Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,86
said Jamal.
“Jamal,” said Milo.
“It is, because when you first came to Rancho Ruby, we all thought you were the coolest dude,” said Jamal, irritated.
I gave a pained look, because that was the best thing to hear at the worst moment.
“You guys ever wonder why I never talk about my old house in Arroyo Plato?” I said.
Jamal and Milo eyed me, cautious, curious.
I took a breath, exhaled. “You’re not gonna believe this, but me and Gray used to be best friends.”
I saw Milo melt a little. Jamal stayed firm. Go on, he nodded.
“You’re definitely not gonna believe this,” I said. “But me and Gray used to LARP together.”
Milo and Jamal quirked at the same time, in exactly the same way.
“No,” said Jamal.
“He was Dungeon Master, in fact,” I said.
“No,” said Jamal.
“Shh,” said Milo.
They were listening. I forged on. “We moved here, for reasons I’m still getting my parents to fully recognize, and right off the bat I got crap left and right from kids. Gray, too. You know what I mean.”
“Pshh,” said Jamal and Milo, nodding.
“Gunner came after me, we had to stop gaming, all that,” I said. “Gray had to ditch me, because he had his own classmates to deal with. Suddenly I was on my own.”
“Nn,” said Milo.
“What I mean to say is, when I moved here, that was the first time I’d ever been called a loser in the most serious kind of way.” I rubbed and rubbed the back of my hand. “I wanted to hide in a hole and die. But I couldn’t, so I closed myself up. I watched my step. I got cynical.”
“You weren’t always cynical?” said Jamal.
“I built my weird fortress of storage cubes—”
“Fortress of solitude,” said Milo sagely. “You were protecting yourself.”
I jabbed a finger. “Exactly. But the thing is?”
They listened once more. On a computer screen, I could see a clock ticking away. I could not let them—us?—them?—miss the livestream with Lady Lashblade.
“The thing is,” I said, “there was no protecting myself. Because I started to believe the bullies. I started to believe I was a loser. I never meant to call you guys losers. I was talking about me.”
“You’re not a loser,” said Jamal. “I just told you that.”
“And I know that now,” I said. “Because what also happened when I moved to Rancho Ruby was I met these two clowns, and they became my best friends, and it’s because of them that I’m not a loser.”
Jamal’s eyes fell. He was still mad. But I knew he hated being mad.
Milo gazed at me with eyes of encouragement. This is good. Keep going.
“No cynicism or fortress of solitude or whatever could ever protect me from my own shame,” I said. “You guys did.”
“Sun,” said Milo.
“You are my protectors,” I said. “I’d be dead and buried in a baseball field if it weren’t for you.”
I realized I was trembling and breathing hard. My nose was running for some reason. I wiped it. Jamal and Milo glanced at each other, then back at me, then at the ground. They were thinking. Perhaps judging.
And why shouldn’t they? Wouldn’t I, if I were them?
I didn’t know what I expected out of saying everything I’d just said. It would be naïve to think they’d take me back just like that, everything instantaneously forgiven.
I suddenly felt very exposed. I had the overwhelming urge to sprint home and hide in my room. So I got on my bike.
The computer screen twitched.
“It’s fifteen minutes to live,” I said. “Have a great show.”
* * *
—
Back on the street, I refused to cry. There was no such thing as biking and crying.
It was slowly dawning on me that I no longer had any friends.
At least Gunner was my friend, right?
No crying while biking.
The ultimate irony was that, until recently, I’d finally no longer felt like a loser. Gunner had gone from bully to friend; I had Cirrus; I’d faked being a rock star, only to find I possessed the skills to actually be a rock star.
Now I was alone, with nothing else to do but help pick up the pieces of my broken brother, Gray.
As for Cirrus, I would see her in the halls and across the clover field at track, and our eyes would never meet again. In the larger scheme of things, I would become the school’s village idiot—a loser of my own making.
Maybe there was a chance Milo and Jamal and I would still be friends, albeit in a completely different capacity. Like classmate friends—those kids you