Straddling the Line by Sarah M. Anderson

just say that Saturdays were the best day of the week.” She shot him a look that said, I bet, as loud and clear as if she’d spoken it.
    “Cool!” Even the leader was edging closer as the guys began to talk in a mix of English and Lakota. Ben didn’t catch half of what they said, but he did hear someone say, “Like a two-wheeled war pony, Tige!”
    “Josey,” the chunky one said, “can we build one at school? Don would let us in shop, wouldn’t he? Like a school project, right?”
    Everyone turned to look at Josey. Her mouth opened and shut once, then twice as the color on her cheeks deepened.
    “You’ve got to get the shop finished,” Ben said for her. He crossed his arms and leveled his best glare at the kids. “If you can’t build a building, you can’t build a bike.”
    “Tige, Corey,” Josey said over the resulting chatter, “don’t you have to get your outfits on?”
    The group of guys moved off, some still pointing to the bike. Not too bad, Ben thought. He still didn’t know what wasicu was, but at least everyone could agree—a good bike made the world a better place. He turned to look at Josey, expecting to see the same sentiment on her face. Instead of appreciation, she had her hands on her hips and was giving him the look.
    “What?”
    “Saturdays are the best days, huh?”
    “Were. Past tense.” Her toe began to tap. She wasn’t buying it. “Okay, so Saturdays are still the best days, but that’s because of the band.” She still didn’t look mollified, so he added, “Recently, though, Wednesdays have begun to look up.”
    “You can be quite charming when you want to be, you know.” He couldn’t tell if she meant that as a compliment or not. Then her eyes cut to someone behind him.
    He braced himself for another confrontation—who was going to call him wasicu now? But instead of a glowering Indian, a blondish boy who was maybe fourteen stood behind him in a full pout.
    “Jared? What’s up, buddy?” Josey’s voice took on a soft, motherly tone as she stepped around Ben and went to the kid.
    “They’re calling me it again.” The kid was way too old to sound like he was on the verge of crying, in Ben’s opinion. “The girls won’t even talk to me.”
    “Oh, sweetie.” Josey put her arms around the kid’s shoulders and gave him an awkward squeeze. “We discussed this. You can’t let them get to you.”
    “What?” When Ben spoke, both the boy and Josey looked up at him like they’d forgotten he was there. “What’s the problem?”
    “Tige and his gang call me a half-breed,” the boy said as he rubbed his nose on the back of his hand. “No one likes me.”
    “That’s not true. Seth likes you.”
    “That’s because he’s your cousin. The girls all laugh at me.”
    Ben could not stand here and watch this kid cry. It wasn’t dignified. Josey might be trying to help, but she was in serious danger of smothering the kid with pity. “Look, Jared, right? You’re going about this all wrong.”
    The kid looked up midsniffle. “Huh?”
    Ben grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from Josey’s misplaced sympathy. “You want girls to like you, right?”
    The kid shot Josey a terrified look. “Yeah?”
    “Then you’ve got to be someone they want.”
    “But I’m—”
    “Doesn’t matter what you are or aren’t. Girls want what they can’t have. You’ve got that wounded, sensitive thing down, but whining like a baby about how no one likes you? You’re killing any mystery. You,” he said, poking the kid in the chest, “don’t go to them. You make them come to you. You don’t give a damn if they want to be your friends or not.”
    “Language!” Josey scolded behind him.
    Ben kept going. “You don’t need anyone, okay? You’re better than them, and you know it. Everything you say and do should convince people it’s true. Look, I know what it’s like when people expect you to be this or that and you’re not any of those things.” Boy, did he