“Oh my god, are they dating now? I need to call her and find out right now. Ugh, no, wait. She’d find it suspicious if I called her right after they left, wouldn’t she? I’ll have to ask her after class. This sucks, I want to know now! Ugh!” Gwen was stomping her feet as she sat on the sofa and deliberated.

Sure, we had our suspicions that things would go well. Warren did seem like a nice person, and his motives were certainly as pure as could be expected from a guy his age. But do nice guys ever really get the girl? According to Benjamin, that’s undoubtedly false, but I had just seen it happen with my own two eyes. Luck. That’s all I could call it. He just happened to find the type of girl who was into the type of guy that he is. No, that’s not true. I was just being bitter. He’s tall, has a solid build, is successful in his field, is book smart, and he’s funny, albeit unintentionally. He’s a great catch if you really took a moment to think about it.

“Good for him,” Lance said, while preparing himself some coffee. Apparently, he’d brought in the instant coffee beans that he said he would last week. The sound of the kettle roaring as it boiled water filled the enclosed room.

“You sound awfully indifferent,” Gwen said with a frown.

“What are you even doing here anyway? You’re the reason Tristan’s face looks like that. Why’d you drag him out just for Ben to humiliate him at the mall?”

The bandage had come off today since the swelling had come down, but there were still the remnants of discolored spots checkered on my cheek. I imagined that I wasn’t exactly the prettiest person in the room, which is why Gwen had frozen up when Lance made that comment.

“I…”

“I’ve forgiven her so it’s fine,” I said, putting an end to it.

“Well lucky her then,” he said. “I probably won’t ever forgive her though. Being manipulated by an ass like Ben doesn’t excuse any of that. At some point you need to realize that you’re your own person.”

At his comment, Gwen only sunk into the sofa and sighed. “We all can’t be so lucky that we fall in love with someone nice like Naomi, you know.”

Don’t I know it, I thought.

“Actually, you can. Just quit picking shitty people to fall in love with.”

“Yeah, I wonder how Naomi would feel if I told her not to fall for a guy who breaks up with her for no reason then strings her around for two years?”

The kettle popped to signal the end of its laboring, and its roars slowly simmered down to a complete stop. Lance didn’t bother turning around to respond to Gwen’s comment. Rather, he waited for the kettle to go silent before pouring the hot water into his mug.

“Hey, Gwen,” I said.

“No, don’t say anything. I want to hear what he has to say for himself. If he’s going to get on his high horse and judge me then he’d better have a good reason for treating my friend like some leftover slice of pizza that he can just take out of the fridge whenever he wants.”

She was upset, and understandably so. He had no idea what she went through with Ben, so his offhanded comment must have stung. But for Lance, who never really opened up about any of this stuff, this must not have been a fun situation for him.

“Tristan, why did you invite Naomi to the photography club?” he asked.

“Oh that? That was my idea,” Gwen said.

“Shut up, I have nothing to say to you.”

“Oh, you don’t huh?” Gwen stood up with a smirk. “Hey Tristan, isn’t it weird that this little rabbit can act this holier than thou about my relationship then take the high road even though he’s treating one of my close friends like garbage?”

“I couldn’t say,” I said. It was tough being caught between a rock and a hard place like that. The truth is, I didn’t actually want to openly pick a side. If we’re talking about where my loyalties lay, then I had to side with Lance over Gwen. The issue here though, was that Gwen did make a fair point. It would make sense for Lance and Naomi to resolve the tension that existed between themselves as soon as possible. They were both my friends, and the fighting they’ve been doing since homecoming has put a strain on all of us.

“Well, I think it’s weird.” She slumped back onto the sofa and began inspecting her cyan-painted nails. “I broke up with Ben, by the way. After dating him again, I finally realized that he didn’t actually care about me at all anymore. Whatever we had before is gone now. He was just using me as a stopgap to fill the gigantic hole that Zoey left in him. Believe it or not, at some point people learn to realize when their time is being wasted and they move on. Naomi might come to realize that too.”

Lance bit his lip. In a rare show of vulnerability, he fought against the urge to retreat. “I… I just need a little more time, man.”

“For what?”

“I…” he started but held his tongue. It was the first time I’d ever seen him like that.

“I guess it doesn’t matter what it is. The problem is you never told her about it. You just naively believed that she’d stay in love with you forever until you got your head sorted out. Well, guess what? A human being isn’t a video game. You can’t just pause them while you deal with other things then come back later like nothing happened. We’re all eighteen, we’re adults now. We have to be like, efficient with what we spend our energy on. And guys who string us along aren’t it.”

