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To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person
or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to
portray any character or characters feature in the book.
Cover models are not intended to illustrate specific people and the content does
not refer to models' actual acts, identity, history, beliefs or behavior. No characters
depicted in this ebook are intended to represent real people. Models are used for
illustrative purposes only.

Book Cover Designed by: Allen T. St. Clair, ©2020, 2021 Chase Connor &
The Lion Fish Press

Published By:

The Lion Fish Press

539 W. Commerce St #227
Dallas, TX 75208

Chase Connor Books

www.chaseconnor.com
The Lion Fish Press
www.thelionfishpress.com

© Copyright 2020, 2021 Chase Connor & The Lion Fish Press
Cover Design by Allen T. St. Clair
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
copyright owner.

AUTHORS’ NOTE:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental. None of this is real.

eBook ISBN 978-1-951860-36-3

paperback ISBN 978-1-951860-37-0
hardback ISBN 978-1-951860-38-7
Also by Chase Connor
LGBTQ+ YA Books

Just a Dumb Surfer Dude: A Gay Coming-of-Age Tale

Just a Dumb Surfer Dude 2: For the Love of Logan
Just a Dumb Surfer Dude 3: Summer Hearts
Gavin’s Big Gay Checklist
A Surplus of Light
The Guy Gets Teddy
GINJUH
When Words Grow Fangs
Sending Love Letters to Animals and Other Totally Normal Human Behaviors

LGBTQ+ New Adult/Lit Fic/MM Romance

A Tremendous Amount of Normal

The Gravity of Nothing
Between Enzo & the Universe
A Straight Line (w/ co-author J.D. Wade)

LGBTQ+ YA & MG Fantasy

A Million Little Souls

A Point Worth LGBTQ Paranormal Romances

Jacob Michaels Is Tired (Book 1)

Jacob Michaels Is Not Crazy (Book 2)
Jacob Michaels Is Not Jacob Michaels (Book 3)
Jacob Michaels Is Not Here (Book 4)
Jacob Michaels Is Trouble (Book 5)
CARNAVAL (A Point Worth LGBTQ Paranormal Romance Story)
Jacob Michaels Is Dead (Book 6)
Jacob Michaels Is… The Omnibus Edition (all 6 JMI books and CARNAVAL)
Murder at the Red Rooster Tavern (Book 7)

Erotica

Bully
Briefly Buddies

Audiobooks

A Surplus of Light: A Gay Coming-of-Age Tale (narrated by Brian Lore Evans)

Between Enzo & the Universe (narrated by Brian Lore Evans; Tantor Media)

Translated

Between Enzo & the Universe – Spanish

A Surplus of Light – Spanish

Anthologies Contribution

Magis and Maniacs: And Other Christmas Stories (Frank, A Christmas in Pajamas,
A Surfer’s Christmas, and The IT Guy)
 Dedicated To:

Allen, Szidi, Jess, Jenny, Kent, Bradley, ML, Vikki,

Urban, Charlotte, HENEL, Heather, Alex, Russ, Jason,
Felyx, Lynley, Dorian, Teresa, and Jodi.

Special Thanks To:

Punk Ass Unicorns and A.J. Urbanek for the use of

their song Leave Me Alone in some of the video
promos for this book. I can’t wait to hear more great
things from you all!

And

Bahar for giving me Ms. Tabatabai.

and as always:

To my beta-readers and “feedback crew”: I am so

glad you are all here. Additionally, I am so glad you
are all so blunt with me—even if I do what I want
most of the time.

To all of the readers: It has been quite a journey. I’ve

loved every second of it. Let’s get to the end
together, shall we?
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chase Connor’s Books
Dedication

