“I wanted to show you how great it could be. If we were together.”
Maybe I’m overreacting. The Coldplay tickets are quite sweet, I suppose. Danny knows Ajita and I love them, and despite the fact he himself is too hipster to allow himself to enjoy their “overrated drivel”, he’s a big enough person to swallow his own taste in pretentious hipster music and attend the concert with us. He is trying to be a good friend at least. In his own way.
I just can’t figure him out at the moment. One minute he’s looking after Ajita and Prajesh like they’re his own family, and the next he’s treating his actual family like dirt. There must be some serious shit going down chez Wells; even worse than the affair, if that’s possible. The thought alone makes me feel bad enough to overlook his weird behavior.
Plus, things are crappy enough in my life right now. And I have the option to forgive Danny’s relentless stream of weapons-grade douchebaggery, and try to rebuild our fractured friendship. All I want is for things to go back to normal, and this seems as good a place to start as any.
So I say thank you and hug him too.
6.58 p.m.
We’ve been playing ping-pong in Ajita’s basement for around eleven minutes, deftly avoiding the nude elephant in the room, when my phone vibrates. Message.
Since I’m in the throes of a heated tiebreak with Ajita, Danny inexplicably picks it up and reads before I can even stop him. “It’s from Carson,” he says flatly. “He wants to see you.”
Shit! I forgot to reply to Carson’s last text!
Shit! Why did Danny read it?
“Oh. Right,” I respond, carefully avoiding Danny’s stare. He wants to gauge my reaction, obviously, and I want to deprive him of that luxury. I pick up the ball to serve, facial expression set to intense mode as though winning this match means more to me than anything in the entire world, even awesome basketball-playing boys who look like movie stars and make me laugh and don’t judge me for screwing up.
“Bow chicka wow wow!” Ajita adds helpfully, despite the fact I’ve told her twice a day for half a decade that nobody says that anymore. “Manning wants round two. Who could blame him?”
I try to serve, but miss the table entirely. The score’s now 22–22.
At Ajita’s comment, Danny goes bright red, hurls my phone at the couch, shoves his feet into his beat-up sneakers and mutters something about seeing us later, which I silently pray does not come to fruition. Within three seconds he’s gone.
For God’s sake. Just when I was ready to move past this confusing episode of unrequited love and emotional manipulation.
I’m so stunned at his departure I allow Ajita to ace me. 22–23. “What. The. Actual. Hell?”
She shakes her head. “I get it. The guy’s hopelessly in love with you. And he knows he’s taken up permanent residence in the Friend Zone.”
“Oh, right,” I snap. “And because he’s spent enough money and inserted enough friendship tokens, the offer of sex and/or marriage should just fall out anytime now?”
Sighing, she bounces the ball up and down, waiting for me to regain sporting composure. “I know. It’s male-entitlement bullshit.”
“But?”
“Still can’t be nice reading that message.”
“Oh yes. Poor Danny. He is absolutely the one we should feel sorry for in this scenario. Did I ask him to read it? No. I know I’m sadistic at times, but masochistic I am not. And this hurts me as much as it does him.”
“Does it really?” she asks pointedly.
“Really what?”
“Hurt you.” She lays her bat down on the table, perceptively realizing I shall not be calming down anytime soon, and takes a swig of cream soda. “You seem to be taking all of this in your stride. The website, the nudes, the whispers in the hallway. Vaughan. Danny. I know you’re a tough cookie, and you’d rather impale yourself on a garden rake than ask for help or show emotion of any kind, but you’re allowed to freak out, you know?”
I’m not taking it in my stride! I want to scream. It’s absolutely killing me! But I’m incapable of showing vulnerability and asking for help because I am a TRAGIC ORPHAN WHO USES HUMOR AS A COPING MECHANISM!!!
Instead I say: “Have you ever considered a career in the counseling profession? That garden rake image in particular is very vivid.”
She sighs. “You know what I mean. You don’t have to be unflappable all the time. And you’re allowed to ask for help.”
I do appreciate her trying to talk to me semi-sensibly for once, but honestly, I am just so filled with wrath at Danny’s self-pitying martyrdom that I just cannot face it. And also I know she’s probably dealing with her own stuff. Figuring out her sexuality and such. So it doesn’t seem fair to offload on her.
I smirk. “Can we talk about something else, like how you pissed yourself yesterday?”
Another episode of Scrubs starts in the background, with that irritatingly catchy theme tune: “But I can’t do this all on my own, no, I know, I’m no Superman.” Or whatever.
Obviously Ajita has no self-control and cannot help herself. “You are no Superman, Izzy. And you can’t do it all on your own.”
Like I say, I’m not in the mood, so I nip this conversation in the bud. “Good talk, coach.”
She finally gives up. I feel kind of bad because I know how painful she finds trying to be a decent human being, but what can I even say? That all of this is like some kind of night terror, and I’ve woken up paralyzed and can’t do anything but sit and watch?
8.21 p.m.
I head down to the outdoor basketball courts after eating five portions of Betty’s iconic mac and cheese. Don’t tell her I told you, but the secret is she crushes up salt and vinegar chips and mixes the crumbs with the grated cheese topping to make a crunchy crust thing that is basically better than sex, and I should know, because I have had a lot of both.
Because the universe clearly felt bad for leaving me in this cesspool of a situation, Carson is at the courts alone, shooting hoops. Shirtless. Seriously, what have I done to deserve this good karma? Absolutely nothing, that’s what.
It’s still light outside, but the sky has that kind of late-summer dusty quality, with tiny flies and a slight haze hanging in the air.
Carson stops dribbling [the ball, not from his mouth] when he sees me lurking on the bleachers. I wave awkwardly, i.e. the way I do absolutely everything ever. He slowly makes his way over to me, buff chest rising and falling rapidly from the exertion. Oh, flashbacks.
Flumping down onto the bench in front of me, he grins. “Izzzaaayyyy. Come for round two?”
My eyes follow his dark snail trail, disappearing into the waistband of his yellow basketball shorts. “Ummm.”
He winks. He’s so beautiful, seriously. “No joke, though. I had a lot of fun last weekend. You’re a lot of fun.”
Now I’m grinning too. Stop, Izzy! Do not engage with flirtatious banter! I repeat, do not engage!
“Thanks, Carson. If only the entire world did not equate harmless fun with whoredom of the highest order.”
His face kinda drops at this point, and I feel bad for lowering the mood so soon. I didn’t mean to bring up my woeful personal life, but bam, there you go. I fidget with my keyring – an Indian elephant wearing a top hat. Ajita got me it when she went to Delhi with her family back in tenth grade. She said it reminded her of my ears. Bless.
“Yeah,” he nods, wincing. “Sorry, dude. It sucks, the way people are treating you. Like they ain’t ever seen titties before.”
“To be fair, most of them haven’t.”
“Yeah.” A sarcastic eye-roll as he spins a ball on his index finger. “Virgins.”
I’m not sure what point he is trying to make here, but he says the word “virgins” with such vitriol I don’t bother questioning it. Boys are weird.