“Can you hear me? Are you awake?”

Bzzt.

The faint concerned words conga lining through my mind were reminiscent of a dream I once had. One where my muddled sense of reality pervaded every corner of consciousness.

“Stay with me.”

Bzzt.

I was staring death in the face again, wasn’t I?

Is it a dream?

Or is this really happening?

Did I really smash that bottle of perfume?

Or is it just an intrusive thought that I had managed to scrub away?

The electric impulses in my brain were running marathons trying to make sense of the distorted world around me. My blurred consciousness came and went like the flickering of a burned-out light bulb.

Bzzt.

Yeah, that’s the sound. The sound of my consciousness reigniting and fading away. A light bulb incapable of drawing any more power. Could I really have done something as reckless as spit in the face of Ben like that? Insulting his pride and his money as if it were worth less than the ground we stood on? If I had done such a thing, then calling it a mistake would be as much of an understatement as calling Lance Harley a blunt person.

It would mean that I’d stepped on the Lion’s tail. Stretched my arm out before a hissing cobra. Poked a hibernating bear. It’s a folly that warranted death. Even ignoring that stature of his that would put even world-class fighters to shame, difficult as it might be, even ignoring that his friends would hate me for it, ignoring the fact that we were in public, just what would be the point of destroying that bottle, exactly?

Bzzt.

To momentarily quell my rage? Rage over what, anyway? If Gwen had wanted to play at being Zoey Brahm just to earn his love, then she could go ahead and dive into that cinnamon-scented sea of self-loathing for all I cared. It was none of my business.

` Bzzt.

But if it truly were a dream, then I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was causing my body so much distress. Why was I having so much trouble staying awake? Why did it feel like I was experiencing the aftermath of having my stomach grinded, meat, bone and all? Why was my back seemingly being bludgeoned under foot? It was the consequence of antagonizing that large machine of a man, wasn’t it?

Bzzt.

But that couldn’t be the case, right? What kind of an idiot would throw himself into oncoming traffic like that? And yet, my heart was pounding desperately against my rib cage, and I was terrified that it was the end for me. My supposed assailant’s lack of concern for my life was apparent if only by the strength of his blows.

“Get off him! What the hell are you doing?!”

“Security!”

My eyes were closed. My hands and arms were wrapped around my head like a make-shift helmet. When the attack had finally come to an end and I had regained some semblance of continuous consciousness, I realized that I was lying on the ground in a desperate attempt to protect myself. His blows carried so much force that each one had knocked the wind out of me completely. I must have been beaten for an eternity before he was finally pulled away from my body.

An eternity? No, it was most likely closer to eight or ten seconds. But a moment in Benjamin’s world felt like a thousand years in real life. When I opened my eyes, I found Lawrence and two male mall cops holding him back. His eyes wide with a rage that hadn’t yet been quenched from tearing me apart.

“TRIST! Trist, are you okay?”

Naomi’s voice was the only sound that had cut through the pain.

“I’m alive, at least...”

I barely got the words out as I involuntarily coughed. I wasn’t joking when I said it. I was just glad to have been alive. It took a moment for me to realize that I was already standing with my arm slung over her shoulder. I was obviously disoriented, but I hadn’t realized just how bad of a state my head was in.

“Lance would get jealous if he saw us like this,” I said.

“Don’t be silly.” Naomi smiled. “You look terrible...”

“I feel terrible.”

I felt the pity oozing out from her gaze. Just how badly did Ben do me in? She set me down somewhere, I had no idea since I couldn’t properly perceive my surroundings due to my blurred vision.

“I’m going to go see if I can get you some ice. Will you be okay if I leave you here for a bit?”

“Sure…” I felt her gaze of worry stick to my face despite my answer. “Really, I’m fine. I’ll wait for you.”

“Okay, I’ll be quick.”

She finally tore herself away to go search for the stuff. It’s funny how two minutes can change absolutely everything in your life. Though, to be honest, that’s a narrow interpretation of events. What happened just then wasn’t the accumulation of two minutes’ worth of decisions. This had been bubbling up for weeks now. The rift between Ben and Gwen thanks to Zoey, coupled with Ben’s own animosity towards me is what set this off. To neatly highlight these two minutes as if they were everything completely disregards the broader context of the history of our relationships. A relationship that all led back to our obsession over a single girl.

The sight of Benjamin’s disheveled self as he was taken away by the mall cops was the first thing I saw when my vision returned, and it was a welcomed one to say the least.

