COMPLEMENTARY [GxG]

Chapter 17 | Anatomy of a Dwarf Planet

"Olympia" by Édouard Manet (1863)

(t1tties censored bc this is wattpad)

We head into the water to swim, needing a break from the sun, and before I know it we can no longer keep ourselves afloat because we're laughing at everything. Like that time in sophomore year when she passed me a note during class and the teacher caught us and read the thing out loud to everyone. I almost died of embarrassment, but now I laugh about it instead.

Eris laughs with me about the awkward dinner with her family last week, over Ms. Montoya and her wool cat sweater she always wears, over the time Eris and I started a heated debate over Édouard Manet's painting Olympia in AP Art while the class watched in silence. Eris claimed that the painting was empowering in depicting a naked, alleged prostitute with a confrontational gaze. And I dragged her to filth, emphasizing that the Black maidservant at the white woman's side, purposely painted to fade into the background, only reinforced racial stereotypes. There was no way that Eris light-skin Lugo would convince me that a rich, male 1800s French painter was in any way concerned with female empowerment. Sexualization is not liberation. It took five minutes until the teacher finally had the courage to intervene, and that was only because we were at the point of yelling at one another across the classroom.

"Honestly, Ef, after I went home and really thought about it, I realized you were kinda right," Eris says now, her gliding hands making ripples in the water.

"And you're only admitting it a year later?"

"C'mon, you know my stubborn ass wouldn't accept defeat."

"And what's changed?"

She leans back to float, droplets glistening off her scars. "For one, I'm high as fuck."

I laugh. "Right."

I shouldn't be finding any this comedic, reminiscing like it's a fond memory. There has to be a limit. There has to be a point when I listen to my brain when it tells me: this is too much. But I've let the girl take me to L.A., I'm having her forge my art, I've had dinner with her narco father, I'm in her pool wearing her clothes.

This shouldn't be okay. She had my brother work as a drug mule. She's no better than Iker, using people to do her dirty work. What will stop her from using me? Nothing.

It's the weed, I tell myself. I'm only acting like this because of the stupid weed. I criticized Fitz for smoking with the enemy only weeks ago, and now I'm doing the same thing. This was supposed to be strictly business, tolerating one another's presence for the minimum amount of time needed to get through this competition.

So why can't I stop?

I stare at one of my braids, the pink artificial hair at the end coming undone—it bothers me that I've been too distracted to keep up with my standard of perfect order. I scheduled in writing an essay for today's afternoon a week ago, yet all my practical commitments fall apart when Eris is involved.