“I’m not stringing her along though, I really do want to...”

“But she has to know what she’s waiting for, doesn’t she? You can’t just expect her to sit there forever and wait for something that might not ever come.”

“I can’t tell her what it is. She’ll think less of me for it.”

“Oh really? Do you wanna practice with me right now?”

“Practice?”

“I’ll be Naomi. You just come sit here and tell me why you broke up with me. I’ll pretend that we’re dating and I’ll let you know if I think less of you for it.”

“What? That’s weird. You’re being weird. Trist.” He snapped his fingers. “Tell her she’s being weird. Pronto.”

“I don’t know Lance, I actually think it’s a good idea,” I said with a grin.

“Dude, what? Come on, I don’t wanna do this.”

“Why not? I think it could be good for you. You’re not happy with the way things are either, right? Then maybe this could help you get a feel for things, or something.”

“But…”

“Think of it as practice for our club project.”

“Practice…” He glared at me, while mumbling. My smile was as playful as ever as I goaded him towards the goal. “Oh whatever, fine.”

He hesitantly walked over to the sofa, inspecting Gwen, who was seated there with an uncharacteristically warm smile on her face as if inviting him to let his guard down. He sighed, still standing for a moment as if bracing himself, then finally took a seat, placing the coffees on the table.

“Okay, are you ready?” Gwen asked, looking straight into his eyes.

“You’re too close.”

“It’s okay right? Because I’m Naomi.”

“You’re not, but I get it. It’s roleplay, right? Whatever. You start.”

Gwen took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then let out a huge exhale. With it, I could feel all of the tension and energy she was carrying with her escaping from her body. As if she were taking on the form of a new person.

“Hey Lance,” she said with a smile that carried not a hint of any negative emotion.

The curve of her eyebrows, the wideness of her eyes, the tug of her lips, they were all so perfectly Naomi that it felt like she had hacked Gwen without me knowing. “Why did you break up with me?”

“What? You’re just going to ask it like that?”

“Well, I wanna know,” she said, stretching her arms above her head as if she’d just woken up. “I’ve been trying to hang on for a while, but the truth is, my curiosity is killing me inside.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “I love you; you know that. And I know that you love me.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lance’s face turned bright red.

“Uh, Gwen…”

“Gwen? I’m Naomi. What’re you talking about?”

“Y-yeah, but…”

The sound of the bell’s ring that signaled the start of the school day interrupted their conversation. It created a huge lull where Lance was deciding whether he should run for the hills or not, and Gwen simply used the opportunity to take a sip of her coffee before placing it back on the table without breaking eye contact.

“Oh, so you like Gwen huh? Is that why you broke up with me?” Gwen folded her arms and pouted.

“No, dude! It’s not like that! It’s just…”

“Just what?”

His flustered face at being forced to act like Gwen was Naomi was throwing him for a loop. Her acting might have just been at a level he wasn’t prepared for.

“Okay, fine. I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?”

Gwen, or rather, Naomi nodded. “I won’t. Lay it all on me.”

“Okay.” He cleared his throat. “You know how my parents got married right away after meeting up in high school?”

“Sure. What about it?”

“They moved into a small house in Deer Valley right after the wedding. Moved right into the house that I live in now. Then they got jobs. My dad’s a manager at a construction company and my mom’s a dental assistant. They’ve been working the same jobs for the past twenty years. And every day, when they come home, to the same house after working the same jobs, they take turns cooking the same meals every week. Then when they’re done, they go out onto the porch and stare at the same garden we’ve had since I was a kid, and they have the same conversations they always have. Then when that’s done, they watch shows or movies or whatever on the same TV then they head up to the same bed to sleep at the same time so that they can do it all again the next day.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Nice? It’s boring as shit. I’m absolutely scared out of my mind of living a life like that. Listen, okay? I love Naomi, I really do, but I don’t want our lives together to fall into that kind of monotonous routine. I want to live a valuable life. I want to be someone who’s passionate about something. Like music or sports or theater. I don’t want to be someone she’ll get bored of. I want to be the kind of guy you can point to and say, ‘my boyfriend is the coolest guy in the whole world’, and every day with him is new and fresh and exciting. I want her to brag about me from the first day of our marriage to the five hundredth, ‘til we’re both in our graves. And to do that, I need to find something that makes me special, something that makes my life valuable before we settle into that kind of boring, monotonous lifestyle. But I can’t find it. I’ve been searching for years, making friends in all sorts of different circles and groups, searching for something that speaks to me, and I can’t find anything that calls to me like it calls to them. I can’t find that thing that makes my life valuable. But I will, I know I will. If she just gives me some more time… then maybe… Gwen?”

