Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,58

rock and roll?” said Cirrus.

“Well,” I said, gearing up for one of my favorite rant topics: music.

“Jazz is stupid,” I said, “because it’s all doo-bee-doo-bee-doo, pop is what they resort to after waterboarding, EDM is the warning beeps before the AI apocalypse—”

“You define yourself by the things you hate,” said Cirrus. “Not by the things you love.”

“I do tend to do that, huh,” I said.

“Me too,” said Cirrus. “I agree with you, you know. All music sucks except rock.”

“Rock,” I said.

“Guitars and drums and rahhh.” Cirrus crossed twin devil horns on her chest.

Her gesture transported me back to the school auditorium years ago, watching big brother Gray become the all-powerful God of Noise as the front man of the now-forgotten Mortals.

“Rock is the last time people had an expectation for musicians to be at least a little authentic,” said Cirrus. “They wanted to know what Kurt and Courtney were like for real. They felt like when they watched Joan Jett or Zach de la Rocha or Kim Gordon, what you saw was what you got. People really thought Henry Rollins was preaching gospel.”

“And yet, rock is dead,” I said.

“Now everything is pop in one form or another,” said Cirrus with a sad smirk. “Pop is not music. Pop is celebrity. Fabricated personas that are all style, no substance. Pop is a celebration of fakeness. Artifice is the only cultural currency left, now that the internet has erased all contextual borders. Or something. I have to think about that more.”

My brother said that once, I wanted to say. Back when he was in a rock band himself. Back when he was cool. They worshipped him. So did I.

But of course I couldn’t say such a thing, because then I would seem like a little itty bitty baby boopy schmoopy kid who was copying his big brother with a fabricated persona.

Which I was.

“Oyah,” was all my stupid mouth could come up with. “Yappers.”

“Maybe I hate pop stars because I’m like them in a way,” said Cirrus. “I change whenever I move to someplace new. I do whatever it takes to fit in. It begs the question, What person isn’t just a made-up thing in the first place? Is it the fakery that makes us real? Is anything real?”

I wiped my forehead, thought of what to say next, but the best I could do was

“Out of all the places you’ve lived, which was your favorite?”

We stood before a candy display now—we had reached the snack department already—and a row of candies sat right at my eye level:

SUPER MEGA-NERDS®

THE SOUR CANDIES YOU ALREADY LOVE, JUST BIGGER!

Don’t fool yourself, Sunny, said the candies. You are not cool. You are not a teenaged rock icon. You are a nerd. You are in fact the nerd that other nerds look up to.

You are a super mega-nerd.

Cirrus paused. She thought.

“There’s this study,” she said. “They found out generally how long you have to spend with a person to make them a close friend. It’s sixty hours to establish casual friendship. Another hundred to become a regular friend. After that, another two hundred hours to become a close friend.”

“What stage are we?” I said.

“We’re an outlier in the data set,” said Cirrus.

She hugged my arm, as if to say, And I’m proud of it.

“It’s hard enough to invest hours and hours to make just one friend,” she said. “You search for a flock that might fit your feather. You hang out with them. Observe every little move. Adapt as best as you can. But even if you do hit it off, it doesn’t matter. Because then you have to move away. Right as things are really getting good. And you know what’s worse?”

“Having to do it all over again at a new school?” I said.

I looked at her closer. I could see faint lines in her forehead. A weariness.

Cirrus squared her eyes with mine. “What’s worse is after about the fourth or fifth school. You already know how long it’ll take to fit in. Let alone make a friend. It’s like knowing how long a marathon’s gonna be. What’s worse is then deciding, eh, it’s not worth the effort. Easier to be alone.”

“Jesus, you’re cynical,” I said, in an effort to lighten the mood.

But Cirrus remained heavy. “Ever wonder what it’s like to grow up without any real friends?”

“I didn’t mean to call you cynical. I think I understand.”

“No, but you shouldn’t have to understand,” said Cirrus. “No normal person should have to understand what I’ve had to understand.