“Zoey? I-uh, what are you doing here?”

“Hmm? Do I need permission to check on my property?”

“Your...?”

“That’s what you said, isn’t it?” She tilted her head. “‘I’m yours’.”

I could feel my face burning up.

“Y-yeah, but...”

My mind was going a million miles a minute.

Why was she here?

What did she want with me?

Did she see Gwen?

Does she think I’m going behind her back about something?

What if someone sees her here?

“But?”

But.

Before I could formulate a sentence, the sound of the door creaking open behind me provided another unfortunate shock of tension to my nervous system. I was dangerously close to short-circuiting.

“Son?”

I turned around and found my dad’s eyes already shifting between myself and Zoey, who hadn’t stopped smiling since she’d arrived. How was I supposed to talk my way out of this one? As my brain once again scrambled to concoct a sentence, any sentence, to put an end to the anxiety that was building up around me, the girl behind me opened her mouth to speak.

“Hey, dad.”

“”Dad?””

We both turned to her in shock.

“Uh, Son. Is this your girlfriend?” he asked.

“I-”

“I am.”

She wrapped her arms around mine.

“You’re the movie dad he always talks about, right?” she asked. “Nice to meet you. My name’s Zoey.”

I felt her scent cling to me tightly as her silky hair brushed against my shoulder, as if each strand were trying on its own to seduce me. My face went from burning as hot as a furnace to a volcano in the midst of an eruption. I marveled at how soft her body felt as she held onto me. I’d revered and worshiped this person for three years now, but finally having this much physical intimacy with her reminded me that, despite that reverence, she is still as fragile as a glass vase.

“Oh, huh. Well, my reputation precedes me. Nice to meet you… huh. He never told me he had such a... beautiful… Honey? Honey, you’re never going to believe this!”

He retreated inside frantically as if the Falcons had just scored the winning touchdown at the Superbowl, leaving the two of us out with the door wide open. The silence was almost as heavy as her arms wrapped around mine. The surprising thing to me, however, was learning that mom was also home. With how late she usually worked these days, her unusually early return was evidence enough to me that Murphy’s law was in full motion today.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in, boyfriend?”

“Huh? Oh.” My index scratched at my now assumedly red face as I donned a drunkard’s smile. “So uh, what is this? Are we dating now?”

“Are we?” She tilted her head forward and leaned over to glance at my face. “I think what we have is probably much deeper than that. Don’t you agree?”

“Completely.” There was no point in trying to make sense of it. Whatever it was that Zoey thought we were, I was all for it if it meant being this close to her all the time. “Uhm, come on in.”

She let go of my arm, much to my dismay, as I led her into the house.

Once inside, the sound of a news report filled the living space from the television set. Supposedly, an arrest had been made regarding the recent robberies that had been plaguing Deer Valley as of late, and the guy was supposedly a member of a certain cult. There were rumors about something like that forming ever since I was a kid, but I chose to ignore it as something that wouldn’t affect me personally. If they were going around robbing people though, then I suppose that there was some worry that they’d come for us next. I could only hope that the police investigation would gain some ground before that happens.

“Welcome Zoey.” Dad said, standing next to my mom who was washing some vegetables in the kitchen sink. “We haven’t heard anything about you before. Tristan’s mouth is more guarded than Fort Knox when it comes to his school life.

“Oh,” mom said, turning to face her finally. “She really is gorgeous. Are you sure she’s our Tristan’s girlfriend?”

“Now come on hon, our son is a good-looking kid. Have some more faith in him. Though, I don’t know if he’s quite THAT good looking…”

“Oh my god, please just kill me,” I muttered. Any existential dread that I was experiencing earlier had vanished without a trace. If a gunman suddenly walked in and decided to decorate the walls with my splattered brain, I’d consider it a kindness.

“C-come in. Are you thirsty? I can grab you a drink from the fridge,” I said to her, trying to ignore them.

“Water’s fine, thanks.”

I led her to the dining table where she took a seat then I rushed over to get her some water in the kitchen area next to the dining table.

“So!” My father said, clapping his hands together from the other side of the counter. “What brings you over, Zoey? Are you two on a date today?”

“Oh, nothing like that. We’re just studying before the weekend. We’re in the same world history class.”

“World history, huh? That’s a fun one. Who’s your favorite historical figure?”