I turned over to look at Gwen, and found that she had tears pouring out of her eyes. Did she even realize it? Something about his words had moved her.

“Lance…”

“U-uh? What?”

“You’re wrong. Your parents aren’t boring, they’re beautiful…”

“Uhh, no? They’re definitely just boring.”

“No they’re not. Not at all. I’m sure it looks like that to you from the outside. But like, to be able to spend twenty years with someone just doing the same old things every day and to be happy doing that… isn’t that what love is?”

“I mean...”

“They enjoy one another’s company so much that they could tolerate that kind of mundane routine for twenty years happily. I want that. I want that with you, Lance. I can’t think of anything I’d want more. So what if you’re not Harry Styles or Steph Curry or Timothée Chalamet? Who cares if you’re not this incredibly talented and successful guy? You’re Lance Harley. You’re cool and funny and you make every day enjoyable just by being yourself, and you helped me discover who I am deep down too.”

“But… what if we get bored?”

“If we get bored then we’ll change our sex life up.”

“Wha-” His face turned red.

“Besides, no relationship is perfect. As long as we COMMUNICATE, and TELL EACH OTHER WHAT’S GOING ON, then I’m sure that it’ll work out.”

She stressed the words that she probably thought Lance needed to hear the most. I thought he’d fight back, but he only looked down at his feet.

“I… I see…”

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but it felt like Gwen had taken her role as Naomi a little too seriously. Shouldn’t Lance have had this conversation with Naomi? Why was Gwen filling her shoes so eagerly? She really is a natural born actor. And I think in that moment of silence, Gwen came to the realization that she was too deeply immersed into her role and immediately got up and turned away.

“A-anyway, did that help you realize it? I don’t think Naomi minds that you’re a worthless, talentless loser.”

“Oh my God, I forgot you were a complete bitch for like three minutes straight. Fucking Christ.”

She turned back to pose with the back of her hand against her cheek. “That just means I might have a future in acting, that’s all.”

“Yeah, right. If you become a famous actor, then I’ll quit Dota.”

“What’s Dota?”

“Nevermind. Class is already starting so I’m gonna head out now.” Lance picked himself up and walked back to the door.

“Think about telling her soon though, please?” Gwen pleaded.

“I’ll think about it…”

“Oh, and rabbit?” she said.

“What, dude?”

“I think that that kind of life would be valuable to at least one person.”

He didn’t respond. His eyes examined the girl before him, then looked over to me, then he left the room as if running from the specter of his past. That just left Gwen, who was back to inspecting her nails, and myself. Once again, it was just the two of us. It’s been happening like this more and more recently.

“You’re really good at acting,” I said.

“Thanks. I’ll remember you when I’m giving my first Oscar speech. After the academy, my parents, my husband, and my two beautiful kids, a boy and a girl.”

“You have your whole life planned out, huh?”

“Well, I did, until Saturday.” She put her hand down then sighed. “High school sucks.”

The complicated expression on her face said it all. I can’t blame it all on Zoey. After all, Ben did choose to reciprocate her advances rather than stay faithful. But still, I couldn’t help but feel guilty about my feelings for Zoey when confronted with how beaten-up Gwen is over everything.

“Did you get in trouble for keying his car?”

“You know, I don’t actually think he told on me. No one’s come to me about it yet.”

“Well, that’s nice.”

“Yeah…”

She agreed, but her expression had told a different story. I could have been wrong, but it felt like she was disappointed that he hadn’t even granted her enough anger to even warrant telling on her. Whatever the two of them thought about one another, it seemed like what happened on Saturday nuked the remainder of their relationship from orbit. Zoey had left a gigantic hole in Ben, and Ben had left one in her.

“Oh,” I said, suddenly remembering something I’d prepared for today and reaching into my bag.

“What is it?”

“Here.” I pulled out a rolled-up bit of canvas paper. “Happy 18th, Gwen.”

“Thanks.” She smiled and accepted it, then unrolled the paper to examine it. “Oh my God Tristan, did you paint this?”

“Well, it took a few tries, but…”

I couldn’t think of what to get her no matter how much I tried yesterday. What would be a meaningful gift for her? Drawing back on our experiences together, the only thing I could think of was the painting Ben had given her. I decided to use Gwen’s Instagram as a reference and painted a terrible picture of her. Ben’s painting was a gift she’d treasured for three years, there’s nothing I could come up with that would come even close to something like that. I can’t replace Ben, but maybe I can show her that the world isn’t over now that they’ve broken up.”