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One

About the Author

“The proper definition of a man is an animal that
writes letters.”
~ Lewis Carroll
No animals were harmed in the making of this
book.
Especially turkeys.
That rain/drowning thing is just a myth.
 Monday’s lunch looked like it consisted of the stuff they
couldn’t fit in the dumpster behind the cafeteria after school ended
on Friday. I’m not even kidding. On Friday, the main lunch option
was hamburgers and tater tots, as if fried potatoes actually count as
a vegetable. What was sitting on my plate was some type of hot
dish, with tater tots on top for the crust. There’s no point in trying to
tell me that the lunch ladies didn’t keep the leftover tots from Friday
and then decide to get creative on Monday.
Typically, Mrs. Jacobson—the principal’s assistant—posts the
lunch menu for the entire week on the bulletin board at the main
entrance every Monday morning. All of the students arriving for the
start of a brand-new week walk right by it and can check out what
to expect at lunch each day for the next five days. However, Mrs.
Jacobson had gotten careless with this one aspect of her job.
On the first Monday when there wasn’t a menu on the bulletin
board, I figured she had simply forgotten. As the days went by, then
the weeks, and our lunches got stranger and less appetizing, I
realized Mrs. Jacobson wasn’t derelict in her duties. The students of
A.M. Whitemane High School simply weren’t going to be provided a
menu any longer.
Instead, the lunch ladies had most likely been instructed to get
creative with providing hot, nutritious meals to the student body
each day. Budget cuts or something, probably. Like the arts, making
sure students had enough fuel to actually make their brains work
wasn’t a priority for Administration any longer. We have a really nice
football stadium, though. They built a shrine to former all-star
athletes in the hall that leads to the gymnasium, too. So, things will
be fine.
I’m being sarcastic, obviously.
To Hell with athletics, football stadiums, football players who
have worked at local car dealerships since graduating high school
twenty years ago, and to Hell with hot dish. We used to have great
lunches at our school. Nothing that you’d see in a fancy French
restaurant or anything, but they were good. Meat, veggies, grains,
some dairy or fat. Well-balanced and yummy, and always hot—
unless it was something that wasn’t supposed to be hot.
I tried to write an exposé about it for The Word Around
Whitemane, but Ms. Tabatabai, our advisor for the aforementioned
school paper, talked me out of it. At first, I was pretty frustrated with
having my journalistic integrity compromised—there was a real issue
to be addressed—but I finally realized she had been right. It would
have only caused trouble and put a target on my back.
Like, last year, one of the kids at Whitmer Central—the high
school on the other side of town—had written a blog post about the
principal not allowing an LGBTQ-plus student union. The shit really
hit the fan. Rumors spread like warm Nutella, and the kid, like,
dropped off the face of the Earth for a long time. People were
speculating that death threats from some secret union for principals
had forced him into the Witness Protection Program or something.
Nothing is really that exciting here, though. Turned out the kid
was being homeschooled for a while. When he came back to school,
the LGBTQ-plus student union was allowed, the kid did something
with his hair that shocked everyone, and he started dating another
dude in his class. The whole thing was even on CNN at one point.
The blog post part. I don’t think they did a piece on his new
relationship or anything. Though, that would have been cool. I
guess.
All of it seems ridiculous when you consider A.M. Whitemane
High School has had an LGBTQ-plus student union for three years. I
guess we’re more progressive since we’re a few miles away or
something? I go to the meetings sometimes, but it has basically
devolved into a hook-up club. The few queer kids in school can’t
decide who’s dating who on any given day. They draw straws or
something, I imagine? I guess that’s life in high school when you’re
queer and your options are limited. It’s not really my scene. They
have cookies and punch pretty often, though, so sometimes I go for
my sugar fix and to sip the tea. Gotta keep up with my queer soap
opera, after all.
Basically, what I’m saying is—that’s been the biggest thing to
happen in this town. Ever. Well, probably. Okay. Probably not, but it
was pretty spicy stuff for a few months. People still mention it
sometimes and it’s been almost a year since it all went down. So, it
was clear to me that if that kid could stir up such a frenzy by merely
standing up for LGBTQ-plus students’ rights, my queer ass writing
about the cafeteria food would be apocalyptic.
Ohhhhh, the homosexual is too good for tater tot casserole?
Who does he think he is? He’s probably a…GASP…vegan.
No, thank you. I don’t need that kind of theater in my life.
Broadway or nothing at all is my motto. Having CNN run a national
piece on me for being uppity about lunchroom food is not one of my
long-term goals.
So, three thousand words written by Ryan Offsteader—that’s
me—about the subpar lunches did not show up in the school
newspaper. Instead, I wrote what was, in my mind, a dazzling list of
Broadway musicals my fellow students should know about and why
they should know about them. Ms. Tabatabai thought it was
excellent. My fellow students gave me crap about it for weeks,
obviously. In a jovial way. I wasn’t bullied or anything. Though, I
guess when someone teases you about something that is so
entrenched in gay culture, it could easily go either way. I’m pretty
sure everyone would have also teased a straight kid for liking
musicals, though. Regardless, I didn’t end up on CNN or in the
Witness Protection Program. No teachers’ union came for me.
The whole thing didn’t bother me much, to be honest. People
are allowed to think I’m weird or call me a stereotype for loving
musicals. The teasing was mostly in fun, anyway. No one here is
really all that homophobic or, if they are, they’re not exactly vocal
about it. It’s probably the only thing about me that makes people
think I’m gay automatically anyway. So, it’s fine. The token gay kid
who loves musical theater is fine with it.
Watching. Not participating. I can’t sing. I’m not in drama club
or choir or anything like that. I have two left feet and a singing voice
that would make an enraged possum envious.
Okay, so obviously I’m not the only gay kid in the entire school.
Statistically, that simply doesn’t figure. We have the LGBTQ-plus
student union as proof, after all. I guess I’m just more open about it
outside of the club than everyone else. I’m not a walking Gay Pride
Parade or anything, but I don’t hide my sexuality. Coming out of the
closet was stressful enough. Pretending I was something I wasn’t
didn’t seem like a choice after that.
“Hey.” Jules waved her hand in front of my face. “Are you going
to eat your hot dish or what?”
Shaking my head clear of thoughts, and not quite managing, I
looked at her through bleary eyes. I still hadn’t fully woken up and
we were more than halfway through the school day. Jules gave me a
questioning look, then pointed at my tray. I glanced down at the
half-full tray.
I’d eaten my green beans, the fruit salad, but had left the hot
dish.
I removed my water bottle from the tray and nudged it at her,
its slick plastic bottom sliding along the smooth top of the lunch
table easily.
“Thanks,” she said as she pushed a few loose braids back over
her shoulder dramatically.
With a nod, I went back to daydreaming.
I really needed to get my head in the game. Early morning
classes are always easy—history, P.E, computer science, and
trigonometry. Afternoon classes—English, chemistry, and Spanish are
always the worst. It’s probably because my brain is so numb after
lunch that I automatically reject all things educational after a certain
point in the day. Regardless of the reason, I needed to focus so that
I didn’t mess things up.
Ruining my afternoon by doing poorly in my final three classes
would only make me grumpy for Journalism Club. Ms. Tabatabai was
usually fairly permissive if we were all dragging tail once the final
bell rang. She wasn’t too much of a taskmaster, but she still liked for
us to give close to the same energy in Journalism Club as we’d give
in a class that counted toward our GPAs.
“Is it just me,” Liam asked, waking me from my dream with a
nudge to my ribs with his elbow, “or are they feeding us from the
dumpster?”
I smirked as a way of agreeing but said nothing.
“Someone wrestled this away from a raccoon, for sure,” Elijah
was picking at his hot dish on the opposite side of the table from
Liam.
My smirk turned into a grin.
“Y’all are just picky,” Aubrey was stuffing her fork into her
mouth. “It’s not that bad.”
Liam and Elijah scowled at her.
“You can have mine.” Daniel pushed his tray at her. “I can’t eat
this crap. Your skinny ass needs it more than I do anyway.”
“Boy, you’re so skinny you use Chapstick as deodorant,” Aubrey
nudged his tray back at him.
Liam and Elijah howled. Jules continued to eat, ignoring them.
“You’re so skinny your momma still isn’t sure she gave birth.”
Daniel lobbed back at her.
More howling from Liam and Elijah attracted attention from
nearby tables, but most of the student body was used to us. Our
table got a little raucous at lunchtime, and it was not uncommon for
one of the teachers to show up and remind us to “tone it down.” Of
course, it was all in good fun—our fooling around—but my friends
definitely raised the decibels in the cafeteria from time to time.
The one thing that wasn’t all in good fun was Daniel and
Aubrey going at each other about how skinny they both were. Sure,
both of them were slim, but commenting on it was wrong for a few
reasons. One, body shaming—regardless of the body in question—is
not okay. Two, Jules was the only one in our group who wasn’t
average size or smaller. She wasn’t exactly fat or anything, but she
had boobs and hips, and I knew the constant jokes about being “too
skinny” from our friends bothered her.
 Jules ignored the joking for the most part, but every now and
then I’d catch her side-eying our friends. Body shaming was
definitely not a pastime she appreciated. Furthermore, I couldn’t
help but wonder if she wasn’t a bit concerned that the jokes would
be turned on her if she spoke up. So, she didn’t. That had to really
make her blood boil, being afraid of speaking up when I knew she
