Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,63

and straightaway by hand.

A frisson of ecstasy vibrated all the way to my kidneys. I ran my thumb over the ink in her skin. I wanted not only to tell her what her tattoo was, but how I knew what it was. But there was no way I could do that.

There was a whole side of me—the real side—that I now realized wanted out of the lockbox I’d made for it.

“It’s the labyrinth from the Chartres Cathedral in France,” I said.

Cirrus burst with joyful surprise. “Have you been? Isn’t it a-maze-ing?”

My temples flooded with blood. I thought fast.

“I just saw it in a library book once,” I said.

And I also spent two months in Milo’s garage exploring all of its secrets and dangers.

“Once upon a time I had these two friends,” said Cirrus. “This was in Paris. Their French was only slightly better than mine, which was caveman-rudimentary. Their parents moved around just as much as mine. None of us could see the point in immersing ourselves in a culture we were gonna ghost on anyway. Out of all my schools, those two friends were my favorite. Except you, of course.”

I smiled.

“We went on a field trip to the cathedral,” said Cirrus. “And we ditched the rest of the class and spent hours just walking the labyrinth. It was so beautiful and meditative. There apparently used to be a Minotaur in the middle.”

I was bursting to tell her that most labyrinths from that period featured Minotaurs, and that although a Minotaur was a tough bastard with a default melee bonus of +6 for both greataxe and goring attacks, it could be defeated by going heavy on spells such as Psychic Scream or Mind Sliver that would exploit the creature’s weak intelligence score.

But I held everything in. I realized I hated that I had to do this, and would keep having to.

“I didn’t know that,” I said. I pushed my insistent heart back into place with a hard swallow.

“Well, now you do,” said Cirrus.

* * *

—

We cleaned up in the party’s aftermath later that evening. Milo and Jamal and Gunner stayed, too.

Gunner did most of the cleaning. Gunner, it turned out, was a neat freak. Only I knew where such obsessiveness came from: his spotless, dark house, his sneering father. I stepped aside and high-fived him as he moved from room to room with still-drunk determination while his sidekick slept oblivious in a corner.

Good job, Gunner.

A house with no furniture was remarkably easy to reset, even after a party, and made me want to live in a blank space like one of those minimalist enthusiasts in Tokyo.

I thought about the white plastic containers in my room. Didn’t they form a minimal space of sorts?

So maybe not with the minimalism.

Milo and Jamal helped pack up the kitchen. Milo whistled maniacally—the chorus of “Beauty Is Truth”—as he wrapped leftovers, and after two straight minutes Jamal loudly ripped a sheet of aluminum foil and begged him to stop.

“Was I whistling?” said Milo.

“Yes,” Cirrus and I yelled with a laugh.

Cirrus looked at me, then gently touched her gaze upon Jamal, then Milo, before wrinkling her nose: Isn’t all this great?

I smiled back. It really is.

Soon the house and outside lawn were clean, the rental guys were sent off with generous tips, and it was time to head home. Milo and Jamal vanished on their bikes; I put my own ten-speed into Gunner’s trunk and got ready to drive his incapacitated self home.

Cirrus mewled with joyful frustration. “Why does the night have to end?”

“Astrophysics,” I said.

She didn’t blow me a kiss—Cirrus wasn’t that person—but she did walk backward with her eyes locked on mine long enough to fall butt-first into a plant, which was better than any blown kiss.

“Careful,” said a voice. Her insomniac neighbor, staring with eyes gone white.

“Nyang,” said Cirrus, creeped out. She fled behind her front door.

I drove Gunner home. Before he left, he leaned his big meaty elbow on my shoulder, causing my bicycle wheels to buckle beneath me. His eyes were slits at this point. “You are awesome,” he said. “Cirrus is awesome. You guys are awesome together.”

“We are, huh,” I said.

“Why’d you think you had to pretend?” he said with a petulant growl. “You din’t have to pretend, silly.”

I freshened my grip on the handlebars. “Because I’m stupid, Gunner.”

“In that case,” said Gunner, heaving himself off, “I wish I was as stupid as you.”

* * *

—

In the night shadows of the junipers I changed into my civvies. They