I flop down on my back. “So, I’m a desperate virgin spending his summer at his old home with nothing to look forward to, and I’ll be alone for the rest of my life because no one will ever love me and I’ll probably develop some hideous growth on my face from all this sun.”
“Probably,” Corey says, lying down beside me on his stomach. He turns his head toward me. “I’ll love you, but it’ll be from a distance because I’m not good with facial growths. Also, I really hope you realize how pathetic you sound and that you’re just attempting to be ironic. Teen angst isn’t what it used to be.”
I do. And it sucks. I haven’t spoken to Bear in days. Or Otter. Or anyone else other than Corey, angry and sure they all had conspired against me somehow to keep me out of the loop from knowing that my former best friend has a kid. What right did they have to do that? What right did they have to keep this from me?
Well, it whispers, not that you did a whole lot over the past four years to keep track of Dominic. As a matter of fact, one might say you went out of your way to avoid mentioning or even thinking about him. Right? Didn’t you just cut him out like he was nothing? Exactly what he said you did. And don’t forget how weak and fragile you are, which is why no one told you a thing about him. Poor Tyson! He doesn’t know how to breathe and everything falls down around him, and just like the Kid he is, he ends up in the bathtub because that’s all he kno
ws how to do.
For fuck’s sake. “Life is hard.” Well, harder than it should be. And I’m probably making it harder. Blargh.
“Oh boy,” Corey says. “You want some advice?”
“No. I can figure this out on my own.”
“Okay,” he says. He closes his eyes.
I last about three seconds, but I think he knows it’s coming.
“Give me your damn advice,” I grumble.
He opens his eyes again. “You’re emotionally stunted.”
“That’s not advice. That’s insulting and you being a jerk.”
“It’s not insulting. It’s merely stating fact. And I am not a jerk. I am the light of your life.”
“A very dim light that’s threatening to burn out.”
“Brighter than everything else you know,” he assures me.
“How am I emotionally stunted?” I’m trying to sound offended, but we all know it’s true. With the shit I’ve been through in my life, I have to be stunted somewhere, I’m sure. At least it’s emotionally and not physically. I don’t know how much harder life would be if I were a dwarf. Or a midget. Or whatever is politically correct these days. Little person? Height-challenged? Elf?
“I could have said emotionally fucked up.”
“Gee. Thanks for your tact. It’s appreciated more than I could say.” I’m going to throw sand in his face and cackle as he screams in his blindness. That will show him.
“You’re welcome. Are you going to listen or not?”
“You could be nicer.”
“See? Emotionally stunted.”
“I have a mental deficiency,” I remind him. “Proven by therapy and all. I could so very easily snap if you continue to antagonize me.”
He snorts. “That’s got nothing to do with it. It’s simple, really.”
“How do you figure?”
“You have questions.”
“Right.” I hate that he knows me so well. And I hate that I do have questions. Questions mean there are things I don’t know. I don’t like not knowing things.
“Other people have answers.”
“I suppose.”
“Logically, one of these things can lead to the other.”