wanted to do it.
“Y’all need to be worried about your personalities,” I said,
finally. “Verbally assaulting your boyfriend or girlfriend doesn’t make
you interesting.”
Liam and Elijah made “ooooooh” sounds. They couldn’t let
things go. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jules glance at me
appreciatively.
“Look who’s feisty today,” Daniel leaned forward to look past
Liam. “You start shedding the lining of your vagina today, Ry-Guy?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Uterus, dumbass.” Aubrey snorted.
“What?” Daniel turned to her.
“Girls don’t shed the lining from their vagina when they’re on
their period. It’s the lining of their uterus. It comes out of our
vaginas,” Aubrey said, her eyes rolling fantastically backward.
“Whatever,” Daniel said. “So, Ry-Guy? You bleeding out your
bergina or what?”
“Vagina!” Aubrey exclaimed loudly.
Mrs. Hopkins’ head jerked around to look at our table from
where she was posted up, watching everyone from the corner of the
cafeteria by the entrance to the lunch line.
“Shhhhh.” I silenced them. “Mrs. Hopkins is going to come
make us all bleed from every orifice if you two don’t stop.”
Everyone glanced toward the corner of the cafeteria. Mrs.
Hopkins was glaring at our table.
“Real smooth, guys,” I said.
They all gave her apologetic smiles and turned their attention
back to their lunches. Except Daniel. Of course.
“You still haven’t answered me, buddy,” Daniel said, jabbing me
verbally. “Your vagina seepin’ or what?”
 “Can we not talk about this anymore?” Liam asked with an
upturned nose.
“He’s gay,” Jules said finally. “Not a girl. There’s a difference,
Danny Boy.”
The “Danny Boy” part was a nice touch, if I was grading my
friend’s retort.
“Furthermore—” Jules continued.
“Uh-oh.” Elijah chuckled nervously.
“—that’s a good thing or you’d be trying to stick your hand up
his shirt every chance you got, you pervert,” she said.
I cackled.
“Nah,” Daniel laughed at the joke, “I got my girl right here.”
He reached across the table, only to have Aubrey slap his hand
away. Apparently, being Daniel’s girlfriend and wanting to admit it
were two separate issues.
I respected that.
“Ryan can have you,” Aubrey snapped, though she was only
teasing. “’Bout tired of your foolishness anyway.”
“Awww, baby,” Daniel cooed. “You know I love you like no
other.”
Everyone, including Aubrey, rolled their eyes. Not that Daniel
couldn’t be an okay guy, but he was laying it on thick. We all
laughed at the fact we all had the same reaction. Even Daniel
laughed along with us.
Those were my friends. Never taking anything too seriously.
Luckily, before Aubrey and Daniel could exchange more barbs
or start throwing tots at each other—which, obviously, wouldn’t have
been out of character for them—the warning bell rang. The noisiest
of the bunch, meaning Liam, Elijah, Aubrey, and Daniel, gathered up
our trays and headed to the bins by the lunch line to return them to
be cleaned. Jules and I let our friends take care of our trays, glad to
have some peace and quiet. Well, as much peace and quiet as two
people can have in a high school cafeteria in the middle of the day.
Jules laced an arm through the crook of my elbow as we
walked out of the cafeteria and one of her boobs decided to use my
arm as a rest. I looked down at her boob and then looked at Jules,
one of my eyebrows raising on its own. Jules merely shrugged,
making no effort to lift her tit off of my arm. It didn’t particularly
bother me, but I felt it was a form of intimate contact that was lost
on me. A complete waste. Daniel would have loved it.
Having left lunch while everyone was scrambling to return their
trays, the hallway leading away from the cafeteria was fairly empty.
Only a few students dashed by us, rushing to get to their next class.
For as well laid out as A.M. Whitemane is, the cafeteria situation is
ridiculous. One hallway led into and out of the cafeteria that
hundreds of students dined in each day. When you have that many
students trying to get fed, then trying to get to their next class after
eating, it can turn into a mess quickly.
Whenever we could, Jules and I left the cafeteria as soon as
the warning bell rang. Most of the student body had a tendency to
linger, chatting and cracking jokes until Mrs. Hopkins shooed them
all out. Jules and I always tried to be out of the cafeteria hallway
and well on our way to English before Mrs. Hopkins lost her cool
with the rest of the student body.
“Sorry,” I said once we exited the cafeteria hall into the main
hall. “They’re kind of thoughtless sometimes.”
“All the time,” Jules said. “Skinny bitches.”
I chuckled. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“I’m sorry about your bergina situation.”
“Watch it.”
Jules waved me off with her free hand.
“Stop apologizing for them,” she said. “Us big girls and gay
guys gotta stick together.”
“I guess.”
“So,” Jules began brightly, “did you do the essay for Ms.
Tabatabai?”
I scowled at Jules as we turned by the library to enter the
English hall.
“Oh, come on,” she said with a nudge to my side.
“Of course, I did the essay,” I said. “I’m assuming, like usual,
you chose to put it off until you park your bumper in class?”
 Jules gave me a goofy smile, all of her teeth showing and
clenched, as she looked up at me comically. I rolled my eyes at her,
but a chuckle escaped my mouth. Ms. Tabatabai always gave us a
one-page essay assignment every Friday in English. They always had
a theme, like, what our favorite vacation was and why, your favorite
book or movie or song, why we would or wouldn’t want to be
President one day—those kinds of things. During Monday’s class we
were all expected to turn our essay into her as we left class.
Jules always wrote her essay in class on Mondays while Ms.
Tabatabai gave her lecture on whatever we were learning that day.
It wasn’t a great method for getting her essay done, but Jules never
failed to pound hers out during the forty minutes Ms. Tabatabai
lectured each Monday afternoon. Though it always gave me anxiety
to watch Jules scribbling away furiously at the desk next to me, it
didn’t really affect me in any way. So, I never gave her too much
crap about her belief that weekends should never be used for writing
essays. However, Jules had been doing the same thing in Ms.
Tabatabai’s classes for our entire high school lives. How she
continued to get away with it was beyond me.
Homework on the weekends was not something to which Jules
gave much credence. Weekends were for laziness and having fun,
and no homework, regardless of how it counted toward her grade,
would keep her from her fun. It had become a common theme
during our senior year. Ms. Tabatabai assigned an essay on Friday
and I dutifully wrote mine during the weekend. Jules put hers off
until Monday. As the two of us walked to English after lunch each
Monday, Jules always asked me if I’d written mine. The answer was
always the same. But she never stopped asking the question.
Jules slipped her arm out of the crook of my elbow and
dislodged her tit from my arm as we stopped outside of Ms.
Tabatabai’s class. Her timing was impeccable since we both had to
leap out of the way as Connor Payne zipped between us to get into
English.
“Sorry!” He managed to say as he narrowly avoided colliding
with us.
 “Fool!” Jules spat through the door as he slid into his desk
recklessly, nearly tipping it and himself over into the floor. “We’ve
still got six minutes!”
“Jules!” Ms. Tabatabai warned her.
Jules shrugged. “Sorry.”
Ms. Tabatabai shook her head with a smile. She obviously
agreed with Jules that Connor needed to settle down, but she
couldn’t rightfully let students insult each other in her presence.
Jules had apologized, and Connor had been in the wrong, so Ms.
Tabatabai wasn’t going to make a big deal about it.
“We still on for Friday night?” Jules asked casually as we
leaned against the wall on either side of the door outside of class.
“What’s Friday?” I asked.
“Horror movie marathon?” Jules gave an annoyed groan. “Two
excellent, two horrible?”
Nodding along, I remembered the promise I’d made to watch a
selection of great and not-so-great horror movies with my best
friend.
“Oh, yeah,” I said simply. “Yeah. We’re still on. I should be able
to make it if I can cancel that hot date I had planned.”
Jules snorted. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll plan to see you on Friday then.”
I scowled at her again.
“It could happen.”
“Sure,” she said. “Mine or yours?”
“Yours,” I said, ignoring her jab. “Dad’s been on a ‘let’s do guy
things’ kick lately.”
“Your dad, man.” She smiled at me. “He’s still doing that?”
As though my dad was the most inconveniencing factor in my
entire life, I nodded solemnly.
My father, one of the greatest men in the world, liked to do
“guy things” with me far too often. It wasn’t because I was gay and
he was trying to “fix” me or anything. It was because we were both
guys. By “guy things” he didn’t necessarily mean activities that were
traditionally labeled as “male” or “female” by the patriarchy that
ignored most of the gender spectrum, either. It simply meant that he
wanted the two of us to do things together. A far better label for it
would have been “Guy Time,” since we both identified as male.
However, since Dad had actually gone with me to see a Taylor Swift
concert once for “Guy Time,” and was open to my ideas, I let it slide.
A dad who only wanted to spend time with me, yet maybe was
lacking in inoffensive terminology, was something with which I
couldn’t find much fault.
“If we watch movies at my house, you know he’s going to find
a way to be involved,” I said.
“It’s kind of sweet,” Jules said with a shrug, but I knew she
agreed.
“Yeah.” I relented. “But this is our thing. Not yours, mine, and
Dad’s.”
“Fair. As long as we’re still on?”
I nodded.
She held her fist out to me and I bumped hers with mine, my
copper skin tapping against her mahogany skin with the soft, yet
distinctive, sound of flesh meeting flesh. A stream of students was
steadily pouring into Ms. Tabatabai’s class between us, so Jules and I
ducked into the line of bodies and hurried into the room. We both
had barely slid into our seats, side-by-side in the two front seats in
the third and fourth rows, when the bell rang again.
Just in time. Like always. The process of leaving the cafeteria,
walking leisurely to English, and getting into our seats in the nick of
time was an art form for us. One which we would have gotten high
marks in if it was an actual subject taught at A.M. Whitemane. The
two of us might have actually been in the running for co-