However, I don’t know if I’ll ever forget it.

The death stare he had shot me as he walked off was enough to send shivers down the tailbone of even fully grown adults. I should have known that a violent reaction was a given. I’d hacked him just last week, hadn’t I? I know exactly how short his temper is down to an inch. I felt it myself, after all. But still, I just couldn’t hold myself back. There was something about Gwen’s acceptance of his warped view of their relationship that had angered me to no end. Did I really want to protect her that badly? Why? Why did I get so angry on her behalf? My eyes shifted around, but the girl in question was nowhere to be seen. Not at the table that I had apparently been re-seated at, not with Benjamin, nowhere that I could see at that point.

“So, hey.” I turned to the sound of the voice to find not Gwen, but Lawrence and Warren standing up beside me. The former’s face was flushed, plainly dyed by his own remorse for how the situation had played out. “Listen, man. We’re uh… God, I’m really bad at stuff like this. Why does that guy put me in situations like this so often…?”

“Don’t say it,” I said.

I knew precisely what sort of words were about to come stumbling out of his mouth, and truthfully, I didn’t care all that much to hear it. After all, I was the one who destroyed Ben’s gift to Gwen. I was keenly aware of his temperament, and I was also aware of what the consequences of that action would be. If anything, I should’ve been the one to apologize for ruining Gwen’s birthday.

“No, I’m going to say it anyway. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you… ow.” I winced at the pain in my sides. Did he break one of my ribs? I had no idea what a broken rib felt like, so I couldn’t say for certain. All I could think about was how I would possibly explain this to my parents. Were these bruises concealable? He’d probably only hit me in the face once, so it was possible. Maybe if I wore my hood up…

“How bad is it?” Lawrence asked.

“I’ll live, I think.”

I had my doubts that it was anything beyond some bruising. I seemed to have done a good job of protecting my body from most of it, and he didn’t get much of a chance to really tear into me.

“We should’ve been more honest with him,” Warren spoke up. “It should have been our job to set things straight, not yours.”

“No, I don’t think you should’ve thrown that bottle either…”

“Maybe not,” Lawrence said. “But I think if anyone should’ve done it, it should have been one of us. Gwen is our friend too, you know. I shouldn’t have just sat there and pretended that everything’s going to be okay while he toyed with her feelings like that.”

“Well, if that’s how you feel about it...” My eyes continued scanning the food court, wondering why he used the word ‘too’. I don’t recall ever having made friends with the girl. “Where is she, anyway?”

“No clue,” Warren said.

“You don’t look like you care very much,” I said.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize for… never mind.”

It wasn’t Warren’s fault, there wasn’t any point in taking it out on him. The guilt was just setting in, that’s all. I had unilaterally decided to ruin her day. This isn’t what she wanted at all.

“Are you okay here on your own?” Lawrence asked. “We’ll stay with you if you…”

“No, you can go look for her. I’m just waiting on Naomi.”

“Gotcha, if you really think so then we’ll go look around… fuck man, whose idea was it to do the mall anyway?”

“Mine,” Warren said.

“You’re a piece of work yourself, you know that?”

“Sorry.”

Their voices trailed off as the two of them went off in search of Gwen, who couldn’t have possibly gone far considering the amount of time she’d been missing. I wondered how low her opinion of me must have been after all that. She went out of her way to invite me as a gesture of good faith, and this was where it got her.

“Hahaha!”

I covered my mouth after my sudden burst of laughter. Where did that come from? I seemed to be incapable of hiding my emotions. A quick scan revealed that the bystanders who were scattering after the ordeal had ended had turned back to me after my sudden outburst. What are they all looking at, I wondered? It was amusing, wasn’t it? It was my first outing with people my age and this was what it’d amounted to. Of course they couldn’t see that, but why shouldn’t I laugh? It’s the normal reaction to such a ridiculous outcome.

I’m a failure. I’m such a failure that all I could do was laugh. What am I still doing there? My thoughts had taken me down a dark path. Showing my face again to Naomi after all that felt shameful to me. I didn’t think I could bear the embarrassment, which is why I eventually decided to leave the mall.

