I may be the smartest almost-twenty-year-old ecoterrorist in the world, but I can be pretty fucking stupid sometimes.
And I’m sorry about that.
Why, you ask?
Because I know what you’re thinking. I know what type of story you’re hoping this is going to turn out to be. You think now that Dom and I are on the right path again that one day, he’ll look at me the same way I’ve looked at him and something will click in his head and he’ll say, Oh, there you are. There you are and I don’t know why I didn’t see it there before. It’s okay, though, because I see it now and I’ll see it every day for the rest of my life.
This isn’t that kind of story.
And I think I’m okay with that. Or, rather, I will be, with time. I have the most important thing back: my friend. And I’d rather have that part of him than nothing at all.
That’s important, too, don’t you think?
“NO,” COREY says, sitting next to me as we stare at my laptop. “I don’t think that’s important too. As a matter of fact, I think that’s a load of manure you’re trying to sell there, and you should know I’m not going to buy your shit.”
“Oh good Lord,” I mutter.
He rolls his eyes. “My God, could you sound like any more of a sanctimonious prig?” He lowers his voice to attempt to imitate me. It’s not very good, but only because he’s a big fat jerk. “Oh, my name is Tyson, and I’m just so happy to have the friendship again that I’ve forgotten that I want Dom to pile-drive his wiener into my butt. Oh, it’s all about the friendship now and blah, blah, blah, and I won’t do anything more about it because I’m too chickenshit.”
“Are you finished?” I ask him dryly.
“Possibly. I haven’t quite figured out yet if I want to hug you because you look like a lost puppy or if I want to strangle you because you look like a rabid skunk.”
I frown at him. “You shouldn’t strangle any animal. Even if it’s a rabid skunk. Did you know that every day, thousands of animals are—”
“Tyson, I love you,” he says, “but I also love sausage almost as much or equally or even possibly greater than, so I really couldn’t care less about hearing another one of your animal guilt trips. Are all vegetarians this insistent?”
“Not all of them. But you should thank your lucky stars I’m not a vegan. They’re far worse than vegetarians. What do you call a vegan who likes to masturbate?”
“What?”
“A nondairy creamer.” I burst out laughing because it’s fucking hysterical.
“I don’t get it,” he says, staring at me like I’m the weird one.
I sigh. “They don’t eat anything that has a face.”
He grimaces. “Well, when you put it like that. But isn’t that vegetarianism?”
I am horrified. “No! My God, there’s a huge difference. For one, vegetarians don’t—”
“Oh, wow!” Corey says, his eyes going wide.
“What?”
“I just realized I don’t care about what you’re saying at all. This sure is awkward. Well, it will be if you decide to keep talking.”
I shake my head. “Hell is going to be a very sad place for you, my friend.”
“Of course you’d keep talking,” he says. “Can we please finish planning for our trip? The rate we’re going, you’ll still be talking when we’re supposed to leave.”
“That’s still two weeks away!”
“I know,” he says. “But you’d still be talking, trust me. It’s part of the McKenna legacy. You can’t hide it, even if you’re a Thompson now.”
I look back down on the directions I pulled up on Google Maps. Seafare to Tucson, Arizona. Fifteen hundred miles. Driving from the ocean to the middle of the desert in the middle of summer. Yeah, I know. It sounds awful, doesn’t it? Ah, the things I do for my friends.
“It says it’s 105 degrees today,” I tell Corey.