valedictorians if that were the case. Alas, our skills were such that
we made honor roll but posed no real threat to the students fighting
for top dog tooth and nail.
Rustling of backpacks being stowed under seats, the thumping
of books on desktops, and the clicking of pens and sounds of ripping
papers filled the room briefly. Ms. Tabatabai patiently waited for the
din to die down. Typically, as everyone was settling in for their first
class after lunch, Ms. Tabatabai would take her time turning on the
interactive whiteboard system. She’d pull up the lesson we were
about to learn, grab her interactive pen, and then class would begin.
The fact that she hadn’t moved away from her desk worried me.
Once everyone quieted down, and all eyes were aimed at the
front for our teacher, she smiled at all of us.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” she said brightly. “Let’s turn in
our weekend essays.”
My eyes grew wide in horror, but an amused snort forced its
way out of me.
“Shut up,” Jules whisper-hissed at me.
Ms. Tabatabai smiled brightly at Jules.
It had only taken three and a half years, but the jig was up.
Jules had a pretty good run.
 Jules slammed her locker shut, spun around, and slumped
against the cool metal in a huff. Leisurely, I stowed the books I
didn’t need to take home with me in my locker. Ms. Tabatabai’s
change of structure in English after lunch had left Jules in a foul
mood for the final two classes of the day. Unfortunately, we shared
both classes, so, while Ms. Tabatabai had lit the fuse, I was the one
who had to deal with the fireworks.
Chemistry and Spanish were lit up like the Fourth of July. My
best friend grumbled and mumbled and snapped her way through
another two hours of our school day like someone had stolen her
winning lottery ticket. Though I wanted to sympathize with Jules for
basically getting a zero on her essay—it’s hard to get anything but a
zero if you don’t have anything to turn in—it was her own fault. I’d
been telling her for months that she needed to start being more
responsible with her weekend English essay. Ms. Tabatabai was
lenient for the most part, but she was no fool. Eventually, I knew
she’d get tired of watching Jules scribble away at her desk on
Monday afternoons while she tried to do her lecture.
“She did that on purpose,” Jules said. “Just because I called
Connor a fool. Power trip. That’s all that was.”
“Give it a rest, girl. She couldn’t have done that if you had
gone ahead and done your assignment.”
“Whose side are you on?” Jules snapped.
“Yours. And Ms. Tabatabai’s. You’ve been getting away with
that crap forever, so I don’t know why she decided to make an
example of you. But—”
 “That’s what it was! She was making an example of me!
That’s…harassment or something, right? She was singling me out!”
I laughed.
“She targeted me, Ryan. That’s, like, some Geneva Convention
shit.”
“I guess high school in America can be considered ‘armed
conflict,’” I said, “but I don’t think the Geneva Convention will apply.
You’re screwed.”
Jules slumped against her locker.
“I wouldn’t know who to contact to make a complaint anyway.”
“Any state, an international court, or The United Nations,” I
said as I closed my locker. “Do you pay attention in any class?”
Jules pushed away from her locker with a groan and followed
me down the hall. “Retaining stuff like that is pointless. I study the
night before every test. I do fine.”
“Imagine your grades if you actually tried.”
“Get off my junk, all right? It’s only Monday.”
With a chuckle, I draped an arm over Jules’ shoulders as we
walked down the hall. She reached up to hold my hand lightly.
“Just skip Journalism Geek Squad and hang out with me,” Jules
said. “Defy the power, Ryan.”
“Ms. Tabatabai doesn’t need to be mad at both of us,” I said.
“So don’t try to pull me into that mess with you.”
“Mess?” Jules scoffed. “I’ve never been messy in my entire
life!”
The two of us side-eyed each other before bursting out in peals
of laughter. As we approached the Arts hall and Jules yanked her
arm free of mine, her laughter didn’t abate. She gave me a quick
wave and pushed her way out one of the glass front doors of the
school. Sighing, I pulled my eyes away from her disappearing form
and ducked into the Arts hall. I could already hear the voices of my
fellow club members drifting down from the far end of the hall as I
pulled my backpack more tightly up on my shoulder and trudged
along the lonely corridor.
Down in the meeting room, all of my fellow club members were
acting out the mating rituals of Capuchins. So, it was a pretty
standard day in the journalism meeting room. Ben Sanderson—
prodigious nerd, yet self-proclaimed “ladies’ man”—was leaning over
the table where Jillian Pascal was trying to ignore him while she
wrote in her notebook. Barry Westbrook and Marcia Carver were
minding their own business, getting a head start on their homework
while we waited for Ms. Tabatabai to start our meeting. Davud
Hasani was seated at the small round table at the front of the room,
his nose in a book, per usual.
As was typical, I joined Davud at the front of the room and slid
into the chair across the table from him. When I’d first joined
Journalism Club during my freshman year, the group of students
writing for The Word Around Whitemane numbered ten. Over three
and a half years, as members graduated and few students showed
interest in joining, our club began to shrink. Of the six of us left,
Davud, Jillian, and I were all set to graduate at the end of the year. I
had to wonder if the Journalism Club would manage to stay afloat
while Ms. Tabatabai desperately searched for new members.
I pushed that out of my mind. It wasn’t really my business to
worry about. Not that I’d hated my high school experience, but other
than my friends, there wasn’t much about A.M. Whitemane that I’d
miss after I walked across the stage and received my diploma.
Stowing my backpack on the floor to the side and out of the
way, I extended my foot and nudged the right wheel of Davud’s
chair. Like every other day, Davud had forgotten to put the brakes on
his wheelchair and he rolled back from the table a few inches, his
book falling from his hands to the table below. The resounding
“thump” made everyone else give us a glance, but they all quickly
returned their noses to their own business. Davud looked up at me,
his face scrunched up in unfocused annoyance.
“Every day, Ryan?” He sighed.
“You keep forgetting the brakes, man,” I said with a grin.
Davud rolled his eyes and reached down to roll himself back up
to the table before setting his brakes. Quickly, he went about finding
where he’d lost his place in his book, used the front flyleaf as a
bookmark, and closed the book. Lacing his arms atop the cover, he
stared blankly across the table at me. I stared back.
 “Well?” He asked after a few moments.
“’Well,’ what?”
“Did you watch it?”
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t even that good, D. I mean—”
“Are you messing with me right now?” He asked as he shifted
in his chair. “Like, for seriously?”
“’For seriously’ is not even a real phrase.”
He ignored me. “I heard Mark Baskin use it the other day. I’m
practically an influencer, bro.”
“Right.”
“That’s not important,” he said. “What’s important is the filth
that just came out of your mouth.”
“Filth?” I feigned offense.
“You’re trying to tell me that Big Trouble in Little China is not a
cinematic masterpiece?” He continued. “Come on.”
“I mean,” I shrugged, “it was cool, man. Action and sci-fi stuff.
It had some funny bits, yeah. But it’s entertaining at best.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Davud rested his hands on the arms
of his chair.
That was a signal that he was ready to verbally battle me over
any opinion I had about any movie we disagreed on.
“Nothing’s wrong with that,” I admitted. “But the whole point of
us recommending cult classics to each other is to expand our minds
about what cinema can be. It’s a campy action sci-fi flick. You didn’t
even really try, man.”
“Kurt Russell at his finest,” Davud proclaimed.
“The bar ain’t that high.”
Davud laughed, so I grinned along.
“Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” I said, “that’s cinema.”
Davud rolled his eyes. “Dude. It was another musical. You only
recommend musicals.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with action sci-fi comedy?” He countered.
I smiled. Davud grinned slyly and shifted in his chair. Though
most people wouldn’t have seen it, I noticed how a quick grimace
overtook his smile for the briefest of moments. Then it was gone.
Davud returned his hands to the tabletop, clasping his hands on top
of his book.
“How was Chicago?” I asked quietly.
Davud glanced around the room before returning his eyes to
me. He seemed to deflate a bit, then simply shook his head at me.
“Don’t think I’ll be signing up for dance classes this semester,
man.”
I sighed. “Man. That’s four years running. They’re going to stop
holding a spot for you if you don’t get your shit together quickly.”
He managed a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m beginning to think this spine injury might
be permanent or something.”
“Oof. Dark.”
He shrugged.
“Missed you last week,” I said. “Journalism Club isn’t as fun
without you.”
Davud’s golden cheeks picked up a rosy tint.
“Yeah,” he said. “I missed you too, man. You know. The
hospital. Every time I go, they…it’s a lot, you know?”
Again, we stared at each other. Ever since the car accident the
summer after junior high, Davud had been going to a specialty
hospital in Chicago once a semester for a week. The specialists there
would test him, talk about “options,” and try to figure out if he’d
ever walk again. Davud never came back with hope. Just more
disappointment.
Once one of the most popular kids in school, athletic, funny, a
guy the girls loved to moon over, he had found himself mostly
forgotten. Largely ignored. He had his wheelchair, unexplainable
pains coming from legs that couldn’t feel anything else, and a lot of
disappointment twice a year. Besides Jules, he was one of my very
best friends. Though, I had to wonder if we would have ended up
best friends if he hadn’t had his accident. We’d always been good
friends, but things might have gone differently if he had also been a
jock in high school. More than likely, he would have been one of the
uber popular sports guys who didn’t have time for me. I never knew
if I should be grateful that we were friends, or disappointed. Our
close friendship only existed in the reality where Davud was
disabled.