“Dad, what kind of question is that?” I asked.

“Hmmm, Che Guevara, maybe? We have the same birthday, so I’ve always been kind of interested in him.”

“Oh really? When’s that?”

“June fourteenth. Kind of far away from now, but at least no one can plead ignorance anymore,” she said, staring back at me. I pretended not to understand what she was implying. Instead, I placed the glass of water in front of her then sat on the opposite side of her.

“Tristan, why’re you all the way over there?” Dad asked. “Go sit next to your girlfriend.”

The comment produced a playful smile on Zoey’s face.

“Oh Tristan, it’s so lonely over here all by myself. Won’t you come keep me company?” She reeled back slightly and placed the back of her hand over her forehead like some kind of distressed damsel.

“You guys…”

I couldn’t help but feel like I had been ambushed. I wasn’t at all mentally prepared to suddenly have Zoey meet my parents like this. It also bothered me that the two of them were so in sync with their verbal teasing, but protesting it would only make me look weaker than I already did. For the time being, I decided to acquiesce to their jokes and sat next to her.

“Still… Che Guevara huh? Is there anything besides his birthday that drew you to liking him? He was very anti-America, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t like him. I don’t think it’s possible to like a man I’ve never met before. But I am in love with the idea of him. A revolutionary spirit who stopped at nothing to bring the freedom he believed in to other peoples. He fought across the world against what he perceived to be a gargantuan empire of evil, and even succeeded on some accounts in breaking those chains. While I do love the concept of America, I’m willing to acknowledge that the country has made its own poor choices that led to the creation of people like him, so it’s not like I fault him for any of it.”

“Hmm, wow Tristan. Your girlfriend sure is a thinker.”

“Yeah, dad. She really is.” I looked away, completely uninterested in their conversation. This all just needed to end, and the thought of adding gas to the fire terrified me.

“By the way, on the topic of overthrowing governments, I have a question for you two,” she said.

“Oh boy,” Dad said, sitting at the opposite end of the table while rubbing his hands together, which caused me to tense up out of sheer embarrassment. “That’s one way to start a conversation. Okay, lay it on me.”

“Okay. Here’s the situation. You’re tasked with taking over the USA and molding it into a perfect dictatorship underneath your command. However, you only have the time and manpower to seize one institution of the country. As in, you could control anybody within the country and everyone around them within their field would listen to them, and by extension you, unquestionably. Which institution do you think would grant you the most influence over America?”

A U.S civics question, no doubt probing for practical use of Dream Paralysis to take over the U.S government. Just how bold-faced was she when it came to discussing her plans of world domination anyway? Though that aside, I hated that class with every fiber of my soul. It wasn’t particularly difficult, I just couldn’t care less about politics. Every time it’s discussed, it always devolves into passionate arguing between people who claim to know what’s best for everyone, despite how unsympathetic and cruel they all seem to be when they discuss it. I can’t imagine finding it in me to spend my life trying to sound smarter than other people over something like that. And yet, Zoey had posed the question, so I found myself regretting my unwillingness to explore it.

“Uh, I would try to control the president. Wouldn’t I control the entire government then?” I shrugged.

They both looked at me with disappointment in their eyes.

“Tristan, the president can’t actually do anything domestically without Congress,” dad corrected me. “He’s a part of the executive branch. His job is to sign bills in place. If the rest of congress doesn’t agree with you, then in a lot of ways you’re kind of just a figurehead.”

“Oh whatever.” I pouted. “What would you do then?”

“The banks. America is run on money. Control the banks, control Wall Street, and suddenly you have control over the economy, the population, and by extension, the government.”

“Well, that’s not a bad answer, but it’s too risky,” Zoey said. “The economy is unpredictable. Something that happens halfway across the world could affect global trade like wars or sanctions on goods, and suddenly you’re preoccupied with bailing the population out with stimulus while minimizing inflation. And you’d have to worry about enemies of the US trying to strip away our reserve currency status too. You’ll be spending your time trying to rodeo a rabid bull rather than controlling the country.”

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I nodded along without understanding much of the word salad I’d just been assailed by. Really, I just wanted to change the topic, but I don’t think Zoey would appreciate that very much, so I instead decided to take a sideline and listen along.

“You know you say that, but there’s no other answer to the question,” dad said. “Unless you’ve thought of one yourself?”

