Munmun(60)

“For sure it’s right because you taught it to me, you gave me the gift of selfbelief, in addition to the gift of still being alive, remember when you saved my life,” I reminded her.

“Yeah ofcourse I do, well good, good, I’m glad you don’t want to give up,” she admitted.

Then her voice got a little loud and she said, “Hey can I ask you something, I saw you got a whole bunch of lovey vids today, what’s up with that.”

“Lovey vids?” I repeated.

“I’m in charge of Hue Family Data Plan,” she explained, “today your phone ate crazy data, I got informed automatically, someone sent you a million flowery lovey vids.”

? ? ?

She didn’t have to say anything else, I saw the entire truth in her eyes.

The truth wasn’t even, Kitty loves Warner.

The truth was just, when Warner is out of Kitty’s control, under someone else’s spell, Kitty doesn’t want him around anymore.

Even Prayer was almost too much, even just my grumpy love of a sis made Kitty less intrested in the Help Warner Program.

The truth was very simple, Warner can’t live in this house if he loves another girl, Warner if you really want to do whateverittakes, here’s the whateverittakes.

So in that moment, I stopped loving Grace.

How is that possible, easy, you just tell your sad heart, aim only at one girl, forget the other one. Aim only at the god you can see, not the middlegirl you can put your arms around.

Forget everyone except the giant pretty songmaker, the dogood dictator queen, the girl you dreamed with longago, when you were just a kid.

“Ugh, it’s this super annoying girl,” I told Kitty, “she has a crush or something but believe me, I am not into it.”

Kitty blinked and brightened.

“Lol really,” she wondered.

“Manohman, it’s like can you leave me alone already, you loopy maniac,” I made myself groan.

“Well you can just block that number, you know,” she advised.

And she blinked, smiled, waited for me to do it.

Goodbye dreams of middlelife with Grace, goodbye Shaky Buzz dates.

I only get one love and it’s not sweettasting anymore, salty now, bloodflavor from killing the other one, maybe that’s what truer love tastes like.

Was it such a big sacrifice, I don’t even know, maybe that’s the saddest part.

I drew an ecks on Grace’s name, the phone asked BLOCK?, I yupped.

“I don’t have time to waste on any girl not named Kitty anyway,” I teased later, made myself light, jokey, happy.

It’s pretend flirting, not real, pretend is the only kind we get.

“You don’t have time for any girls, smooth guy, math is your girlfriend,” she told me, eyes sparkling, pretend flirting is her favorite.

“Sorry, it’s just the truth, you saved my life, therefore I belong to you,” I said.

“Okay fine,” she laughed. “You belong to me.”

And I felt her soft giant fingers in my hair.





V.

MARKFIVE





LIFEANDDEATHWORLD


Team Warner Prayer was saved, atleast for a few months. Kitty begged Hue to keep us around, Hue said okay fine, Tony said hey what about these orphans I found under a dumpster though, I thought it was my turn to save some poors, everyone told Tony to chill.

Another Mathy Retrack was scheduled for Warner, twelve more weeks in the distance.

All of Hue Family was hopefull and supportive, we all cheerfully pretended like no one was threatening to drop us back into our old ratlives.

At Reelect Hue voteparties and rallyshows I continued to be introduced as Warner The Amazing Success Story, look at this bright young striver, a few months ago he was illiterate and rotting in jail for the crime of defending his sister, now he’s studying to become a mathgenius, if you reelect me I will continue to fight for poors to get the opportunities they deserve, everyone should get the chance to work like crazy.

I bumped into Grace in the parkinglot, just mumbled sorry, shouldn’t really hang out with you anymore, I kind of met someone else, watched her eyes get sad and hard.

Angel stalked up to me later that day, calmly informed me I was a lunatic criminal and they should put me back in jail, ohwell toobad yourloss and starting now none of us will literally ever think about you everagain.

Maybe it was the truth, days passed and I’d be in the parkinglot nowandthen and my eyes stumbled over Grace living life without me, giggling with her crew, reading comics, huddling with Frank over his phone, guess she has a new itscomplicated now.

No time to get weepy over dead loves though, Warner, the king of your life now is math.

More specifically I guess it’s Markfive.

Teaching me was now a whole schoolproject for him, Can You Cure Innumeracy At Age Fifteen? A Schoolproject by Markfive. Apparently middlerich schools force students to do constant projects and enterprises, lastyear he got way too ambitious with a project of Touringtest For Dogs And Robots, Can A Dog Believe A Robot Is A Dog?, What About Can A Robot Believe A Dog Is A Robot.

“Such a dumb idea, I was so drugged when I thought of that,” mourned Markfive, “but my teacher said brilliant, goforit, it will genralize the touringtest,” he got a terrible grade, no dogs or robots fooled each other, I mean forstarters how can you even tell what robots or dogs believe.