“Well,” I said, “maybe we need to revisit the parameters of this
arrangement?”
Davud’s disappointment melted from his face and was replaced
with curiosity.
“We’ll just recommend movies we love,” I suggested with a
shrug. “No other rules.”
“Ugh,” Davud groaned. “I’m going to be watching so many
musicals.”
“Take it or leave it, my good man,” I teased. “It’s my final
offer.”
I extended my leg to nudge the wheel of his chair again,
though it merely jostled his chair since the brakes were on.
“All right,” Davud said with an exasperated sigh. “But you’ll be
sorry! I love so many action and sci-fi flicks. You don’t even know.”
“I believe you.”
The two of us were laughing as Ms. Tabatabai breezed through
the meeting room door, a Starbucks coffee cup in her hand. Along
the walls of the meeting room hung posters that Spirit Committee
had made for school events and organizations. They actually
fluttered in the breeze Ms. Tabatabai created as she whisked herself
into the room. As she was setting her arm full of folders and her
coffee cup on the podium, the posters were starting to settle back
into place. Davud and I turned our attention to the podium, but it
took Ms. Tabatabai clearing her throat for everyone else to follow
suit.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ms. Tabatabai began, “I don’t have a
lot of time today, so let’s make this a short one, huh?”
We all mumbled our agreement with varying degrees of
excitement.
“Great,” she said. “I think we’ll switch things up with beat
assignments this semester—”
Groans erupted from six mouths at the prospect of our
assignments changing halfway through the year. Typically, as we’d all
gotten used to during our time in Journalism Club, we’d get an
assignment at the beginning of the year, and that’s what we’d stick
with for the entire school year. “Beat assignments” were the “beat”
each of us was assigned to from August through May. Athletics,
academics, extracurriculars, teacher/student relations, Student
Council and other school political goings on, and special interests—
for anything that didn’t fall into another category.
I’d had Student Council and politics since August and things
were going fine. For the first five months of school, before Christmas
Break, I’d covered Student Council meetings, School Board
meetings, Parent-Teacher Conference nights, and similar events. It
was always the cushiest of beats because adults generally behaved
when I was in the room and Student Council members knew better
than to act up around the press. I merely had to show up, take
notes, write a decent article, and things went well for me in
Journalism Club. I wasn’t pleased at the thought of having to delve
into something more time-consuming or hectic in the last five
months of my high school career.
“Ugh.” Davud shifted in his chair as he murmured out of the
corner of his mouth. “She’s going to take special interests away from
me.”
Grimacing, I gave Davud my most sympathetic look. Special
Interests was another cushy beat. Most things fell into one of the
other categories, so Davud’s workload wasn’t as big as everyone
else’s. Not that Davud wanted to be treated differently—nor did
anyone want to treat him differently—but being in a wheelchair
made it harder for him to go to as many events as everyone else.
His mom or dad always had to drive him to his assignments if he
couldn’t get a friend to take him, too. Doing his part in Journalism
Club meant Davud had to work and plan twice as hard as everyone
else.
Taking Special Interests from him would have been incredibly
shitty of Ms. Tabatabai.
“Davud,” she said, as if reading my mind, “we’ll put you on
Student Council and politics, okay?”
“Oh.” Davud grinned. “That works. Okay.”
Ms. Tabatabai smiled without looking up.
 Okay, so our club adviser didn’t screw Davud over. The
realization that it was likely Davud and I would switching beats had
me sitting up straight in my seat. Having the easiest beat
assignment in club for the rest of the year was definitely not the
worst-case scenario.
“Jillian, you’ll take special interests,” Ms. Tabatabai announced
quickly.
I slumped. Jillian agreed enthusiastically. Why wouldn’t she?
She’d just been assigned the easiest beat for the last few months of
her time in Journalism Club.
Asshole.
“Ben, you’re on Athletics. Barry, Academics. Marcia, we’re
putting you on…teacher-student relations,” Ms. Tabatabai fired off
quickly.
They all agreed as my stomach sunk.
“Ryan, that leaves you with—”
“Extracurriculars?” I grumbled.
“Exactly,” she said.
Ms. Tabatabai looked up at all of us finally, a smile stretched
across her face as she snatched up her coffee cup. What was in that
thing? Red Bull and crack?
“You’re all veterans,” she said after a healthy slug of her drink,
whatever it happened to be, “so I won’t keep you any longer today.
If you have any questions, though—”
The sounds of us gathering up our books and bags and sliding
out of our seats gave Ms. Tabatabai all the information she needed.
With an approving nod, she snatched up her folders and tucked
them under her arm before dashing out of the room once again.
Posters fluttered once more in the Iranian Breeze—as we often
called Ms. Tabatabai when she was in a rush—and then she was
gone. Jillian, Marcia, Barry, and Ben all became a cacophony of
voices and a tornado of gesticulating appendages as they hurried
out of the room together, discussing their new assignments and the
extraordinary ideas they were already formulating.
“Well,” Davud looked up at me, still parked at the table, “that
had to be the shortest Journalism Club meeting ever.”
 “Except the one during sophomore year where she didn’t even
show up.”
He snorted with amusement.
“Held up at Starbucks, right?” he asked.
“I think that’s the excuse she gave, yeah,” I said with a laugh.
“Want a push out to the parking lot?”
I pumped my fists in front of myself and wiggled my hips
comically. Davud chuckled and wheeled himself away from the table.
“No point,” he said. “Mom won’t be here for at least fifteen
more minutes. Meetings usually last longer. May as well take my
time getting to the door.”
I shrugged. “I don’t mind taking you home. Just text your mom
and tell her the meeting was short or whatever.”
“Nah,” he said with a wave. “I’ll have to get in your car, we’ll
have to put the chair in your trunk, and—it’s not worth the hassle.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a hassle. Come on. Text your mom. I
need people to think I’m able to get a hot guy to ride in my car with
me.”
Davud laughed uproariously.
“Okay,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his phone as I
ducked behind his chair to push him out of the room. “But if anyone
sees us, I’m the top, bro. Gotta keep up my macho persona.”
“Fair enough,” I said with a laugh as we exited the room and I
began pushing him quickly down the hall, almost at a sprint. “I’ll
make sure everyone knows who calls the shots here.”
 Juno’s headphone-adorned cranium was stuffed in the fridge
and her ass was bopping around in the air when I walked into the
house from school. I could hear the washing machine jostling
violently in the laundry room. My sister had poor load distribution
skills when filling a washing machine and it was only a matter of
time before she singlehandedly made the thing blow up mid-cycle.
Like all college freshmen, my sister had come home for the free
laundry facilities and to commit nutritional larceny.
Instinctively, my first thought was to slip past my sister and
hurry off to my room to do my homework before dinner. She couldn’t
bug me if she didn’t know I was home. However, after the nearly
inedible lunch at school, I had planned to raid the fridge, too.
Something had to be stuffed down my gullet if I was going to make
it to dinner without getting weak and falling out. Juno’s music was
turned up so loud I could tell she was listening to Megan Thee
Stallion as she scoped out her snack possibilities.
Hopefully, my sister hadn’t gotten so immersed in her music
that she had forgotten what she was doing. If I timed things
perfectly and slipped in behind her as she stepped away from the
fridge, it was possible she wouldn’t even notice my presence.
Whenever she got distracted by her music, she was fairly oblivious
to everything else going on around her. Then again, older sisters
seem to have a sixth sense for when younger siblings are around.
Their Spidey Sense tingles and the overwhelming compulsion to
bully kicks in immediately.
When Juno’s body froze, her head still in the fridge and her ass
still up in the air, I knew she had sensed me.
Was it my deodorant?
 That was impossible. Everyone wears different deodorants and
body sprays, but older siblings always sense the presence of
younger siblings. It had to be a pheromone that all kids give off if
they have siblings. It seems to be the same pheromone that triggers
the flight or fight response because Juno always seemed to be
considering violence towards me.
I made a break for it, trying to dash through the kitchen into
the living room while still somehow looking casual, but I had
hesitated too long. Juno stood up rigidly and turned her head, an
evil smile creeping across her face as her headphones blared in her
ears.
Why hadn’t I dashed from the garage to the living room once I
had parked my car and entered the house?
“Little brother,” Juno said. Loudly.
I looped my fingers through the arm straps of my backpack
and responded to her comment with what I hoped was a blank
stare.
“You can’t talk?” Juno scream-spoke at me and shoved her fists
into her hips.
Without saying a word, I pointed to my ear with one hand.
Juno rolled her eyes before fishing in her pocket for her phone. Two
seconds later, she had paused her music and pushed her
headphones down to rest around her neck. I never understood why
Juno insisted on over the ear headphones. Her long curls were
almost always pulled up in a pineapple updo, so headphones were
not a great choice for her preferred hairstyle. Her go-to hairstyle and
her “cans” were probably her way of looking casual, cool, and low-
maintenance.
“It’s not even Friday,” I said.
“I can’t come home whenever I want?” She snipped.
“You just did laundry on Friday.”
“I had more,” she said with a shrug and turned back to the
fridge. “I’m not lugging every bag of laundry I have over here every
Friday.”
“So,” I sighed, “I gotta see you twice a week now?”
 Juno snorted derisively and snatched a yogurt and an apple
juice from the fridge. She twirled and stomped over to the counter
where she slammed down her snack choices before opening the
utensil drawer. Taking the opportunity, I stepped past her and