“The Supreme Court,” she said.

“Ooh,” dad rubbed his chin. “Not bad.”

“Huh? The court?” I asked. ”Why?”

“Well son, as you know, the constitution is the founding document of the U.S that dictates the rules by which we govern ourselves. You can’t change the structure of the government or create any laws that go against said document. However, the founding fathers aren’t alive, so it’s not like we can ask them what they meant when they wrote certain things. That’s what the judicial branch exists for: to interpret that document. And if you stack the court with people who completely agree with you, then who knows what kinds of crazy roundabout interpretations of that document you could come up with? You could probably get away with making the president a real dictator if you wanted to!”

I turned to Zoey, who seemed to be smiling at having her logic approved. She brought this up for a reason, didn’t she? Packing the court to take control of the U.S government? No, she wouldn’t even need to pack it. With Dream Paralysis, she could easily find a way to control them into doing as she pleased. I had initially thought that she was just joking, but was she serious about taking over the world?

“Mm, that’s the general idea. I think that power in the U.S is separated quite fairly among institutions, but at the end of the day the courts are the ones that effectively run the country.”

“But Zoey, you run into one little problem there,” dad said. “Supreme Court justices can be impeached by the house if they’re believed to be acting in bad faith. And when that happens, there’ll be a senate trial. So even if your logic holds, and you could technically change the shape of the country, congress can and will hold the courts accountable.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t think about that.” She paused to think for a moment. “If that is the case then I suppose that makes sense. Answer me this though: who puts members of congress into D.C?”

“Well, that’d be the voters.”

“And who informs the voters?”

“The media.”

I was having a hard time following their conversation. The civics class I took was a long time ago, and it was the furthest thing from my mind at that point. And it wasn’t just because the subject matter was difficult to follow. It was because Zoey had been rubbing her leg gently against mine for the past minute. The blood rushing to my lower half was making it extremely difficult to concentrate on anything but the feeling of our calves grinding against each other through my pants fabric.

“Right, the media. So, what do you think?” she asked. “Would the media be a better answer than the courts?”

“No, not long term. Young people don’t really watch mainstream news anymore. Maybe right now it’d work since older generations who vote the most are glued to their televisions, but even most of my friends get their news from Facebook these days. Controlling the news is slowly going to lose its power as the years go by thanks to individual creators on social media.

“Precisely. But social media apps like those can be banned via the courts.”

Her hand reached down to rest itself gently on my upper thigh. The creature between my legs was about to explode. She was mere inches away from coming into contact with it, and she was boldly holding this posture right in front of my dad. I was being taunted and toyed with by this girl, and I loved every second of it.

“Are you saying you’d use the court to stifle the media then?”

“Precisely. Pincer the system from both ends; the courts and the people. From there you can create a version of congress that bends to your authoritarian whims.”

When she said the word pincer, I felt her hand glide along my thigh, up and down, similarly in rhythm to how the leg that was currently glued to mine had been moving earlier.

“Wow, my son certainly has a scary girlfriend. I’d hate to see you with that much power.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Her fingers were gliding along my thing now. It was the gentlest touch, her tips curving along my length through the fabric of my pants, almost as if she were prepping me for something. I felt a warmth in my body that I couldn’t control. It was making my breathing more erratic.

Zoey Brahms fingers… it wasn’t her whole hand, but she was still touching it. She was touching my…

“Well, what do you think, Tristan?”

The moment my father said my name, I jerked in my seat. Zoey’s hand left my side when she felt the sudden movement.

“Huh? Oh… uh, to be honest, I don’t really know much about politics. I’m still surprised to learn that the president doesn’t do much when he’s all they ever talk about on the news.”

“The president actually does a lot, Tristan. He’s the commander-in-chief of the U.S armed forces, and he’s also the one who decides what gets signed into law. Because of that, he serves as a sort of voice that rallies members of congress on board with major legislation. But for the purposes of making the U.S a dictatorship, the seat doesn’t do very much on its own.”

“Right…”

“Honey?” Mom called from the kitchen. “The car needs some gas. Can you take it around to the gas station while I’m doing my grocery shopping?”

“Huh? But I’m having so much fun with Tristan and Zoey.”

“Honey?”

She wore a smile that communicated clearly, at least to me and dad, that she wasn’t exactly asking to be accompanied.