My new resting spot was an unoccupied bench in the parking area outside. The sun was still in the sky above, but it only peeked a little from behind the dark clouds covering the sky every now and then. The chilly autumn breeze seemed to be laced with just a hint of winter. While sliding my buds into my ears, I looked down at my phone’s screen and hit the play button on Radiohead’s OK Computer. The familiar sounds that had flooded Zoey’s bedroom filled my ears. It was calming, and it reminded me of a time when a potential romantic relationship between myself and her still seemed possible. I looked on at the passing cars and wondered how things ended up like this. She said that this would be a chance to make friends my age, but my lack of ability in that area had made itself apparent today.

I remembered the first time I met Zoey Brahm at Deer Valley High. I remembered getting drunk off the fragrance of the very same cinnamon-scented perfume that Ben had purchased earlier. I remembered how my heart fluttered when I heard her voice for the first time as she said good morning to me with that angelic smile of hers. In that singular moment, with no hesitation or previous consideration, I knew that she was the only girl I’d ever want in life. And yet despite that, or perhaps because of it, I simply couldn’t muster up the courage to speak to her.

That’s how it’s always been for me. Even when the stakes aren’t high, my gaze always shoots off the edge. Not at my goal of the other cliff face, but at the lurking abyss that seemed to be clawing at my feet from below. My body is paralyzed; unable to take the first step toward that leap to the other side. To make a jump of that magnitude would be a superhuman undertaking for me.

All an idiot like me is good at is waiting for others to jump over to me so that I can share in the fruits of that other side. It’s a miracle that I even met Lance, or that he thought I was interesting enough to spend his best school years with. If it weren’t for that, then how would I have made any friends at school at all? What does one even say to someone they’ve just met for the first time? How should I have piqued their interest? What if I embarrassed myself and turned them off from me completely?

Perhaps my sudden decision to try my hand at making new friends was a result of the medicine I was taking. Would I really have had the courage to have gone through with this without them? I couldn’t say for certain, but it’s entirely possible that I wouldn’t have. What is apparent, however, is that whatever the reason was that I ended up at the mall, it led to my worst fears being realized. I’m simply not meant to be with other people. I’m a screw up and an idiot and I’m probably better off being alone for the rest of my life.

I leaned back onto the bench, still relishing the atmosphere, and the sound of Thom Yorke’s soothing vocals flowing into my head. Basking in the breeze, I spotted a Geodude-shaped cloud drifting above my head. I thought about taking a picture of it and sending it off to Lance, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. Instead, I looked on in silence with an understanding that this cloud would eventually disperse and end up lost to time forever, only having been truly recognized by my own set of eyes. Its lonely existence evoked within me a sense of longing and melancholy that I couldn’t quite place.

Before I could get much more lost in my own confusion, however, I realized that someone had been standing next to me. It took me a few shoulder taps to realize that said someone had been trying to get my attention for a while now. The thickness of my jacket had been far too effective at absorbing the pressure. I removed the buds from my ear and turned around.

“Your ice.”

I left the building because I didn’t want her to find me, but I supposed that there was no use now that she was here.

“Oh, thanks. How’d you find me…”

But when I looked up at the voice behind me, I found someone I hadn’t expected to see. Gwen Diaz was standing at my side with her hand holding the plastic pack of ice out in front of me, and an indifferent expression on her face.

“I guessed. Hurry up before it melts.”

“Ah, right…”

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I grabbed the ice pack then gently placed it against my cheek. The coldness unleashed a tingling sensation against the painful swelling of my face before the numbing of the pain finally settled in. The shift in temperature and the plastic texture of the ice pack were somehow comforting to me.

“Where’d Naomi go?” I asked.

“I told her I’d handle it. Her and Penny are heading home.”

“I see…”

She took the opportunity to clean the spot on the bench beside me with alcohol wipes before taking a seat. It wasn’t a comforting situation to be in. Covered in bruises next to the girl whose birthday I ruined. If there were ever a bigger idiot in the world, I’d love to meet them. Because honestly, what I did today takes the cake.

“Hey Gwen,” I said, fumbling to get the words out. “I’m really sorry about today. I know I shouldn’t have…”

“You know,” she started, interrupting me. “Didn’t you ever stop to really wonder why I invited you in the first place?”

“’Why’? Because you said…”

“Yeah, a reward. But then why didn’t I just give you a gift then? We aren’t friends or anything, you know. Not really. Sure, you helped me out, but that doesn’t exactly mean that I actually want to hang out with you or anything.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It’s nothing against you personally,” she said. “I just don’t really care about anyone except for Ben right now, so I’m not looking for any new friends.”

