Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,84

on to the moment.

Dad slid off the counter. Mom stepped forward. I stepped into their arms.

“We’re gonna work on working less,” said Mom. “And not keeping up with the Joneses. Eyes on our own paper. Right, honey?”

“Right,” said Dad.

She pounded hard on his kidney, causing minor renal stress. “RIGHT?”

“Right, god,” groaned Dad, just like Gray would.

“Big baby,” said Mom, and succumbed to a yawn so big it almost made her tip over.

We released, and I caught a glimpse of Mom wiping her eyes.

“Good night,” said Mom.

“Don’t worry about Cirrus,” said Dad.

“Dad,” I said, walking away.

“Lights will guide you home,” said Dad. “That’s ‘Fix You’ by Coldplay.”

“Coldplay is U2 for beginners,” I said, and threw them both a weary smile. I shouldered my GeoCities hip bag. “I’m gonna shower now.”

“Coldplay rules,” said Dad.

“Sunny drools,” said Mom, and high-fived Dad.

I headed upstairs. The sight of Gray’s room stopped me, pulled me in.

I yanked off my Ring of Baphomet and placed it exactly where I had found it so long ago. I cut a square of paper and covered the IM on the IMMORTALS flyer, restoring it to its original torn state.

I reset the steel chair, smoothed the bed. I set things into the milk crate—cables, adapters, blablabla—and dug out the old iPod from my bag to shove it deep under everything. I placed the crate back under the desk right as I had found it.

I went to my room, scooped up a bunch of Gray’s old clothes, and went back to stuff them in Gray’s closet where they belonged. I stripped down to my underwear and put those clothes in there, too.

Then I stood in the shower for a half hour. I usually never took showers this hot. Hot showers loosened your skin’s essential oils, making you more prone to dryness and itching that only fed the global lotion and moisturizer industrial complex.

But this felt good. I stared at my feet, wishing it were as simple as letting everything be rinsed down the drain.

I got out, put on my flannels, and put my slippers into position for the morning. I bit down on my night guard.

I began texting I’m sorry to Cirrus, but deleted it after quickly realizing how insulting that sounded. I resolved to talk to her in person tomorrow.

I lay down, clapped off the lights. Outside, the sun was already rising.

I didn’t come close to anything resembling sleep. I fantasized about donating all the contents of all my white plastic containers, then rinsing out the containers with a garden hose and donating those, too. I fantasized about donating all my clothes, then wearing nothing but white for the rest of my life to erase myself into a state of superblankness. I would spend years like this and grow into something not quite adult and not quite child. I would become something society didn’t have a name for yet.

I didn’t, of course, because I still had a responsibility to Jamal and Milo and DIY Fantasy FX. If they’d even still have me.

Don’t you dare call us losers, Milo had said.

I flung off the covers, jammed my feet into the slippers. I sat there, just breathing. I put on my big wired headphones and cued up a classic I had considered during my rock research that literally had only three chords and elementary-level drum and bass parts. I slid the volume ever higher. Come at me, noise-induced hearing loss.

A-with the record selection, and the mirror’s reflection, I’m a-dancin’ with myself.

“Dancing with Myself,” I decided, was the official anthem of heartbroken nerds everywhere.

Believe

When I awoke, it was late afternoon. I had slept the day away. If I could sleep the year away, I would. But that wouldn’t solve anything, and things badly needed solving right now.

The room was full of stale sunlight that reflected off my white airtight plastic containers with an orange-yellow glow. They always looked kind of pretty this time of day. They were a testament to years of accumulating, organizing, and building. I hoped they still meant something.

I got up, changed into horrible cargo shorts and one of my favorites, a near-mint-condition vintage F*cked Company shirt from 2003. I sonic-brushed, water flossed, and went downstairs to make a solitary late lunch–slash–extremely early dinner of an egg white salad on high-fiber bran toast and a bowl of cubed cantaloupe.

I figured I should tell someone where I was going. I searched the house. Gray lay in his bed downstairs, peacefully snoozing with an open book by his side.

The kitchen was empty; Mom