popped open the fridge. Juno made her annoyance apparent as she
rummaged around in the drawer behind me, clattering silverware
together, as though finding a spoon was like taking a ring to Mordor.
Cradling the bag of pizza rolls in the crook of my arm, I closed
the freezer and popped the fridge open to grab a red Gatorade with
my other hand. A swivel of my hips and my butt nudged the fridge
closed before I set my choices on the counter at the other side of
the kitchen. Juno continued her boisterous search for a spoon as I
pulled a plate out of the cabinet and served up a disrespectfully
large serving of pizza rolls.
“You didn’t eat at school?” Juno asked.
“Hot dish day. I’m starving.”
Juno indicated with a grunt that she understood. However, she
couldn’t leave things be.
“You won’t eat mystery meat at school but you’ll eat that
crap?” She snorted.
“At least this bag tells me which chemicals and strange meats
I’m eating,” I said.
Juno made another derisive sound with her tongue.
“What’s Mom making for dinner?” I asked.
“Ask her yourself. I don’t know what she’s thinking,” Juno said.
That was Juno in a nutshell. One moment she was kind of on
my side and understanding, the next she was being feisty for no
reason. I did my best to ignore her fluctuating mood as I slid my
plate into the microwave and set it to cook my snack within an inch
of its life. Without another word, I turned on my heels and marched
out of the kitchen. Leaving Juno to listen to her music and eat her
yogurt alone was the only way to be sure she would forget about my
presence.
There was another reason I didn’t spend any more time in the
kitchen than necessary, even when Juno wasn’t around to bother
me. A few years back, my mom got it in her head that she liked
roosters. Our kitchen was remodeled in a French Country style when
I was in middle school, and a few months after, Mom found out
roosters were kind of a French thing or something. Everywhere you
turn, there’s a rooster on a dish towel, a rooster dust collector on a
shelf, roosters embossed on the serving ware. You can’t avoid them
no matter what you do.
Roosters are all right, I guess. I don’t have any particular
problem with them or anything. However, I immediately think of
another word people use for roosters. A word that is also used for a
particular body part on a guy, and it makes me think about things. I
have absolutely no luck with guys, so the last thing I want to do is
think about roosters.
As I made my way upstairs, I tried not to think about the
roosters in the kitchen and what roosters made me think about
guys. My stomach fluttered as I ascended the stairs in the living
room. Horniness and despair rose up within me in equal measure
and I found myself wishing I’d asked Davud if I could hang out at his
house and have dinner with his family.
Davud’s mom quit her job after his accident, mostly to be more
available when he needed her, but also to focus on her family more.
With a marriage and five kids and a household to run, I was glad his
family had the money for her to do it. Because she was a stay-at-
home mom, the dinners at their house were pretty epic most nights.
I couldn’t pronounce most of the names his mom would give me for
the dishes, but they were always delicious. His family never made
fun of me for butchering the dishes’ names, either. They always
seemed so happy when I so much as tried.
Even though he had three sisters and one older brother, none
of them tried to fight with him, either. His family always seemed to
get along and love spending time together. While I figured that
spending too much time with my own family, no matter how well we
got along, would be torture, it was still a nice thought. It would take
a major attitude adjustment on Juno’s part, and quite a bit of chill
from my parents, before that would work at our house.
Making my way past my bedroom, I slid my backpack from my
shoulders and slung it through the doorway. I was walking away as
it flew into my room, so the resulting thud let me know I’d missed
my bed. It didn’t matter. It takes real skill and determination to
break something in a tightly packed backpack that weighs roughly
the same amount as a toddler. Stretching and cracking my back at
the thought of what I’d been lugging around all day, I strolled to the
end of the hall to the closed doorway.
Mom’s muffled voice reached my ears as I approached the
door. Knowing it was best to not let myself in since I could hear her
talking, which meant she was on the phone, I rapped my knuckles
lightly on the door. Mom didn’t falter with whomever she was
speaking to, but I heard the squeal of her chair and her voice grew
closer. The door popped open and Mom was sitting there, holding it
open as she sat in her office chair, speaking into her headset.
She smiled up at me before letting go of the door and waving
me into her office, not missing a single beat as she spoke to the
person on the other end of the line. As she sent herself sailing back
across the room on her wheeled chair, I stepped inside and shut the
door quietly behind me. Mom shoved her face into an open file on
her desk top and I took a seat in the plush chair by the door.
The room at the end of the second-floor hallway had been
Mom’s office for as long as I could remember. When I was born, she
had been the administrator of a regional hospital system. However, it
entailed long hours and lots of stress, and she worried about both
her and Dad having jobs where it was difficult to drop things in an
emergency. When you have two small children and not much family
around, I guess that’s a real thing to worry about.
After talking about it for a while, Mom told Dad she wanted to
start a consulting firm—which I’m still not sure what she does—and
Dad supported her in that decision. Dad had offered to sell his auto
shop and be a stay-at-home dad, but Mom vetoed that idea. One, it
didn’t solve the problem of her long hours and stress. Two, she knew
Dad loved his shop and being a mechanic—and it wasn’t like he
didn’t make decent money, too. So, Mom worked at home, uh,
consulting, and Dad was still a mechanic with his own shop.
There had always been at least one of them present for every
school event, and they both always showed up for the major life
events. They were both happy. Though Juno and I both would never
admit it out loud, we kind of respected both of them, too. Dad was a
guy from a poor family who ran his own business and worked a hard
manual labor job that rarely garnered him appreciation from his
customers when they saw the bill. Mom was a black woman who got
paid by companies to tell them what to do. I think. It was hard not
to toss a little respect at them from time to time.
“Okay. Sounds great,” Mom said into her headset. “All right.
You as well. Have a good evening, John.”
I waited as Mom finished her call and jotted a few notes down
in the file on top of her desk. When she finally spun lazily in her
chair and sunk back comically into her chair, her jaw going slack, I
chuckled.
“Why is Juno here?” I asked.
Mom continued to lay against the back of her chair as her
tongue rolled out of her mouth lazily.
“Mom.”
She mumbled incoherently.
“You’re not even funny.”
“I’m a little bit funny,” she mumbled.
“Not even a bit.”
Mom sighed with a roll of her eyes and sat up in her chair.
“Your sister lives here.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I said. “She lives in her dorm.”
“She’s part of this family.”
“She’s a pain in my ass.”
Mom laughed sharply. “You’re both a pain in my ass, buddy
boy. I still allow you to live here, don’t I?”
“I am not a pain in the ass!” I proclaimed, though the corner of
my mouth turned up with amusement.
“How was your day?”
“Mom,” I said. “Juno. Tell her she can only come over once a
week.”
Mom laughed again. “You and your sister. I swear. You two
have been fighting like fools since…well, since I can remember. Since
you could talk, I guess.”
 I groaned. “You’re just going to let her keep coming over here
and annoying me, aren’t you?”
“Just as I’d let you come visit, do laundry, and have dinner with
us while you are in college,” Mom said. “But I’ll talk to her about her
attitude, sure.”
“She got to live the first two years of her life without me
around bothering her. Can’t I have the last year of high school?”
I was mostly kidding. Mom telling Juno not to come over, while
a dream of mine, would never happen. I didn’t really want her to
make my sister feel like she wasn’t welcome anyway. Juno got on
my nerves, and talking to Mom about it simply made me feel better.
“What happened at school today?” She asked, ignoring my
question.
“Nothing,” I said with a shrug. “Well, classes and stuff.
Journalism Club. The same thing that always happens. Day after
day.”
Mom gave me a gentle smile.
I slumped.
“Davud’s back from Chicago,” I said. “I gave him a ride home
today. He’s, uh, kind of down.”
Mom didn’t have to say anything. She understood.
“I’ll call his mom and see if there’s anything they need,” she
responded.
I nodded.
“It’s just the same news,” I said. “Nothing has changed. I
guess there’s really nothing to do, right?”
“Right.”
“I just…that sucks.”
“A big one.”
“Ew. Mom.”
“What?”
“Don’t phrase it like that,” I said with a grimace.
She laughed. “Well, I’ll still call her tonight and make sure
they’re all doing okay. I’ll make sure she doesn’t say anything to
Davud.”
I gave her a look.
 “Promise.”
“Okay. Ms. Tabatabai took me off of Student Council and
politics and put me on extracurriculars.”
Mom groaned comically. “Second semester of senior year?
What a biiiiitch.”
I laughed. “Right?”
Most parents, especially those who work full time jobs like my
mom and dad wouldn’t understand their kids’ problems so easily. My
parents always kept up with the goings-on in mine and Juno’s lives.
Even when I got annoyed with my parents, I knew how much effort
they put into knowing me as a person.
“Want me to fight her?” Mom started to stand.
“No,” I said, so she slid back into her chair. “I just, well, you
know, I kind of enjoyed being low-key this year. I thought she’d let
me get away with that until graduation. You know?”
With a nod, Mom spun in her chair to dig in her wallet on her
desk. For a few seconds, I watched as she fished around, then she
spun back to face me and held her hand out.
“Here.” She pushed her credit card at me. “Order us dinner
from GrubHub. Your choice. You’ve had a hard day and I don’t want
to cook anyway.”
“What about Dad?” I asked as I took the card from her.
“He texted me at lunch. He’s not going to want to cook, either.
Hard day for him, too. Unless you want to cook?”