“Right…”

We sat in the silence of her brutally honest confession. It could have just been her way of taking it out on me for ruining her day, but that’s not the impression I got. Her voice was calm, like the gentle flowing of a spring stream. There was no rough current of anger flowing through her as she spoke. And yet her words stung all the same. It stung to be told the truth.

“The reason I invited you…” She paused to flick her lighter and press the flame against the cigarette in her mouth, taking a drag and then looking out at the passing cars. “Was because Ben wanted to humiliate you today.”

And then suddenly, it all clicked. Why she went out of her way to invite me. Why she was so indifferent to me being there despite that. Why Benjamin was so adamant about digging into me all day today. The puzzle pieces were neatly fitting into place at last. How many of them knew about it, I wondered? Naomi seemed annoyed with him, so she probably didn’t. Lawrence? Come to think of it, he almost told me, didn’t he? He must have known. He tried easing Ben up as much as Naomi did, and he wasn’t even my friend. A part of him must have felt guilty about the whole thing. And what about Warren? Penny? I couldn’t tell with them. But at the very least, three of them were aware of his plan to hose me down for his own pleasure.

“I see,” I answered, staring down.

“Do you hate me for it?”

Despite asking the question, I could practically feel the apathy in her expression. She clearly didn’t care all that much about whatever my answer was. It was just a formality. The pain in her heart over how things had turned out today was clearly far too overbearing for her.

“If Zoey asked me to invite you to a shaming ritual, then I probably would have done the same thing,” I said.

“I see.”

Would I have hesitated? Would I have felt guilty about it? My heart isn’t made of stone, so it’s fair to say that I would have. But what matters to me the most in life is Zoey Brahm. No one else even comes close. She’s the only reason I can function at all, so of course I’d throw everything away for her happiness. I tried running away from that truth by denying her the use of Dream Paralysis, but it was futile. I am broken and downtrodden, and she is the piece that completes me. I need her to function. My heart won’t keep beating if she rejects me.

“Heh, it’s funny,” Gwen started again. “When you talked about how you’d prefer a purely sexual relationship with her to no relationship at all, I thought you were just being a little freak. In my head I was like, ‘well that’s not true love. You just want to fuck her. Learn when to quit, moron.’ But after getting back together with Ben, I finally started to get where you were coming from. I’d been without him for so long that I’d settle for just about any kind of relationship if it meant that he’d laugh with me the way he did before. I’d even become the person I hate the most in the world.

“I knew it, you know. That it was Zoey’s scent. I knew it from the second I picked it up from the sample card. Krista and I visited the photography club this week, so that gross fucking smell is still fresh in my mind. But to be honest, I didn’t mind it all that much. If that was all it took…”

She stopped herself. When I caught a glimpse of her face at that moment, I realized that her eyes had softened for the first time all day. As she looked off longingly, the afternoon sun shining her blonde hair, the strands picking up the autumn breeze and swaying in the wind as she reflected on her own relationship with love, I couldn’t help but feel for her.

“Gwen, why did Ben start talking to Zoey in the first place?”

And as if my words had triggered something within her, those soft eyes hardened as she turned to face me.

“You’re really gonna make me remember all of that right now? Really?” I didn’t respond. I felt for her, but there was a part of me that really did want to know. And I think that, when she saw the determination in my eyes as I matched her gaze with my own, she let out a sigh reluctantly and took another drag. “Hey Tristan, has Zoey ever asked you how your day’s going?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me, just answer it.”

“Not that I can remember, no.”

“Yeah, Ben doesn’t either. Not since Zoey started talking to him anyway.”

“She’s… the one who spoke to him?”

“Yeah, but she’s not into him if that’s what you’re worried about. She just led him on so that he’d break up with me, that’s all. After he did that, she ghosted him completely as if they were never really that close to begin with. Fucking asshole, served him right. But really, fuck her most of all.”

“She did that?”

She squinted her eyes at me.

“What, you still think that bitch is innocent? Get fucking real. Zoey Brahm isn’t the angel you guys think she is. She’s the literal fucking antichrist. The only reason you can’t see it is because you can’t get past her stupid looks and her stupid smile and that stupid fucking perfume. Heh, that perfume. Isn’t that something? She’s so good at fucking with guys’ heads that they’ll douse girlfriends in her scent just so they can delude themselves into thinking they’re with her.”