“I…” he sighed. “Okay, fine.” He got up and walked over to the kitchen counter to get his stuff. “Well, good luck studying then, kiddos. We’ll be back in a jiffy.”

“See you in a bit, kids!”

We said our goodbyes and the two of them left the house to drive off to the grocery store. With one order from my mom, it was now just the two of us in here. We sat in silence initially. Myself, stewing in the shame of how aroused I had been earlier, and Zoey, wearing her usual smile, just glancing around the room with her head propped up on her hand. For me, breaking the silence seemed a monumental task after experiencing the fever dream that was the last ten minutes. I had to admire just how comfortable she felt after throwing herself into strange situations such as that one.

After a minute or two of bathing in my house’s atmosphere, however, she decided to get up to grab a banana from the nearby fruit basket. Leaning against the counter and staring back at me, she chose to deliberately pick off pieces from the fruit and toss them into her mouth.

“I have to say Tristan, your parents seem like nice people.”

“I’m so embarrassed.” My face fell to my palms.

“No need to be. I like them. They’re interesting.”

“Well, okay...”

I wasn’t brave enough to say that it was her bold activities beneath the table that had really thrown me off. If she wasn’t going to bring it up, then I wouldn’t either. Besides, it was time to stop beating around the bush.

“Why did you come over?” I asked.

“Why? Well, I just happened to see something interesting on my way to my car earlier and I felt a little curious.” She pushed off from the counter and paced herself over to the table, then leaned over the chair my dad had previously been seated at to face me. “Is that a problem?”

“What… what did you see?”

“Hmm, I wonder?”

There was no room for misinterpretation. She was talking about me and Gwen. I suddenly felt guilty over it.

“Listen, Zoey-”

She silenced me by reaching over and placing a finger over my lips.

“You don’t have to make excuses. I was just curious about what she wanted with you, that’s all.”

She removed her finger, as if beckoning me to answer for my crimes.

“Oh…” I acted like I understood, but truth be told, I wasn’t sure if she was actually fine with it or not. Lying probably wouldn’t do me any favors, however, so I decided that it would be best to come clean. “She invited me to the mall tomorrow with the rest of her friends. For her birthday.”

“Really? She did that?”

“Why do you sound so surprised…?”

She giggled. “No reason. So, who counts as her friends, exactly?”

“Lawrence, Naomi, Penny, Warren, and… Ben.”

“That’s quite the ensemble.”

I scratched my head. “Should I have turned her down?”

“No, I think it’ll be fine. Maybe a little tense, but you should come out of it okay.”

“But… but what if Ben starts grilling me about you? About... us… I mean, I joined your club now. There’s no way he’s gonna be quiet about it.”

“Then you lie. Deny and lie like you’ve been doing for the past two weeks. They have nothing, Tristan. Only Gwen does, and she’s complicit, so she’ll be more of an asset than a liability. It would be bad if anything came out after all, so she’ll probably do her best to help you out.”

“But…”

At my hesitation, she grinned.

“Do you hate the idea of hanging out with other people your age that much?”

I held my tongue. Was she right? Was I that much of an unsociable person? Hanging out with the popular kids is everyone’s idea of a great high school life. Why was I not jumping at the opportunity presented before me? Gwen herself invited me, so it’s not like anything bad would happen if I went with them.

Once she took the final bite of the banana, she tossed the peel at me, forcing me to clumsily catch it.

“Besides, the sooner you get it over with, the sooner we can move onto phase 2 of learning about your power.”

“Phase… 2?”

She took a sip of her water.

“What you did last week. You weren’t just controlling him, were you? You were lying there dormant. Like a spy. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.” She realized it. “That’s how you knew I’d caught Gwen red-handed, right? You were inside of someone… Benjamin, or Gwen herself. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re right.” I couldn’t deny it. As always, her powers of observation were not to be trifled with. Since Ben didn’t complain about losing control of his body, she probably realized that it had to have been the only conclusion.

“You know, this opens up a lot of possibilities. For people we could spy on… Learning the deepest, dirtiest secrets of anyone we wanted to.”

“Yeah…” I didn’t quite care to learn about anyone’s secrets other than Zoey’s, but I wouldn’t go as far as to use Dream Paralysis to pry them out of her. However, if letting her use me meant that more things like what happened underneath the dinner table were in my future, then I was all for it. “What do you want me to do then?”

