#mina deadlock

Mina Ha is their classmate and their betrothed, and they’re meant to be grateful. They suppose many people would be. She’s pretty, the kind of pretty that belongs on magazine covers and movie screens, with glowing skin and sleek dark eyes and glossy black hair cut along the edge of the latest trends. She gets decent enough grades and spends her time surrounded by an intimidating squadron of girls a fraction less pretty and a sliver less mean. Her clothes are fashionable and her tongue sharp.

She glances at Arin once, then immediately to their mother. Only then does she smile, a plastic, simpering thing.

“Welcome, welcome,” their mother says. “Please come in. I hope you’ll forgive Maximilian’s lateness. Duty calls, you understand.”

Servants take their coats, and their mother, impeccable hostess that she is, leads them farther inside.

“These are for you,” Arin mumbles, thrusting the flowers awkwardly at Mina.

“Did you pick these out or your mother?” she asks, snippy and judgmental. She doesn’t wait for an answer before she’s snatching the flowers away and quickening her footsteps. “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Fairfax,” she says more loudly, scanning the whole place. Arin can practically see her tallying up the expense, delight on her face as she takes it all in.

Dinner is an awkward affair, the first of many as their mother and the Ha family spin up plans they never asked for. Arin spends most of it staring at their plate, listening to the Has flatter their mother, Mina’s voice saccharine and so unlike the girl from history class. It’s only after dessert that Arin manages to sneak away, loosening their collar to feel the cool night air in the courtyard.

They’re halfway through their cigarette when they hear footsteps on the paving stones. They grind it out and flick it into the landscaping, but they’re not as quick as they could be.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Mina says. She holds out a hand expectantly. When they don’t immediately comprehend, she beckons with impatient fingers until they offer her one. “Aren’t you going to light it?” she says in lieu of a thank you. There’s not much to do but acquiesce.

They watch her smoke in silence, her lips staining the end red, until she shivers in the wind. She clears her throat once, shuddering more dramatically, then does it all again. “Give me your jacket,” she demands when that fails. She glares at them until they give in again, draping it over her shoulders. The wind isn’t so bad, at least, biting through their button-down shirt only occasionally. “You’re really bad at this,” she mutters.

Heat floods their cheeks. “You don’t know me.”

“I know you suck at being a guy.”

Her cruelty comes from her own dissatisfaction, not a proper assessment of them, but the words cut through like frigid steel. “Yeah, well, you suck at being a person,” they say, then instantly regret it.

She blinks at them wide-eyed like nobody’s ever insulted her in her life. Maybe it’s true. Maybe nobody has. “You don’t know anything about me,” she hisses, an echo of their earlier defense.

“Then why do you wanna marry me?” they ask stupidly. They know why. It’s the same reason half their friends stick around even when Arin’s moody and awkward. It’s the same reason any girl would. It’s not about them and never has been.

Her eyes flash with irritation. “Who wouldn’t?” she asks flatly. She doesn’t simper for them. There’s no sycophantic behavior. It’s almost refreshing what a bitch she is.

“You’re right. Stupid question,” they say. They run a hand through their too-stiff hair then fumble for another cigarette. They don’t want to be out here with her, but they want to be inside even less.

“Why don’t you want to marry me?” There’s another question lurking beneath the one she asks aloud. They didn’t know she knew how to hold her tongue until now.

“I never said I don’t,” they deflect.

“You don’t have to say it.” She looks them up and down. “You don’t even know how lucky you are. Everyone at school wants me or wants to be me,” she says matter-of-factly, followed by an unsteady billow of smoke. “Except for you.” Her armor cracks under the pressure of the unsaid. For a moment she looks like any other teen girl, 18 and eager for the rest of her life to start. She squares her shoulders and says, “Most guys in your shoes would at least pretend.”

“I’m—” They bite down on it. Not a guy, they could say. Not interested in women, they could say. It’s on the tip of their tongue like it has been for nearly a year now, no matter that telling Mina Ha would likely mean flaying themself open for everyone else to see. More dangerous still, they could admit, I’m not sure I’ll be a Fairfax once my dad figures out what I’ve been up to. “It’s not you,” they say limply.

“But it is me. Unless you’re—” She swallows, unable to suppress the crackle in her voice. “I could keep quiet. I figure it’s just a matter of time anyway. All the rich guys have mistresses. My dad does. What’s the difference if your mistress… isn’t?” They look away from her, face hot from her assumptions. “That’s what you sign up for, and I’m fine with it. I just don’t want to be humiliated, so you’ll need me in on it to help you manage your image. If that’s what it is. If it’s not me.” She seems to think she’s being careful, but she’s about as delicate as a Minotaur in Tiffany’s.

The truth hovers between them anyway, because Arin hasn’t told anyone, not even the boys they’ve kissed in private. By unspoken accord, those boys don’t talk about it. As long as they step only one foot off the path, they can step right back on; naming it makes that impossible. Parents may play at being cosmopolitan, but the sort who send their kids to Blackmore consider those dalliances childish. Adolescents can experiment; adults understand the importance of marrying well, siring children, securing legacy. Arin’s legal adulthood will be here all too soon.

Mina’s waiting for an answer, but how are they supposed to trust her? “You could stand to be nicer,” they say.

She huffs, disbelieving, unaccustomed to censure from anyone who’s not an exhausted teacher. “Will it change anything?” she sneers.

“If you want me to want to marry you, it’s a good start.”

“I’m going to be your wife regardless. Quit being a coward and tell me the truth.”

“Stop,” they snap. “I’m tired of the jabs and the demands. You think I’m the lucky one here? Look around you!” They gesture broadly at the mansion they grew up in, that their father grew up in and his father before him and more before that, a monument to the wealth that crossed one ocean on their father’s side and another on their mother’s. “Your parents aren’t the only ones with good business ties. Plenty of girls at Blackmore would be happy to take your place. So quit pushing, and be nice to me for God’s sake.”

Her mouth hangs open and her lashes tremble. Those might be the most words they’ve ever said to her in one go, tumbling out in a rush that makes them instantly queasy. A moment later, her face snaps into a smiling mask. “Of course, darling,” she says with unnatural sweetness. “I shouldn’t be so presumptuous.” She swallows thickly, then shrugs out of their jacket to hand it over. “I should get back inside. It’s getting chilly, and I’m sure my parents miss me.”