I had no doubt that his intentions were somewhere along those lines. He would probably get her to start wearing the same clothes too. He might even suggest that she grow her hair out and dye it that dazzling auburn of hers. That’s just how obsessive Ben had become.

“So seriously, why did she do it? Why did she break us up like that? It’s pretty fucking obvious that it was the goal, but I can’t think of any reason other than the fact that she’s a manipulative cunt who just wants to see everything around her burn to the ground for her own entertainment. She doesn’t have a single decent bone in her body, Tristan. I’ll only be ever feel vindicated if she ends up rotting in a hole six feet deep.”

I wanted to fight back. I wanted to deny it. To tell her that Zoey wasn’t like that. That she wasn’t the antichrist, but a beautiful, kind angel. That she genuinely cared about the people around her, about me. But the truth was, I couldn’t. Thanks to Dream Paralysis, I knew exactly the kind of person that Zoey Brahm was. But being forced to take a hard look at it was difficult for me. It made my skin crawl. I needed to change the subject right that second.

“But what about you?” I asked. “Aren’t you the one who’s obsessed with a self-absorbed nutcase like Ben.”

I thought she would admonish me for insulting the love of her life, but she only smiled.

“Yeah, you’re right. Fuck him too. I ignored Lawrence for years over him, even before I knew the guy was a womanizing shithead. I ignored Jerome from Algebra 1, and Tyler from the football team too. They were all really cool guys, but I didn’t give any of them the time of day because Ben was the only one I had eyes for, and the last thing I wanted was to mess things up with him. If he couldn’t do the same for the first cute girl that so much as glanced his way, then maybe he’s the problem. God, it pisses me off. I kinda wanna go look for him now.”

She stood up.

“You… what?”

“Yeah, let’s go. I know where his car is.” She dropped her cigarette onto the sidewalk and crushed it underfoot. I didn’t like the way she said that. There was a sick, twisted joy in her voice, one that people usually have before they unleash some untold horrors onto themselves and everyone around them.

“No, I..,” But before I could protest, she had already grabbed me by my wrist and lead me away from the bench and along with her whims. Ben’s car, A blue Tesla Model 3. It wasn’t as far from where I’d been seated as I expected. In fact, if the mall cops had truly dragged him outside, then I might have ran into him at some point. They must have brought him into their station because there was no sight of him anywhere.

“Hey, he’s not here. Let’s leave,” I said, hoping things would end there.

Oh, how naïve I was. For some reason, even the melodical jingling of her keys hadn’t given her intentions away to me. It was only as she walked past his car and I’d heard the rough, grinding sound of metal being scratched that I reflexively ended up ducking for cover.

“Gwen, what the hell are you doing?!” I whispered while yelling, or perhaps yelled while whispering.

“Getting revenge,” she said, turning around and keying another line into the body of his car.

“That things really expensive, quit it!”

“Don’t worry, it’s his dad’s car.”

That’s even worse, I wanted to say. He must have had rich parents just going by the perfume and the car, but the financial hole he’d been put into between myself and Gwen’s antics filled me with guilt. The guy was an asshole, but I don’t know if he deserved this. And the fact that she was even going through with it almost begged the question as to whether there was a screw or two loose in her head.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said.

I looked up and found her standing before me while I was still ducked for cover. She was wearing a smug, satisfied look on her face as if she’d just solved world hunger. She had certainly solved a certain type of hunger, but it certainly wasn’t the worlds, and it had nothing to do with malnutrition either. Revenge is a dish best served cold, people always say. But there was nothing cold about what Gwen had done in the heat of the moment. Would she regret this later, or would she revel in her transgression and hold it up as a story to tell her kids? Who was to say? All I knew was that it probably wasn’t a good idea to get into the habit of keying the cars of people who upset you. It could very easily be Zoey tomorrow, after all.

“Uh, Gwen-“

“Gwen!”

A voice called out to her.

A familiar voice.

“Oh God,” I said. It was Ben, I knew it was.

“Just hide behind the cars, I’ll talk to him.”

“But the marks-“

“I’ll deal with it. Just hide.”

There was no point in arguing. Who knows what he’d do if he saw me at that point? There was nothing I could do. He’d blame me for the marks on his car even if Gwen confessed to it. Gwen called Zoey the antichrist, but from his perspective there must have been two large horns sticking out of my head today.

