A/N: sorry this took so long aah :( I'm trying something new: aiming to make these chapters shorter. this was actually much longer but I cut it off at a place that seemed good and...well, here it is. the good part about that is that I kept the rest of it and I can probably turn that into a reasonably suitable (and very short) chapter 11. this basically means I'll probably be able to update this in a week or two, depending on how much time I have to work on it. I'm also planning on rewriting or editing out all the previous nine chapters to hopefully shorten them up/make them more presentable. I wanted to do that before this chapter but I guess most of you care more about a new chapter than me fixing the old ones soooo so yeah! whenever I get around to that and if you ever felt like rereading them again, it'll probably be a little different than the first time around :'D
ah thank you all so much for all your reviews ;u; even my flames...well okay flames are not cool especially when they're kind of rudely worded, but er thanks for caring enough to attempt to rain on my parade I guess? I don't know lmao
recap: prom night and finally the big confession yay craig go you. tweek kind of rejects him but invites craig over that night! craig makes pancakes and gets a kiss and a place to sleep for the night in exchange! next morning he gets a call that the store's been robbed oh golly
and here we go
Let me preface my next sentence by mentioning that by no stretch of apathy or cold-heartedness on my part do I utter it, but—
If there's anything I hate most in the world, it's having to sit in the same room as a crying person.
Although, who doesn't really? Who enjoys that? Like, that's gotta be more fucked up than my absolute loathing for it.
It just makes me really uncomfortable really fast. And I'm talking alert-fight-or-flight-reflexes, seek-out-nearest-exists, engage-panic-mode, dig-head-into-the-ground, get-me-the-fuck-out-of-here uncomfortable.
I think it's because I feel, as an audience for these tears, that I am primarily responsible for remedying them, and you know as well as I do how well that could possibly go.
To illustrate my point: one time, when I was fifteen and my sister was seven, our parents left us home alone, and I had to wait until Red got there to babysit Bea before I could head off to Clyde's. Red was late so we both decided to watch TV together, which really translated to us racing to the living room to figure out who would have control of the remote. As we were running down the stairs, Bea—I don't know what the fuck she was doing—she ended up tripping on the third step and slammed her face right onto the banister on the way down.
At first I had started laughing because, well, it's funny when people get hurt, come on. But then she started crying and her mouth was bleeding, so I shut up immediately. Not sure what to do, I first tried picking her up because it's what I'd seen my mom do with her when she cried. She was sprawled out on the ground, so I'd had to awkwardly grab her under her arms and hoist her to her knees, but this just made her cry some more. So I put her back down and when she didn't stop crying, I began to walk off until I remembered that she might get blood on the carpet. I retrieved five or so paper towels from the kitchen, dropped them by her screaming and hollering head, then retreated to the living room to watch TV.
Hey, I'd won fair and square, hadn't I?
Fortunately, Red showed up two minutes later and, also fortunately, she was in love with me at the time, so I was spared her wrath, although she did shoot me a pretty scathing glare as she carried my bleeding sister to the upstairs bathroom.
The point of this story is that if I can't handle my bleeding crying sister, how well do you think I would have managed having to deal with Tweek crying? I mean, I have to deal with Clyde crying all the time but I've grown so accustomed to that that I've built up immunity to it.
Because I had dropped my cell phone at the same moment he had entered the room, and because I was watching him through tiny slits between my eyelids, I don't think he realized I was awake yet, so I was in luck. In any case, he had yet to look over or acknowledge me. He was still sitting over by the door sniffling, his shoulders wrecked with tremors, and I could see his fingers twisting tightly around each other.
A faint sound murmured somewhere below me and it took me a minute to realize that Clyde's voicemail was still playing on the floor. If Tweek hadn't noticed me yet, the sound would most certainly alert him. I waited until he began wiping at both his eyes with the sleeve of his pajama shirt before I quickly reached out, grabbed it, and stuffed it under my abdomen, stamping the cancel button on my phone about thirty or so times as I did so.
Despite having alleviated that momentary issue, I was still faced with what to about Tweek. There were no other options other than continuing to feign sleep until he left or waking up and making this situation about a thousand times more awkward than it needed to be. As time dragged on, the second option started to gnaw at me, and I slowly began to concede that it was probably the more moral thing to do right now.
Luckily for me, I didn't have to.
Somewhere in the room a buzz of a cell phone went off. It wasn't mine, and it sounded muffled, like it was hiding, and like it was moving against a dozen other plastic objects.
Tweek's head popped up instantly, his crying forgotten for a moment. He waited, listening as the vibration gave way to music, a snippet of something loud and with a beat and, muffled as it was, consisting of a colorful repertoire of obscenities.
