My Kind of Crazy - Robin Reul Page 0,47
feet. That should scrape together enough to keep the lights on, even if we have to eat a fuck-load of ramen to get by. A kid at my school, Walter Zhou, brings ramen to school for lunch every single frickin’ day. He always has a smile on his face, so it can’t be all bad, right?
This is only temporary, I tell myself like a mantra. Everything is temporary. If I’ve learned anything since Mom’s and Mickey’s deaths it’s that the only thing you can count on in life is change. Except, of course, from a vending machine.
I look over at Dad one more time before I head upstairs. His eyes are closed. He’s fallen asleep. That’s probably good. Far be it from me to disrupt the peace.
I head upstairs and collapse into my desk chair, puffing out my cheeks as I exhale loudly. I’m not much of a pot smoker, but I’m half wishing I’d hit Vaughn up for a joint this afternoon, because I could sure use a little escape right now. I log on to my computer instead.
It seems so trivial in the face of everything that’s happened this afternoon, but I find myself on Amanda’s page. There’s my number listed as a finalist: 456. This whole thing is so damn superficial, yet making it to the next round feels like an achievement, and I am oddly compelled to see it through. I look over the next round of questions, and they don’t have anything to do with the incident. They’re more like questions you’d find on a dating website:
If you and I had twenty-four hours to do anything, what would we do? Would it be a wild and crazy adventure or a lazy, romantic day?
If you could describe yourself using only five words, what would they be? And how would you describe me?
Why do you think we’d make an awesome couple?
What is something you really believe in? How far would you go for a cause that is important to you?
There are, like, six more questions, but I stop reading. It’s as if I’m interviewing for a job that I’m qualified for, but I still need to have the right hobbies to get hired. If she’s really looking for the guy that set her lawn on fire, I’m it. But Amanda seems to be looking for her soul mate. And how I answer these questions determines my fate, her fate, the fate of our unborn children and grandchildren, maybe the course of the entire universe.
But the fact is, you can’t get the job if you never apply. And since you can’t lose what you never had in the first place, I throw all caution to the wind and answer each of her ridiculous questions with witty, charming responses that are guaranteed to make her laugh. At the minimum, it is an entertaining distraction from thinking about what happened downstairs.
This time when I hit Submit, I’m not even mildly nauseated. Maybe the universe will let this one tiny thing go my way. Maybe it will be a sign of better times to come. And if Amanda doesn’t choose me, it’ll make an outstanding story when I’m old enough to go to cocktail parties.
There are so many things in life that you simply can’t control. You just have to accept them, even if they don’t make sense. This is one of them.
None of it matters, and all of it matters too much.
15
For the last few weeks, my dad has been sitting on the couch in various states of intoxication and watching television, only getting up to pee or forage for food. I suspect this is what rock bottom looks like. It isn’t pretty. I try to avoid talking to him as much as humanly possible, heading straight to work from school and then right to my room when I get home. Working on the next installment of Freeze Frame has been a welcome distraction.
I’ve been thinking about what Peyton said about looking for a publisher for my comic. She’d loved it so much that she’d set a fire to get me out of class to tell me so. Mr. Vaughn seemed to like it too, even if he was stoned. Drawing is the only thing I know I’m good at, other than stacking cans of Campbell’s soup. Only one of those talents is delivering a paycheck right now, but for the first time, I’m hopeful that Freeze Frame could be my ticket out of here.
O’Callaghan gives me some extra shifts.