I woke up the next morning and ran straight to my PC. Amanda slept over so she could prevent me from committing suicide in my sleep (deep shit, I know, but without her, I would’ve been a goner).

  Amanda was already up and met me with a cup of coffee in her hand. “Your bipolar excuse of a mom just made some hazelnut coffee, want some?”

  “Just gimme yours,” I said grumpily.

  Amanda slammed it down on the table right next to my keyboard.

  "This is black,” I criticized.

  “Well, excuse me, Jim Crow,” she hissed, “besides, I figured you needed it.” She responds, more to her phone than me. “Hey, do you think I should text Cliff some rumor about Chloe to get them to break up or do you wanna do the honors?”

  I sighed. “Look, Amanda, I have nothing against Chloe. She just acted out and it scared me. I’m over it. I don’t hate her or anything.”

  “Do you even like her anymore?”

  “I don’t think I ever did; I think I just liked the idea of the type of person Chloe was and wanted to be with someone like that.”

  “So, a Leo?” Amanda asked.

  She was actually wrong; I didn’t realize that for a while. I did my research, and I found out that the Leo season started later than I thought. In other words, Chloe’s a Cancer. Another incompatible zodiac sign and further evidence that literally no two Cancers are the same.

  But if there’s one sign I don’t seem to click with, it’d have to be Pisces. I have Kells to thank for that.

◄◄◄

  Now might be a good time to talk about Kells. His story is an interesting one; heck, if this story about Madison goes well, I can make a spinoff off of Kell’s shitshow of a life.

  Basically, Kell’s life was just sucking hard. Next to no one believed in his right-wing conservative Christian views and he got irate when someone mocked him.

  I was his favorite someone.

  I was a major dick to him. He was one grade above mine, so throughout his last three years at Junes Landing Middle School, I seemed to have mentally degraded him. He ended retaliating to some avail, but you can never bullshit a bullshitter. This one time at recess was the greatest, though, because he did some stupid monologue about how in the fall, everything dies; relationships, friendships, shit like that. Then in the winter, it all froze over. I forget what happens in the spring and summer.

  At one point, I’m pretty sure I even said under my breath that I was surprised he hadn’t killed himself yet. He was right next to me. He started to cry—understandably—and I sorta just made some tamer jokes about him being a pussy. Trust me, though, he wasn’t only a pussy; he was an alcoholic. He brought whiskey to the school dance and then was mixed between sad and angry that whole night. Then he denied it.

  Earlier this year, I made a fanfiction about us as a present for a friend. If you ask for it, I’ll be more than glad to deny your offer. Don’t worry, though; you only missed out on me talking about how big his dick was (it really wasn’t; I did it for the irony) and how he kissed me on the cheek and then I mocked him for it.

Jesus Christ, that was the best story I ever wrote.

  But I did drive Kells to go sorta… mad. That, and a lot of other factors, but I was one of them. I even got him kicked off the student council because he disagreed with my belief in evolution (his belief was spiritual, mine was practical) and called me a cunt right in front of Mrs. Mullinski.

  Kells was also sorta crazy for someone in his class. I thought nothing of it until I realized that someone had very similar interests to me and then I liked her too. He got mad at me for it, tried to talk me out of it saying that I’m just confused and going through changes (mind you, he’s been rejected twice). It was whatever, though. I just feared of becoming like Kells. Or this other ginger named Allodem. He’s not important: he also liked the same girl, was even crazier and extreme about getting his way with her, and almost no one liked him. He seemed chill, though. But deep down, he was starting some freaky shit.

  Allodem and Kells were the two guys I didn’t want to turn into, especially after Delilah found out about the videos. Unfortunately, I fit right in with them.

►►►

  I took a sip of my black coffee and pulled up YouTube. Madison responded to my apology video. I didn’t want to read all of it; it seemed mostly fueled on anger, and I wanted a professional response. Apparently, though, I tried to shove my opinion down her throat? I mean, even if that is true, she seemed to be implying it as if it were intentional. I then pulled up Gmail. No email from Delilah yet. Good, I could approach her first.

  "You’re going to email your long-time crush apology?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sheesh, I’m trying to be mature.”

  “I’m sorry?” Amanda raised an eyebrow, “You’re not going to defend her after what I said?”

  “What you said wasn’t even that mean. Besides, I don’t like her anymore.”

  Amanda gasped. It was actually exaggerated, but there was some genuine shock.

  “You’re surprised?”

  “Um, yeah! You’ve been insane over her for like, what, a year? I mean, that’s longer than all of your crushes!”

  That technically wasn’t true; I had a crush on someone else who was two grades above me for three years. No point in telling Amanda that, though.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "Did you just wake up and decide that she isn’t good enough for you?” Amanda asked, testing me.

  “She’s not an object,” I replied, a little defensive, “I’m just… moving on. And that’s okay.”

  "But don’t you still want to, like, get to know her more?”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m into her romantically. She’s just a really cool friend. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were taken.”

  "Be careful what you wish for,” Amanda mumbled. I ignored it.

  “Hey, I need your help with this email,” I tilted to PC in Amanda’s direction.

  “Seems easy, let me do it.”

  I let her type it while I went to put cream in my coffee. When I returned, I wasn’t happy.

Yo girl,

I just wanna say that I’m sorry for what I did. You know I love you and I’d never do anything to hurt you, though. No hetero, though, because I don’t like you no mo. Found another girl to go after.

Your boi,

Enzo.

  “I’ll give you a head start while I look for the knife in the chess bo—”

  “Aight, sheesh,” Amanda said, laughing. She held the BackSpace key to return to a blank email.

