Classes go faster when I'm busy, so I usually take decent notes that others want. My fingers tap the keyboard, and I enter a transcendent state, like a seer channeling information from other worlds. The knowledge that sticks may even make me interesting someday.

I attend St. Lucy's International School, an all-girls Catholic school in Tokyo. The only boys in my life fill my fanfiction. That's another reason I'm busy listening to Mr. Z and writing notes. Instead of longing for a boyfriend or other miracles, I concentrate and grow wiser, courtesy of the high quality slides he projects onto the whiteboard.

My feelings disappear while I take notes too. I barely notice them, like background radiation. It's a plus, because a lot of them are about me and my mother. She won't give me space, and unlike other girls, I won't take any. I'm chicken.

After we left my philandering, deadbeat father in Boston when I was nine, my mother fought hard to improve our lives, and I appreciate it so much. My father's a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, but I haven't seen him in seven years. Everyone assumes Mr. Lombardi is my biological father. I don't lie about it. I just keep quiet.

When I'm free and unsupervised, I'm not even myself. I flub opportunities to flirt. It's like I'm coded for loneliness. I stop fun like it's my super power. I'm so used to romantic failure I don't even cry afterwards. It's who I am. Like the feeling I get at night that something is closing in and whispering at me. It's just a part of me.

Mr. Z pauses. He wants to see hands up. Instead of putting myself out there, I reexamine what I typed and avoid eye contact. Risa goes for it while I reorganize my notes in my mind, because they can always get better.

After a little more discussion, Mr. Z glances at his laptop. "A few hours ago, a roadside bomb killed five journalists in Afghanistan." He lists the names, and I type them into my notes. I automatically underline my father's: Robert Pirone.

Then I stop typing. No one notices. I almost don't notice. Images of us in Boston fly around me: dinner at his favorite Italian restaurant and the kind owner who was my father's friend, playing soccer with him and the other girls on my team, walking with him to school...

I don't expect a message from my mother, but I check for one on my phone. Instead, I find one from Cynthia, a former bestie who switched schools after sixth grade: Are you okay? I heard about your father. Let me know if you want to talk.

We haven't been in touch since seventh grade, but back then, talking to her felt good. Risa and I have good conversations sometimes too, especially about books and movies and the future, but I imagine Cynthia now, listening to me. I'm still nauseous, but some of the emptiness goes away, because Cynthia's so strong - on the surface, for all to see.

I lose track of how my father's death connects to the main lecture. Although I give up taking notes, I try to concentrate again.

Mr. Z has no idea Robert Pirone is my father. When I raise my hand for the first time this year, he loses his train of thought. "Makiko? Um, yes?"

I'm not my mother, and my father didn't cheat on me, but he wasn't around very much when I was a kid. I loved it when he came to my soccer games or brought me places. It was so unfair how much I longed for him and punished my mother for his absences.

But after we fled Boston, he completely forgot me, and now that's permanent and forever.

When Mr. Z calls on me, I stand for some reason. "Does being blown up hurt?" I ask. Everyone's loud laughter makes me jump. It clears my head too, like an explosion.

***

After my last class, I send a short message to Cynthia. She calls before I leave the school grounds. Her voice on the phone brings back our closeness in a rush. She knows things none of my now friends know. "Let's go to a movie tonight," she says. "We don't have to be serious. I just want to see you and give you a hug."

Unabashed openness hurts. I'm such a stiff. "It's Thursday," I say, sounding like my mother.

"Yup, Friday Eve."

If my mother knew why Cynthia contacted me today, I'd be home for sure. If she knew Cynthia well, she would turn the car around immediately. I haven't seen Cynthia for five years, but I checked social media. She goes out at night with boys, and in some of her pictures she kisses girls too. I don't want to kiss girls, but I'm in the market for a bad influence. Maybe Cynthia can make me normal, even though things between my mother and I will tank like an overloaded book bag if I'm truly myself.

"You're awfully quiet," my mother says as we zip through an intersection. Neither of us has mentioned my dead father, so she may not even know.

"I'm always quiet."

"At school, but not at home." She smiles reassuringly, because that's how she likes to describe me.

"Do you know any cool boys?" I said to Cynthia on the phone earlier, thinking they might distract me from the mixed-up feelings I have right now about my father's death.

"Sure, they're all over the place. I go to a girl's school too, but I'll see what I can do, okay?" Cynthia said.

Now, Roppongi is at the top of the next hill, and suddenly, I'm nervous about impressing Cynthia and maybe boys.

"Are you okay?" my mother says.

I nod. My hands are folded in my lap and my knees press primly into each other, but tense body positions are my trademark. My back is so straight I barely sink into the passenger seat.

If my mother knows about my father, wouldn't she say something? Does she really think I don't care? He was a horrible provider who prioritized alcohol, women, and his photography career, whereas my mother took care of me and loves me, so I smile at her. She's strong like Cynthia, and that makes her awesome. "I'm just thinking about school."

She nods approvingly and focuses on traffic.

Like me, Cynthia is half white/half Japanese. Unlike me, she has dirty blond hair and blue-green eyes. That stands out in Tokyo, but it's her energy that draws people to her. I can't complain. Boys crave my shape and curves too. They check me out at the train station or wherever. Although that's sometimes tiresome.

"I didn't know you were still in touch with Cynthia," my mother says, disrupting my daydream.

We're over the hill now. The drop-off point is right around the corner, and there's not much time to talk, luckily, because I lose all confrontations with my mother. For sixteen years, or at least the last seven or eight, I cave without a fight. You could say that makes me a Zen master, a sturdy little rock in a swiftly flowing river, but it's not true. If it was, I wouldn't feel like a miserable, ticking, time bomb. I wouldn't worry that a voice in my head isn't mine. "Cynthia and I always talk, Mom. From time to time," I add stupidly. "She was my first friend in Japan, remember?"

Do you like Makiko?

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