Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(9)

“It sucks about the show, right?” I blurt out.

“What show?”

“Lycanthrope High.” For the first time, the name of the show sounds dumb and cringey coming out of my mouth, like how I’d imagine it would feel if I said the title of something I wrote myself.

“Oh.” He sort of shrugs. “Sure, I mean, I watched it when it was on. I wasn’t, like, a superfan or anything.” It is hard to tell whether he’s being honest or following the high school commandment of Thou shalt not show thy uncoolness by openly caring about something, which I have never been good at.

“Okay, look. Imagine your life without access to comedy. That’s what it feels like. It’s so boring that even small, momentary escapes are in full Technicolor, like flirting with an older guy with a big calf tattoo at the gas station. It’s worse than boring, actually, because it’s not like you’re sitting in a waiting room, flipping through Redbook. I mean, that’s boring, but at least you’ll eventually get called in to your appointment. Whereas life is boring, but unless you’re suicidal or a Scientologist, the waiting and the appointment are the same thing—you know? Isn’t that how you’d feel?”

—What I want to say.

“Oh. Dope.”

—What I actually say.

Another weird long silence, the opposite of the knowing ones we used to have when we were kids, during which I pray for Aaron Sorkin to swoop in and write my life for the next two minutes (sans the cis-hetero-white-male-on-a-soapbox part).

“I—do you want to do something sometime?”

He looks surprised. “Uh . . .”

“I know it’s been a really long time since we hung out, but I think we still, you know, we like the same stuff, and we’re both . . .”

The look in his eyes stops me, like I was about to say “serial killers” or “Coldplay fans.” Shit. Come on, try again. I can be articulate. Go.

“You know, like how you and I both . . .” His blank look makes me falter again. I wave to vaguely indicate the hallway, the school, the town, the world. “Don’t you still feel like you don’t really . . .”

“What? Fit in?”

“I mean . . . yes? No. Sort of.”

A mix of confusion and annoyance clouds his face. Why did I think this was a good idea?

“I don’t feel like that.”

“Okay, um, I’m sorry.”

“That was a long time ago. You know? I mean, we haven’t hung out in, like . . .” He is so weirded out, he can’t even finish the sentence.

“Yeah, no, totally,” I mumble, backing away.

He shrugs. “So, I’m good now. Plenty o’ friends. Thanks for your concern, though.”

My face feels like it’s on fire. I back off and hurry away. In the back of my head, though, I’m thinking, Nobody who has plenty of friends would say “plenty o’ friends.”

Just when I’m about to speed-walk around the corner, I glance back at Gideon, and with my head turned, I smack directly into Ashley.

“Oh, sorry,” I mumble.

“No, I am soooo sorry,” she says, knitting her on-trend thick eyebrows with overwrought concern, and continues down the hall. She has less of a walk than an easily imitable busty glide, leading with the kind of boobs that prompt dim boys like Mike Neckekis to deem her “really smart” or “really funny.”

And then she takes a running leap into Gideon’s arms.





Chapter 5


RUTH IS DYING LAUGHING, WHICH IS EVEN MAKING AVERY crack up a little, and I don’t appreciate it.

“It’s not funny.” I shove the bulb into the crude trowel hole I made a few moments ago. “First the show, now this. All of a sudden my whole life is just a shit salad.”

“Pointed side up, milady!” Ruth shouts from her end of the garden, wiping sweat off her brow and accidentally replacing it with dirt. She grabs her lighter—a gold one, with an engraving I’ve never dared get close enough to read—and sparks up a J.

Ruth is seventy-three. Did I mention that?

I roll my eyes and turn the bulb right-side up. Avery’s curled up in the hanging chair on the porch with a calculus workbook, having put in her thirteen minutes of gardening before an “asthma attack” struck. (Ave actually does get asthma attacks, but when asked to participate in light-to-medium physical activity, she has “asthma attacks.”)

“You do share DNA with her, so I’m sure you have some insight on this,” I say, wheeling toward Avery. “Out of all the boys in school, even Mike Tossier, who looks like Ryan Gosling when you squint from a few paces away, why Gideon?”

I keep replaying it in my head—Gideon’s arms around Ashley as he stared at her, charmed by her fake awkwardness as she laughed at his jokes, twirled her hair, sprayed her pheremonal glands or whatever—and berating myself with arrows and circles, like I’m examining a bad Super Bowl play.

“Is this what PTSD is like?” I whine.

In the middle of lighting the joint, Ruth gives me her patented Shut up, you millennial twit glare. I give her a hopeful Pass that weed, brah! smile. She firmly shakes her head, and I am secretly relieved. This is our usual dance.

“I just messed it all up,” I mumble, turning back to the remaining bulbs.