

“Yeah, I can see that now.” I project to make sure no one misses a word. “Needy, possessive. You’re a real catch. Isn’t he a catch, ladies and gents?”

I fly through Sophie’s PIN -- I know it better than my own -- jerk the slot open, and grab her slightly scratched, oversized work scroll, its software locked into the school’s database and local network.

Craig grabs at the pair of scrolls in my arms so I have to turn and fight to hold onto them.

“Jesus, Craig, it’s been a year!”

I yank on the scrolls, my full strength in one burst, and it catches him off guard enough that he pretends to let go of his own free will, rather than hold on and risk losing a tug-of-war to me in front of a crowd.

“It’s love.” He says this like a child who’s just learned a new word, explaining its half-understood meaning to a younger one. “Wouldn’t mean much if it couldn’t last a year. Isn’t that what she’s been telling everyone?”

“Sure, just not about you.”

Craig looks like he wants to stick his fingers in his ears and start humming, rather than hear me mention Sophie’s not-so-new boyfriend, the one he tries so hard to pretend doesn’t exist.

So naturally, Clown Rachel runs with it.

“Hey, Noel!” I call on one of the faces in the crowd, hanging on our every word. “Do you remember Penner Corbin?”

Noel looks like the name almost rings a bell, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.

“How about you, Sage?” I pick someone else, dancing my way out of Craig’s reach when he turns to look at Sage.

“Super quiet guy?” she recalls. “Like five feet tall, terrible acne?”

“That’s the one!” I confirm. “Would you date him?”

“Uh…” Sage struggles to be polite. “Probably not?”

Gotta love audience participation.

These people are not my friends, or even my fans, but Clown Rachel does have a way of collecting casual regular viewers.

Craig is seething.

Penner’s always been sweet to me and, more importantly, to Sophie. I’d never sic the wrath of Craig or the ridicule of Roberts High on him if it still mattered. Not even Clown Rachel would do that. But he’s currently a good, safe, five thousand miles away, and will be until after graduation.

And this is for a cause he’d appreciate.

I scope out the crowd. “How about you, Evan? Would you-”

“Leave me out of this, Rachel.”

“Okay, not Evan. Kyle!” I point to a new target. “Would you be embarrassed if your girlfriend left you for Penner Corbin?”

“I’d never show my face in public again!”

“Do you guys remember the time that totally happened to someone?” I ask.

The onlookers turn to check with their friends, to see if anyone does remember.

“No one?” I prompt. “It’s only been a year. Isn’t anybody still talking about it?”

Most people shrug, but Sage must get the joke, because she shouts back, “Not one!”

“Oh, well, Craig Price,” I point at him just in case anyone missed the start of the show, “… just wants to remind everyone that he’s still not over it!”

Without stopping to take a bow, I exit stage left at a full sprint, leaving Craig with the whooping crowd and staking out two desks in math class for when Sophie circles around to find me.

Clown Rachel disappears into her dressing room, leaving my heart pounding worse than opening night.

Craig and I only live three streets apart.

Thank god (and Sophie) that I’m not riding my bike home today.

****

After classes, Sophie and I take our usual seats in the fifth row of the school auditorium, messing around on our personal scrolls while we wait for drama club to convene.

The leads are already onstage, warming up. This semester, we’re doing The Music Man, and Marian and Harold are, to no one’s surprise, Cadence Camden and Aaron Hawking, Sophie’s and my part-time third musketeer.

They’re both good.

Roberts High has one of the best drama departments in California, so good that a lot of kids who could have gone to private school go here instead if drama’s their thing. Both Aaron and Cadence have a solid real world shot.

She has a theater fellowship in New York already confirmed for after graduation, and most of her basic procedures are already done. Her silhouette is the definition of willowy, her professionally bleached hair manages to retain its shimmer, and much as I hate to admit it, she really can pull off that dark violet shade she picked for her eyes.

Aaron… Aaron needs no alteration.

Sophie nests sideways in her chair, leaning back against the armrest between us, utterly unconcerned with the competition. She only takes drama to hang out with me, and for the weeks when she gets to volunteer to paint the sets.

Her naturally straight, shiny black hair flares out all over my lap, exhaling the coconut scent of the plain drugstore shampoo that’s all she needs to keep it that way.

She doesn’t mean to show off, to make me pat down my frazzled-to-a-crisp strands and wonder if my roots have somehow started to show in the ten minutes since I last checked them in the bathroom mirror, but that’s what happens.

“What’s my horoscope today, Ronnie?” she asks.

My scroll’s built-in personal assistant locks onto her voiceprint and appears onscreen in the stuffy 1900s dress I put her in when I was psyching up for the last round of school auditions.

“Pisces,” Ronnie reads from some unknown astrological report. Her voice is nearly human. Only her clipped inflection reveals her as digital. “Today will be a day to remember to rely on yourself as others rely on you.”

“I’ll get right on that,” laughs Sophie. “Do Rachel’s.”

“Scorpio,” Ronnie reads. “Today you will face challenges best handled with patience and grace.”

“What day won’t I?”

“Tomorrow you will face challenges best handled with decisive action,” Ronnie answers me.

“Well excuse me. Useless thing.”

“That’s hurtful, Rachel,” Ronnie reminds me in the same mild, indifferent tone she uses for everything else.

“Well, when you’re done sulking, open my last browser search.”

Ronnie brings up my usual string of auditions notices to sift through.

Once I filter out the ones associated with Sharpe Eye Casting (fastest casting couch in the west), there’s nothing new and promising, so I switch over to the other tab, with the medical trial listings.

Whenever I can’t work on building my skills and my name in the industry, I’m working on saving up for my own procedures.

I know I’ll never be able to afford all the work I’ll need done, and even if Dad weren’t still hoping that I’ll suddenly outgrow my calling and decide do something else with my life, he’d never be able to help me.

Just making rent in the good school district kicks his a*s most months.

My only hope is to get picked for an aesthetics loan, but they never pick girls who need a full overhaul. The closer I can get on my own, the better the chances that someone will be able to see my potential and offer me a contract.

If I can save up enough to get either my nose or my breasts fixed, on top of obviously slimming down as far as possible, it’ll go a long way toward making the whole picture start to fall into place.

I babysit and tutor when I have to, but medical studies pay better for the time they take up, and I’m pretty good at spotting the ones that might be willing to overlook the ID check in exchange for a slight compensation cut.

I know that if I ever had to get a regular hourly job, I’d end up dropping out of either school or acting… and it won’t be acting.

I scroll through a few pages of listings asking for people with specific preexisting conditions before one ad stands out.

Posted by: Corinthian Laboratories

All natural beauty treatment beginning human trials. Healthy volunteers age 18 to 35 needed, with no history of thyroidal abnormalities or cosmetic surgery. Be the first to experience this painless and revolutionary beauty and health solution! Earn $100 for first consultation and up to $2,000 for complete study.

I’ve barely had time to flag it for later before Sophie whispers, “He isn’t harassing you a lot anymore is he? Not like before?”