“Hey babe, you waited for me.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“Oh, you know, mall cops. They got some information from me and they’re gonna call the school tomorrow. Harry’s probably gonna ask you guys about it too. I told them Tristan was a dickhead who destroyed hundreds of dollars’ worth of my shit then punched me in the face, so hopefully they’ll let me off light. You’ll tell them too, right babe?”

I punched him? So he’s going to lie to the school about me? I couldn’t take another suspension. In fact, something like that might not end in just suspension. Two offenses of that nature within that short a timeframe? Even if I didn’t get expelled, my parents would have to do something about it. Was he determined to ruin my life?

“Yeah, I’ll tell them,” she said.

“Thanks babe,” he said, hugging her tightly. “What happened to that loser anyway? I still need to have a word with him.”

“A word? Yeah, right. We both know you it’s not going to end with just a word.”

It suddenly dawned on me that Gwen was positioned perfectly to sell me out to him, just as she had when she invited me into this trap of a mall outing. Just one word and Ben would come up to me, who was hiding behind a car, and drag me out onto the street for round two.

“So come on, where is he? Still inside? Call him out here.”

Honestly, I didn’t have the courage to find out what she planned on doing. That’s why, before she could answer, I started sneaking away with my upper body hunched behind the cover of the cars.

“Hey, did you really have to go so hard on him today?”

But before I was out of earshot, I found myself stopping when she uttered those words.

“What? Well, yeah. He’s the reason…”

“The reason what? You’re dating me instead of Zoey right now?”

The conversation quieted as if a gun had just been fired. Gwen was up to something, but I couldn’t tell where things were going.

“Babe, we don’t have to do this right now-“

“No no, go on. Tell me why you hate him. It’s because you wish you were at the mall with that bitch Zoey instead of me. Be honest.”

“Come on, don’t start this now.”

“What do you mean? I’m just asking you a question. If it’s wrong, then just say it’s wrong.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Okay, then why do you hate him so much?” she asked.

“It’s just… babe, this isn’t fair. You’re the one who offered to invite him so I could fuck with him.”

“Yeah, because you were about to blow your fucking head over finding me and Law talking together in private. I would’ve said anything to calm you down. You think I don’t regret it after all that shit you did to him today?”

The two of them went quiet. I wondered what kinds of faces they were making. Did Gwen have the upper hand just as it had sounded, or was Ben’s intimidation winning over her? A sigh erased the silence before I could think about it for too long.

“Okay fine. Maybe I don’t have a good reason to hate him now,” Ben said. “But babe, he threw the perfume I got you. That shit cost a lot of money.”

“That ‘shit’, was just your way of pretending that I’m the real love of your life. Be honest, you bought it so you could take me back to your place and fuck me while I wore that bitch’s perfume. Tell me I’m lying.”

“Babe…”

“No, tell me. Go on.”

“God, you can such a pain in the ass sometimes…”

“The fuck did you call me? After all the shit you put me through?”

I’d always known that Gwen had a bit of a foul mouth, but I’d suddenly realized where her swearing habit came from. It almost felt like she never truly left the space that the two of them inhabited after Zoey came between them. The arguments were all she had left with him. Did his hatred feel better than the apathy of his distance. It felt as if a vicious cycle was perpetuating itself through these fights.

“Gwen, stop it. I’m sorry. I just want to go home.”

“Fuck, whatever.”

There was silence, and then the sound of a lighter flicking on. Was she smoking again? Were they both smoking? I didn’t dare take a peek over the cars. The sound of traffic and distant chattering was the only thing filling my ears now that the two of them had gone quiet to potentially smoke.

“I regret it, you know,” he said. “Sometimes I think back to when I first started talking to her. And I think like, don’t do it. Don’t fucking do it. But she was just…”

“Don’t say it. Don’t say anything flattering about that bitch in front of me.”

“My bad...”

The silence returned. I wanted to keep eavesdropping, but my knees were screaming at me for any relief, and I had no plans to rest on the street below me. I had already gotten enough strange looks from passersby who happened to be visiting and leaving the mall, I wouldn’t add to the strange looks by sitting down on the cold asphalt like an idiot.

I was back at the bench about two minutes later, alone as if Gwen had never found me to begin with. I placed the ice pack against my ribs as I wondered why I had decided to administer this in the cold. But what actually piqued my curiosity was whether or not the two of them had actually made up. Things seemed to be simmering down before I left, and Gwen really does loves Ben. It’s entirely possible that things might return to zero after they’re done talking. Not that it mattered anyway. While I understood where she was coming from, she still chose to sell me out to her boyfriend. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to spare for someone who respected neither my time nor my wellbeing. And to go back to her boyfriend after everything…

Before I could finish the thought, I looked up as I heard the sound of panting before me. There she was, once again. Gwen Diaz had returned to me.