  “This needs to be perfect, Amanda! Can’t you take this seriously?”

  “Calm yourself,” she raised her hand right in front of my face, “I’mma fix it.”

Yo,

Hey, I dunno if you hate me or whatever, but I just want you to know that however you feel ‘bout me is completely irrelevant since I hate you.

  “Why are you making me sound like that?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Amanda rolled her eyes, “do you want to go back to sounding like a black Soundcloud rapper?”

  That wasn’t the point. “Just… let me do it.”

Yo,

I just want to say sorry about everything. This apology is also pretty overdue, so I also apologize for that. I was just recording the apology video last night and completely forgot to reach out to you personally. If anything, though, I’ve been completely frustrated by how everyone’s been reacting over it; if you ever want to talk about this after it blows over, that’s fine. Or you can just ignore my existence. No shade or anything; I’ll quickly get the message.

Sincerely,

Me

  “Was that ‘Sincerely, Me’ at the end really necessary?” Amanda asked, going to delete it.

  “I’m just trying to show that, you know, I’m chill and it’s all cool,” I replied, lacking the confidence my sentence needed.

  “Well, just don’t expect anything extraordinary to occur; she’s a Scorpio. And you know what I tell you literally every single day, right?”

  “Never mess with a Scorpio,” I recited, “I get it.

  “And then you fucked it up with Madison.”

  “Her reasons for being angry were justified, you know.”

  “Yeah, because she’s mentally damaged.”

  I retreated a bit. “Why would you say that?”

  “Well, I mean, it’s more like you were the cause of her now worsening mental state.”

  “That’s stupid,” I scoffed, “I only did that with, like, Kells. And that was even unintentional.”

  “But it certainly worked, didn’t it?”

  I wanted to answer, but she continued, “I’m just warning you: Use your emotional manipulation wisely. In the end, you’ll end up messing up yourself more than your victims.

  And like that, Amanda left without a proper goodbye. She was really starting to act… different.

►►►►►

  Around three o’clock that same day, I got a response from Delilah. I never read it. From what I remember, there were 4-5 paragraphs. Out of everyone, Delilah was the only one that gave me what I wanted: a professional, thought-out response. For some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to read the email. It just wouldn’t sit well with me. I called Amanda back over. She read some of it. Most of the highlights were “I just can’t believe you’d do this. Any of this.”, “If you mess with Madi, you’re gonna have to mess with me.”, and most infamously “I hope you’re getting help because I’m worried for you, dude.”

  “Damn, she thinks you belong in a mental hospital,” Amanda finally said.

  “She does not,” I rolled my eyes trying to not freak out.

  “I mean, at least she wants you to get better.”

  “And no one else does?”

  “Well, Madison wants to chop your dick off, that’s for certain.”

  No comment.

  "But, think about like this: Delilah isn’t mad at you.”

  “She is," I mumbled.

  “Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. But I’m reading this email and… it just seems like confusion.”

  Confusion? About what? About how I was able to send people into depressive and anxious episodes?

  "She knows this isn’t normal of you. I know this isn’t normal of you. Naomi knew it wasn’t normal of you when you made the video about her. Hell, once Madison calms down, she’ll realize it isn’t normal of you.”

  “Then why hasn’t Bea freaked out over the video? She was the very first person to see it and even commented about the knife and chess board!”

  “Prolly ‘cause you didn’t use her struggles as a hypothetical example.” Her answer was a little narrow, but for what he was trying to do—talk me out of doing anything risque or having a full blown anxiety attack—it calmed me down. Besides, I started to get a few new ideas for my next move.

  “We need to rebrand the channel,” I suddenly said.

  “Again?” Amanda groaned. “Because of how Delilah feels about you getting help?”

  I didn’t give an exact answer; instead, “Well, I mean, people apparently want to know that I’m going to therapy, right? So if I tell them I’m going to therapy, then they’ll back off for a while.”

  “Then… what about Madison?”

  She was right. I needed to give the Madison story some proper closure, “We could say that she… you know,” I started talking with eyebrows so Amanda could get the message.

  “We’re not going to fake her death, Enzo, that’ll probably end us up in jail.”

  We actually back and forth on the idea. But after Amanda heard my 50 stories on how I wanted the cause of death to be—three of which including being caught in a mudslide, eaten by a lion, or run over by a shitty purple Scion—she threatened to leave unless I stopped making videos entirely.

  “Alright, we won’t say she died,” I finally gave in.

  “Good, you were really starting to get me worried. I mean, talk about being the mastermind behind the downward spiral of the mental state of a girl, am I right? Seriously, did you really think you were going to—”

  “Aight, I fucked up!” I shouted, then, “Aight… that can be the name of my new series!”

  Amanda started to pace around the room, saying it a couple of times. “Yeah, it sounds… black.”

  After my second threat of the day to get the knife out of the chess board, Amanda finally refrained from making any more black jokes. We spent the rest of the day planning how we were going to set up the story. The final product came to be this: I’ll say that I’ll be going to therapy and make my parents and therapist aware of my videos. I’ll say I’m on antidepressants and all that jazz. Amanda also gave me a blue journal to use. She said it’d be safer to not talk about people in videos anymore, but rather in journal entries.

  So I added the “fact” that my “therapist” told me to write in the journal regularly as part of the treatment. There was obviously no therapist or antidepressants, but I did use the journal to ease down my paranoid thoughts and jot down observations about people that seemed to stand out or change. No, I would never actually provide any help—I wasn’t a trained professional, after all—but it was a good way to get my thoughts out of my head and keep them private and safe.

  This eventually became the story on my new rebranded channel, That Queer Idiot.