“Pass.”
“Juno can eat whatever you decide, but don’t do her wrong
when you order. You hear me?”
An evil grin came to my face at the idea, but I agreed with a
nod.
“Good,” Mom said. “I have to finish up here, so why don’t you
have them deliver around seven? Dad will be home then.”
“Okay,” I said as I stood. “I have some pizza rolls and
homework waiting anyway.”
“Mystery meat day?” Mom asked.
I grinned. Mom knew me inside and out.
“Close enough. Hot dish.”
 “Bitches everywhere, bro.”
She winked at me, eliciting another laugh. Mom spun back to
her desk, and I reached for the door. A thought stopped me.
“Hey,” I said, turning back to face her. “Friday, well, Jules wants
me to do a horror movie marathon with her.”
“You know I don’t worry about you staying at her house, Ryan,”
Mom said over her shoulder. “It’s not like we have to worry about
you two, right?”
“Very funny. But true,” I said. “Uh, but you know, Dad is going
to—”
“You do need to spend time with him, you know.”
“I know.” I rolled my eyes. “But can you help me convince him
that Saturday afternoon or Sunday or something will work? I kind of
just want to chill with Jules Friday night.”
Mom sighed. “You’ll owe me.”
“How much?”
“One public hug and time on the couch watching some silly
movie.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
“Don’t you ‘ugh’ me,” she said. “Deal or no deal?”
“Deal,” I said. “But if he doesn’t go for it, you get nothing! You
hear me? Nothing!”
Mom laughed. “Get out of here and I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Yeah,” I said. “All right.”
Quickly, I exited Mom’s office so that I wouldn’t be tempted to
distract her anymore, and slipped her card into my pocket. I jogged
past my bedroom and back down to the kitchen. Juno wasn’t in the
kitchen, but I heard her banging around in the laundry room, so I
retrieved my pizza rolls from the microwave. Before she could return
and say something feisty to me again, I held the hot plate delicately
in my hands and raced back to my room.
Seconds later I was at the little table in the corner of my room,
my homework spread out before me. Hungrily, I devoured my snack
while I did the few assignments that I had due the next day. The
same thing I did every day after checking in with my mom once I
got home. Afterwards, I ordered pork and cheese pupusas, tamales,
and rice from my favorite Salvadorean restaurant and scheduled
delivery for seven o’clock.
I shot off a few texts to my friends and responded to a few I’d
received. I considered locking my door and spanking it really quickly
before anyone thought to check in on me, but decided bedtime
would be better. Or maybe during my shower. Instead, I scrolled
through my socials and posted a TikTok of me performing—poorly—
the dance someone from school had invented that afternoon right
after school. I watched for a few minutes as my friends commented,
roasting me to Hell and back, though it was all meant to be friendly
teasing.
Boredom resides in a vacuum. When I looked up after all of
that, the sun was setting outside and my room had grown darker.
Shadows were being cast on the wall by the marmalade sunset, and
my stomach was growling for better food than chemicals wrapped in
cheap dough. I hadn’t heard Dad come in from work, but our house
is kind of big, so I often didn’t hear the garage door from my room.
I hadn’t heard his car pulling up, either, but the overwhelming
cacophony of monotony had been distracting.
Down in the kitchen, Mom was sorting through GrubHub bags
on the kitchen counter. Juno was setting out plates and silverware.
Her headphones were still strapped over her ears but the volume
was up so high I could immediately tell which song she was listening
to as she set the table. Mom and I exchanged a glance and amused
grins as I slid into my usual seat at the table. Juno slid a plate and
silverware in front of me and intentionally bumped my shoulder with
her hip as she rounded the table.
Screaming at my sister to keep her nasty ass away from me
would have been my typical response. However, Dad’s arrival
through the door out to the garage stopped me. It’s kind of an
unspoken rule in our house that all fights must stop for the first hour
that Dad is home. After a long day of back-breaking work, we like to
give the guy a minimum of one hour of peace before we start being
ourselves again.
Dad’s not some crazy authoritative, intimidating guy. That’s not
it. He’s actually a pretty gentle, soft-spoken guy. So, it’s not fear of
setting him off that manifested the unspoken rule. The guy works all
day long in the heat or cold, getting his hands dirty and ruining his
body. So, we all tend to give him a little peace and quiet when he
first gets home.
“Hey, family!” Dad announced as he strolled into the kitchen.
Without fail, Dad coming home meant that he would find Mom,
sweep her into his arms and give her the sloppiest kiss imaginable.
Inevitably, this grosses Juno and me out, even though it’s sweet.
Mom pretends that she’s upset about Dad not washing up before he
grabs her. We all know she’d be more upset if he went to wash up
before giving her a kiss when he got home. These are the things we
all do because we’re family. Family means being annoyed by each
other, but secretly loving every second of everything.
Unless you’re talking about Juno and me. She truly annoys me.
“Did you make all of this yourself?” Dad asked Mom as he
rushed in and wrapped his arms around her.
“You know I did,” she said flirtatiously.
“It smells delicious,” he replied.
“I ordered it,” I said. “Don’t give her the credit even though it
was her card.”
Dad and Mom both laughed before he gave her one of his
signature sloppy and dramatic kisses. When he finally pulled away,
Mom gave him a quick second kiss, then nudged him.
“Go wash the family off before you sit down,” she said.
Dad gave an obligatory laugh. The same one he’d been giving
since I could remember.
That’s another long-running joke in our household. Mom’s
black. Dad’s white. When he comes home from the shop, his hands
and arms are covered with the grime of the day. Mom jokes that it’s
the only time his skin looks like he actually belongs in our family. It’s
a poor joke, but she thinks it’s clever.
“All right, all right,” Dad said.
Mom set about carrying the containers of food to the table as
Dad made his exit from the kitchen. Juno was sliding into her seat
opposite me when Dad jerked to a stop at the kitchen doorway.
“Ryan!”
 “Dad!”
“Friday,” he said. “You and me. What shenanigans are the boys
getting up to?”
There it was. On a Monday afternoon after school. The man
wasted no time. Most people wouldn’t see much of my father in me,
but we have the same nose and eyes. Staring back into those
familiar features and wondering how to tell him I had plans was
painful.
“Oh, what?” Mom piped up. “You forgot about promising to
take me out to dinner Friday?”
Dad’s smile turned to a frown and my stomach slowly
descended from my throat as he turned to look at Mom.
“Don’t just stare at me, mister,” Mom said. “You said we were
going out for steaks Friday night.”
Juno was oblivious. Her headphones were still blaring loudly
enough that I could hear her song as she tapped away at her phone.
“Did I?” He winced. “I’m sorry, honey. It’s been a long day.”
Mom chuckled.
“Don’t you even worry about it,” she said with a flick of her
hand. “Go get cleaned up. I know you’re starving.”
Dad smiled and turned to me.
“Sunday?” He asked. “You and me? The boys?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Obviously. And no worries. Jules said something
about doing something Friday, so I can make other plans.”
Dad grinned from ear to ear and went on his way to go clean
up for dinner. When I looked over at Mom, I could tell she wasn’t
happy. She glanced over at Juno, then her eyes were back on me.
“A public hug and couch-slash-movie time,” I said.
“You bet your narrow ass,” she said. “I just lied for you.”
“Give it up, Mom,” I said. “You’re getting a steak dinner out of
it, too.”
She laughed and brought the final few containers over to the
table.
“You just better do something with your dad on Sunday or it’ll
be you and me.”
She playfully nudged me in the chin with her fist.
 “Sure thing.”
A few minutes later, Dad was seated at the table with the rest
of us and we were passing containers of pupusas, tamales, and rice
around. Even though I felt bad about Mom and me deceiving Dad a
bit so I could hang out with Jules, that melted away quickly.
Between the pupusas, tamales, rice, and all of the jokes and
laughing, nothing could sour my mood for long. Besides, I actually
wanted to spend time with Dad. But I also wanted to hang out with
Jules. Luckily, it all had worked out.
 On Tuesday, the lunch menu hadn’t improved. Salisbury steak
made with questionable meat, a side of potatoes—most likely from a
box—and overcooked vegetables, was the main choice. Leftover hot
dish was the other option. Luckily, between Jules and Liam, I was
able to swap the questionable items for more vegetables and fruit. I
didn’t have to actually ingest circus animal meat. Writing about the
subpar lunches served at A.M. Whitemane brewed in the back of my
head once more, so I had to remind myself that it wasn’t worth it.
Wednesday’s offering was basically equal to or slightly grosser
than Tuesday’s lunch. During Journalism Club after school
Wednesday, I almost begged Ms. Tabatabai to let me write an article
about the cafeteria food. However, she had already put me on the
extracurriculars beat and I didn’t want to annoy her. Also, it occurred
to me that my new beat already put enough on my shoulders.
Writing a full editorial column about the cafeteria ladies trying to kill
the students would have simply been too much.
By Thursday, I was bringing my own lunch from home.
Everyone in my friend group gave me crap about it, but nothing
solves questionable food choices like having a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich and a side of grapes. Maybe my lunch choice wasn’t
exactly healthy, but at least I knew what type of junk I was
ingesting. At least I knew it wouldn’t kill me by the end of the day.
Unless I choked on it, of course.
When Friday arrived, and I was at home stuffing my lunch bag
into my backpack, I had hit my limit with the school cafeteria.
During breakfast, Mom and Dad were treated to a twelve-minute
speech about the war crimes and other atrocities being committed in
my school’s cafeteria. Their amusement at how worked up I had
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 TABLE
Pages.
Le Jardin maudit 1
Épigraphe 7

