More Happy Than Not

I smile. I walk toward him and he aims the can at me. “Don’t fucking do it, Collin Vaughn.” I back up and a spray of blue hits me in the chest. “You motherfucker.” I pick up a can and spray green all over his back while he runs around. The war goes on for ten minutes until we’re both covered in blue and green and black and I have no idea how I’ll even begin to explain this to my parents.

(AGE SIXTEEN—DECEMBER, SEVEN MONTHS AGO)

Kenneth was fucking gunned down yesterday and it’s all Kyle’s fucking fault. Kyle couldn’t fucking help himself and just had to fucking fuck Jordan’s fucking sister, even though we all fucking knew Jordan is the kind of fucking guy who would fucking kill someone if you fucking crossed him. Those bullets were fucking meant for fucking Kyle but no, they fucking found their way into fucking Kenneth when he was fucking innocently coming home from his fucking clarinet lessons at school. We will never get the fucking chance to see Kenneth on a fucking stage, playing us a song we would fucking call him a little bitch for, even if we are so fucking proud of him for fucking making something of himself.

Thankfully I have Collin here. He is being a real fucking champ and letting me cry into his chest. He promises distractions, like movies and comics, but the best fucking distraction of all is having someone who will hold me whenever I’m fucking lost and defeated.

Collin and I were pumped to see the new Avengers movie together—until our girlfriends invited themselves to join us. But like good boyfriends, we let them tag along. Genevieve fought to sit next to Nicole so they could swoon and stuff over Robert Downey Jr. but Collin argued this was a dude’s movie and the dudes should get to sit next to each other. Collin even faked jealousy over them wanting to talk about other guys. Crazy.

An hour into the movie, I reach for a handful of popcorn from the bucket on Collin’s lap, slyly brushing his arm. I think pretty little of myself for being such a dick with Genevieve directly to my left, and even when she’s far away, but Collin makes me happy and that’s that.

“Best. Fucking. Movie. Ever,” Collin whispers to me, pressing his lips against my ear for a second. This double date is kind of a turn-on, but there’s a big hole here: we won’t go home with each other.

“I’ve seen better,” I whisper back.

“The hell you have.”

I punch his arm and elbow him. (Tip: your girlfriends won’t suspect you’re sleeping with your guy friend if you’re hitting them.)

“Get a room,” Nicole hisses after some popcorn flies on her. (Or maybe they will.)

Genevieve calls my name right as Collin leans in to whisper something else to me and I turn to him. I laugh at his dumb joke about a monkey and a dragon in a bar, pissing off others in the theater. Genevieve included, probably. I want to ask her what’s up but I can’t expose myself for ignoring her in favor of my undercover boyfriend—or whatever we are—so instead I lean in on her and whisper, “I cannot wait for later tonight, Gen.”

Genevieve pulls my belt and drags me to the edge of her bed. Her father is out of town until tomorrow, for a reason I can’t remember, and it’s obvious what her intentions were after the double date. If I want to keep what I have with Collin, I have to play along so she doesn’t get suspicious. She climbs onto her bed and relaxes on her knees, pausing in front of my face.

“You want this, right?”

I should tell her something like “Not really” and just walk away and call up Collin. Instead, I grab her shoulders and pull her to me, kissing her neck, face, and lips. “You’re beautiful,” I whisper right into her ear.

These seem like all the right things to do.

She takes off my shirt and throws it across the room. “Unbutton my shirt,” she says, tracing circles into my chest with her fingers. Every time I rip a button off, she breathes this low moan that seems artificial, but it’s crazy to think we’re both faking our way through this. I drop her shirt and we study each other’s bodies. She’s in a green bra she probably bought for tonight while I’m in the same boxers as yesterday.

Genevieve falls to her back and turns off her bedside lamp. “Come here.”

Hopefully the moonlight doesn’t expose the dread on my face that I’m disguising with suggestive eyebrow bounces and smirks as I crawl toward her. I grip her waist and before I can kiss her, I slap a hand on my bare

stomach and groan. “I feel like I might puke . . . I think it was the popcorn. Too much butter.”

This sensual Genevieve that confuses me switches off and the real Genevieve is back. “Do you want me to go get you something from the kitchen? I have some ginger ale and bread—”

“I think I should try and sleep it off. That usually does the trick.”

“Okay, but . . . Babe, are you sure you don’t want to stay awake and see if it passes? Tonight’s the only night we can finally do this until who knows when.”

“I know. I want to do this but—” Whatever lie that follows doesn’t matter because I already told her the truth for once: I don’t want to do this.

(AGE SIXTEEN—JANUARY, SIX MONTHS AGO)

This was a bit of a shock, but Collin got me something for Christmas: a twenty-dollar gift card to Comic Book Asylum.

I’ve been begging Mohad, the big boss man at Good Food’s, for a job and he said he might need a cashier soon. I did a few chores for Dad, like washing his car and running out to get him sandwiches from Joey’s, and he gave me fifteen dollars to buy something nice for Genevieve. But I didn’t spend it on her.

Okay, I spent four dollars on a blank pad and created a flip book for her, but I spent the rest of it on two copies of The Dark Alternates, Issue #1 for Collin and me. It’s the start of a new Marvel series where all the heroes are combating their dark counterparts in a medieval landscape of fiery storms and dead warriors. We read them both in his hallway the day after Christmas.

I go to Comic Book Asylum when they reopen for business on January 2. I head straight to the counter before I’m tempted to spend the gift card on some comics I’ll never find in the dollar cart. I catch up with Stan about his holidays and then ask, “Could I get a monthly subscription for The Dark Alternates?”

“Have you read the first yet? It’s epic, bro. When that tornado destroyed their headquarters I lost my head.”