“Run away with me.”

“Huh?”

She tugged at my wrist once again. Her face was flushed as her soft, frantic breaths slowed.

“Run, he found out I keyed his car.”

She was smiling playfully despite her heavy breathing, as if she’d played a simple eraser-on-the-door prank.

“Yeah but, where…”

She took off and I was dragged along behind her after getting off the bench. My gaze shifted around in search of our pursuer, but it didn’t seem like he’d followed her. He must have been investigating the extent of the damage to his dad’s car. I can’t imagine he’d be going home too happy considering everything. She might even end up getting in trouble for it too. It didn’t seem to bother her, though. The future was probably the last thing on her mind. The only thing that truly mattered was the euphoria of the moment.

I had to admit, I did find it amusing that he stood with her in idle chatter while under the impression that they were going to make up, only to realize that she’d already keyed his car. Was that what she was going for? If so, she might have a little bit of the diabolical Zoey in her after all. Maybe Ben should take another look at the girl he’s dating.

We arrived at the car, and we swung into the seats we’d been in just the day before. I once again placed my feet in without protesting.

Once the doors were closed, the two of us sat without speaking, as the sounds of our breaths and the near muted ambience of the outside world filled the car’s interior. It was a surreal experience, spending so much time like this alone with a girl my age. It felt like I was in the middle of an exciting adventure, like something out of a coming-of-age film that my time with Zoey couldn’t possibly emulate. Though, the look of my bruised face in the rear-view mirror was very much a wake-up call. The half-melted ice pack that I decided to move back to my face did very little to cover up its ugliness.

I decided that it would be best to ignore that unsightly thing and instead looked over at the girl in the driver’s seat. Only, what I’d found there wasn’t all that much better. The joy on her face had also been melted away. She was staring down at her feet as her mind drifted away. What was she thinking about? What were her plans?

“Hey Gwen-“

“I didn’t actually want to go to the mall for my birthday.” Her confession came as a bit of a surprise. The sudden change in mood left me unable to even find the words to respond with before she continued. “Everyone was so adamant about shoving their own ideas of amazing birthday plans into the air that I never really got a say in the matter. No one was like, ‘hey, I wonder what Gwen wants to do for her birthday’?”

“Not even Penny?”

“Penny is kind of a ditz. She means well, and I love her to death.” She lifted her arm up and looked at the friendship bracelet she’d received from her friend earlier. “But… I don’t know if she’s capable of thinking that deeply about other people yet. She’s still kind of a kid in that way. I guess that’s why I liked Ben so much. He just kinda got me. From all my favorite things to all my peeves, He didn’t just know them, he really got them as if they were his own. He would do these romantic little gestures like cleaning my desk for me at school and holding the door open for me so I wouldn’t have to touch the knob and, and, I don’t know. That caring and considerate Ben contrasted with the hardened, battle-scared basketball player everyone knew like heaven and hell. Like it was a side of himself that he’d only give to me. It made me feel like the most special person in the world.

“I see…”

She paused, then turned to face me with disappointment coloring her eyes. “I see? That’s it? Really?”

“What? I don’t know…” She had put me on the spot. I’m terrible at thinking of what to say when people are being serious like that. “What would you have wanted to do for your birthday then?”

“What, would you go with me if I told you?”

“If it’d make your day better.”

“Even though you’re in that much pain?”

I shifted the ice pack back to my side. “I’ve been through worse.”

My words hung in the air as we both stared out through the windshield. There we were. Two complete losers who’d failed at love, hanging out to dry in the sun like washed towels on a weekend morning.

She sighed. From the corner of my vision, I thought I caught a glimpse of light reflecting off her cheek, but she immediately rubbed her face then started the car. The engine came on with a roar that mirrored the renewed determination on her face.

“You know what? Fine, fuck it. Let’s go.”

“Go? Where to?”

“We’re going to celebrate my birthday properly. Just you and me,” she said.

“Seriously? Why just me?”

“Ask me again and I’ll change my mind. Let’s go.”

“Uh, right…”

And so, I was suddenly forced to play the star role in Gwen’s birthday entertainment.