L’ANE A CORNES
Combat de femmes 11
Le Jeune Homme aux citrons 16
La première Nuit au couvent 20
Le Médecin avorteur 22
La Baleine en rut 24
L’Ane à cornes au Palais 27
Le Châtiment du luxurieux 29
L’Ane à cornes sur la tour 32
Le Bal fantastique 34
Les Éphèbes et la Femme hydropique 37
La Prière du soir 39
Visite matinale 43
La Princesse et les laquais 45
Le Sérail mort 48
La Cathédrale furieuse 50
Les Chambres de l’hôtel 53
L’Après-midi du faune 55
Plaisirs du sultan 58
L’Esprit de la mer 60
Femme à la panthère 63
La Bouchère nue 65
La Fille du sultan 67
Les Castrats 69
Le Bain rouge 71
La Chambre de Barbe-Bleue 73
La Maison des adolescentes 76
L’Incube et la Vierge 78
Le Page aux gants mauves 82
La Tristesse du nain chinois 84
Le Parc masqué 87
Les Gladiateurs aveugles 89
Les Voluptueux 93
Le dernier spasme 95
La Messe de l’âne à cornes 98

LES RENCONTRES DANS LE PORT VIEUX

Le long du Port vieux 103
L’Enfant mort 105
L’Arbre de chair 108
L’Orgie pauvre 110
Je voudrais bien entrer 112
La Jeune Fille au lupanar 114
Le Secret perdu 118
Les Dieux sur les quais 120
La Treizième Année 124
La Complainte de l’hôpital 126
Le Voile froissé 129
Le Café-Concert maudit 131
La Tresse coupée 134
La Foire folle 136
Les Nocturnes 139
Viol de Fille 141
La Petite Danseuse 144
Le Corbillard infatigable 146
Complainte de l’homme qui s’est perdu 149

LA CHAMBRE AUX RIDEAUX VIOLETS

Si petite est la chambre 155
La Silencieuse 157
Que la soirée est belle 159
Le Visage enfantin 161
Le Vase imparfait 163
J’entr’ouvris doucement 165
L’Amitié et le Baiser 167
Tigresse aux ongles peints 169
Le Collier de turquoises 171
Baisers morts 173
L’Envoûtement 175
La Bête 177
Elle sentait le thym 179
Le Miroir ovale 181
Ote tes vêtements 183
Le Passage de la belle heure 185
Celui-là, jamais plus 187
Le Fantôme 189
Le Compagnon 191
Femme aux bijoux 193
L’Ame des pavots morts 196
L’Inconnu familier 200

LE SPECTRE DES SOUVENIRS

Le Présent subtil 205
Le Souvenir caricatural 207
Les Absents sont des morts 210
Le vieil Hôtel 212
La Solitude des femmes 215
Le Nom à voix basse 219
Tristesse d’Olympio 220
L’Embaumeuse 222

LE HUITIÈME PÉCHÉ
La Craintive 229
L’Horreur tentatrice 231
Les trois Adolescents 234
Je te rêve, casquée 236
La Femme aux trois colliers 238
Repas d’hommes 240

LE MASQUE DE LA BEAUTÉ PERDUE

Le Masque du Samouraï 247
Le Temple brûlé 249
La Bonté 251
Vieillesse 254
Le nouvel Orphelinat 256
L’Amitié des femmes 259
Le Plaisir 261
Le pauvre Pécheur 265
Le Château des masques 269
La Fille de Lucifer 274
La Malédiction 279

LE VOYAGE FANTASTIQUE
La divine enchaînée 285
La Vallée des larves 287
La Région des étangs 290
Les Esclaves 293
Le Palais des rois 296
 L’invasion des insectes 299
L’Être maigre aux mains immenses 302
L’Agneau désespéré 305
La Rencontre du squelette 307
La Montagne des bêtes 309
Le Nageur 311

LA DESCENTE AU PARADIS
La Descente au Paradis 317

Paris.—Typ. Ph. Renouard, 19, rue des Saints-Pères.—54.497

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