“There’s someone I want you to hack tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night? Sure, but who?”

Was it going to be someone from the mall trip? Ben or Gwen? Maybe even Lawrence? I couldn’t be sure, but it had to have been. There was no one else I thought she’d be interested in.

“Lawrence’s sister.”

“Lawrence’s… sister? You mean Laura?”

“Oh, you know her?”

“Yeah, she was…”

“She was…?”

She shot me an accusatory glance, as if she knew that I was about to compliment her looks. Laura Young. The angel who never smiled. For as kind and thoughtful as she was, she had the most unapproachable face at school. A twisted combination of almost intimidating beauty and inhuman stoicism was the mask that she wore. Why had she never smiled? No one knew. At least, neither Lawrence nor Laura had taken the time to tell anyone as far as I know. And yet everyone practically worshipped her. If I didn’t already have Zoey Brahm in my heart, I could have easily seen myself falling for her. However, I wouldn’t dare admit that out loud to the girl before me.

“Uh, well… she was a kind person,” I said finally.

“To a fault, yes. She was often taken advantage of by other students, financially and even going as far as to have her do their homework. If it weren’t for Lawrence and the influence he was able to exert over the seniors in the basketball team, she would have been a feast for the vultures. Thankfully though, she was protected by their watchful eyes until her graduation.”

I had no idea that something like that had happened at our school. I’d always just thought that she was kind, but people were taking advantage of that kindness? It pained my heart to see what the world did to people like Laura. Perhaps that’s why she wore that joyless expression all the time. It was the only way to protect herself from predators like them.

“But why did you want me to hack her?”

“I don’t think the ‘why’ particularly matters now, does it? I said that I want it done. Is there a problem with that?”

“Is she in trouble?”

“No more than anyone else I know.”

For some reason, she seemed to be irritated by my existence. After she answered my question, she suddenly shifted to pick her belongings up then walked to the door.

“Zoey…?”

Her manner of speaking felt like the cold winter had invaded my parents’ living room. A candle whose flame had burned out. That was the impression I got from her. Like the energy she’d previously been emitting was gone in a puff.

“Why did you use other people at the homecoming game?”

“Other…?” I paused, before realizing that she was talking about Ollie and Linda. “I… it was the best I could do.”

“Gwen, Ollie, Linda. At least you had the foresight to disguise yourself from the latter two. But why get them involved at all?” Ollie only got involved because she sat next to me, I wanted to say. But how could I possibly tell her that? Would she even take that kind of antagonism well when she seemed to be in such a foul mood? “Never mind. Just let me know what kind of things you find out about Laura.” She held out her hand, and a small object glistened in the light. “Here’s your reward.”

“My reward?”

“Regardless of how messy it was, you did your job last week.”

I accepted the key she was holding out and inspected it carefully.

“What is it?”

“It’s for the photography club. That’s a copy I made without the school knowing. You can use it for whatever you want.”

“But… isn’t this yours?”

She shrugged. “I can just make another one. Not like they’ll ever know.”

Without saying much else, she stepped through the door and closed it without even bothering to look back.

The sound of the lock clicking in place when I turned the knob was the final bell that signaled the end of my long day. Staring down at the key she gave me, I couldn’t help but wonder about the direction I was headed in. Was there something about Laura that troubled her? I didn’t know, and I probably never would. Not if she left without saying a word like that. All I could do was stare at that door. It taunted me. I was soaking in the vibrations of its laughter from the floor beneath my feet. It was amused by how hopelessly in love I was with someone incapable of love. She’d come clean about it last week, didn’t she? I was just convenient to her. It’s been a week since homecoming, so I might have romanticized our relationship since we’d been apart. But with this, I was greeted by a second rude awakening. So why am I keeping myself attached to her?

It’s because I love her more than life itself. The only reason I’m still breathing right now is because of her, in more ways than one. She’s my sun. My entire existence is predicated on her radiance. So regardless of how self-destructive it is, I can only move forward. Is this how Gwen feels? Is my perspective of her one-sided love with Benjamin just me staring into a mirror and viewing my own hopeless affliction?

I didn’t know the answer to that question. But I knew that I had a job tomorrow evening, and I would deal with it for the sake of whatever reward she was going to offer me. But for the time being, I needed to deal with the mess my premature lower half had painted on the insides of my underwear.