“I won’t say you’re any good at this, but you’re at least better at it than Ben is.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She giggled. “Why me though? Shouldn’t you be painting pictures for Zoey?”

“As if Zoey would ever want something like this…”

“Why do you sound so disappointed, weirdo? You’re the one who’s in love with her.”

“Uh, well, you’re accepting a gift from a weirdo, so what does that say about you?”

“Says that maybe I think this one weirdo isn’t so bad as all the other weirdos out there.” Her eyes were intently focused on the colors. They were sparkling. “I love it Tristan, thanks.”

“I’m glad.”

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to sweeten me up.”

“I don’t think I could ever do something like that,” I said.

“Because you like Zoey?”

“Yeah.”

I couldn’t deny the fact that I was still in love with her. Thanks to the hack last night, while there was some turbulence compared to the other times, I still felt relatively calm and stable. But when I’m not influenced by her personality, I feel like I could crumble to dust at any moment. Like my entire sense of self-worth and being is just as fragile as my heart is. Until the medication started working, I still needed my love for Zoey to get through the night. But I think that’s why I enjoy spending time with Gwen so much. She also looks like she’s about to crumble. She might put on a stronger shell than I do, but I’ve felt for myself just how fragile she is beneath all that armor.

“By the way, I think I have a good idea for the script. I think it’ll be amazing. I’ll try to get it done by Saturday, so keep your Sunday open for filming.”

“Really? You don’t have to.”

“No way, you made this for me so now I kinda have to.”

I wanted to refute it, but if she felt like paying me back for it then far be it from me to stop her. Besides, I had no idea what to do about the script anyway. Though,the subject of movies and acting did remind me that there was something I wanted to ask her.

“Gwen, why were you crying back there? Was that just pretend?”

“Huh? Oh…” She brushed her hair nervously. “I uhm, I kinda… might have imagined Ben saying that stuff to me. You know, wanting to pursue basketball to make me respect him more. I get that he played so seriously because he loves basketball, but…”

“Oh…”

“Well, you know, I just… I wish he thought about me the way Lance thinks about Naomi. I wish he was doing it even partially because he thought it’d raise my opinion of him. At least then I’d know he even kind of liked me.

“But the truth is, I didn’t care that he played basketball. I didn’t care if he ended up in the NBA or not. What was important to me was him being happy with himself. And I guess… being with me wasn’t enough for him. So, I don’t know, that story about Lance’s parents touched me. People who can be satisfied just living for each other sounds like the most beautiful existence in the world.”

“Yeah, that’s how I feel too.”

In my case though, I just wish she loved me for me and not for Dream Paralysis. I know that one day, I’ll have to come to terms with the fact that I’m unattractive to her without these powers. But it’s like my mind won’t even allow me to think about it. It’s much more exciting to just bask in the attention that she’s giving me now, however scarce it is.

“You know Gwen, you haven’t been swearing at all today.”

“Oh, I haven’t? I wonder why.”

Had she finally begun letting go of it all? Of Zoey, of Ben, of all the turmoil she’d been going through for the past few months?

“Well regardless, maybe you should head to class now. You might end up starting again when you find out that you’re marked truant,” I said.

“Huh? I have a free period right now.”

“You what?”

“Wait, were you skipping class because you thought I was skipping too…?”

She grinned, and I covered my face in embarrassment.

“Just… get out.”

“Alright alright, see you later Trist.”

She got up and waved me off then left through the door. As soon as she did, I finally allowed myself to relax as my body slouched onto the sofa.

“Oh, and Tristan?”

“What? Huh?”

She had popped her head in through the door without warning. It had honestly scared the lights out of me, but I did my best to remain calm.

“I’m really glad to have a friend like you.”

“Oh… yeah. I like you a lot too, Gwen.”

She stared at me for a moment with a warm smile on her face before pulling back and closing the door. Despite the stillness of Zoey’s influence on me, my heart had managed to find a way to flutter. Somehow, there was still so much joy inside of me that I decided I must have been dreaming. Lawrence, Warren, and of course, my sister-in-arms Gwen. I was forming so many new connections that my outlook on the world was slowly beginning to change. But oh, if only I knew how fleeting this happiness was. Because that same day, it all came crumbling down as if it had never existed.

All thanks to the girl of my dreams, Zoey Brahm.