Tweek instantly scrambled to his feet, practically throwing himself across the room to the wooden desk on the opposite wall. He'd tripped over a few small towers of different colored die that lay scattered around the floor, and when he'd reached the desk, he'd accidentally, in his haste, shoved over large stacks of papers, a flock of origami cranes, and fifteen or so Crayola crayons onto the floor.
I watched him feel around the desk for one of the top drawers and seize it open, digging his hand inside and moving it around frantically. The song continued to play and the phone continued to buzz and when he pulled back his hand for a second, his fist was filled with about four different cell phones.
He held them up to his ear and when the music and vibrating continued from back within the drawer, he threw the handful he had onto the ground and dug through the drawer some more. He eventually found the one he was looking for and without glancing at who was calling, he flipped it open and pressed it against his ear.
"Hi hello what!" he cried into the receiver, biting his nails as he did. For a second he remained silent, listening to and concentrating on the voice on the other end.
He cast a look at me, as if he forgot I was there, then in a more hushed tone, replied, "ah, uh… No I haven't seen him—" His eyes widened and he shook his head. "I mean, no, I have! He's here, um." His eyes continued to dart back and forth. "He came over, uh, this morning?" Then he bonked the heel of his palm against his forehead in frustration. "Nonono I mean last night, he came over last night! He slept here!"
He fell silent again, but this time he began inching toward the door. In the same second he reached the door and turned the knob, he muttered into the receiver, "n-no he's still sleeping, actually, I don't want to, um, disturb him!" then he stepped out of the room, closing the door shut behind him.
The minute he left, I flipped over onto my side so that I was now facing the wall and my back was to the door. Pulling the blanket over most of me to further shield what I was doing, I held my phone up in front of my face and pressed one of the buttons. When the screen lit up, I realized that I had about twenty missed calls and ten text messages. Many of the calls were either from Clyde or my mom. There were two from my sister and (to my horror) one from my father. The texts were from the same people, excluding my father but including one from Token and one from Kenny.
I had a good idea what Clyde had to talk about and assumed Token was texting on his behalf. Kenny—who cares.
My family was probably contacting me for the same reason, so I picked mom, the lesser of the two evils that are my parents, to represent the lot of them.
Her first text said, where r u? did u com home last nite. The second said, jst txt me so i know ur safe at least. The third just said, church.
Fuck, I'd forgotten about that.
I quickly stamped out, i slept over at tweek's house, sorry i forgot to mention it.
Less than an entire minute later, I received, ur father is not happy. r u coming home
I replied, soon and mom reiterated, church. I responded with, yeah yeah i know. And hoped that would be the end of it.
Then she sent me, did u know ur work was robbed last nite
No, actually, mom, it completely slipped my mind until you'd brought it up, thanks a bunch.
I was just about to sarcastically respond with something along those lines when I heard the bedroom door creak open again behind me. I quickly stuffed the phone underneath the pillow and froze, slamming my eyelids shut and trying to increase the heaviness of my breathing.
I listened.
It was Tweek of course. I could tell that much just by the tiny noises that accompanied his sniffling, but, most importantly of all, he was just sniffling. He wasn't whimpering or sobbing or gasping, and even what sniffling he was doing was subtle and minimal. I couldn't see him but I supposed that he had long since calmed down during the course of that phone call.
I waited anyway to see what he would do. I heard his bare feet drag softly across his carpet as he shuffled his way across the room, then instantly felt the bed jostle beneath me when the sudden newfound weight of his body eased onto the foot of the bed. The mattress slightly dipped in his direction, just slightly, and from what I could tell, he was sitting at my feet.
Confident that the crying was over, I figured now would be a good time to pretend to wake up.
I let my eyelids ease open, blinking slightly and curiously as I did. I faked a loud yawn and then stretched out my arms and legs as over-exaggeratedly as possible, taking care to poke Tweek with the tips of my feet as I did so. I pretended to be surprised by the sudden contact and craned my head in his direction, blinking wearily at him. His knees were drawn to his chest, his arms were wrapped around his calves, his mouth was buried behind his knees, and he was watching me with large, patient eyes.
Pausing for effect before speaking, I finally managed to mumble out a tiny, "hey there."
"Hi."
I yawned again and rubbed at my eyes. "How long have you been up?"
"Um. Ten minutes maybe."
Liar. But that at least meant he hadn't realized I was awake and was watching him either.
It takes me a few minutes (and this is with no forced theatrics on my part) before I'm able to curl and wiggle and ease my groggy self into a sitting position next to him. I'm not quite cross-legged. My knees are bent and the bottoms of my feet press flat up against each other. I grab them with both hands and stare at them for a moment. My socks are the same color and the same length, I realize, which is a rare occurrence for me. I know it had been for the dance last night but it says a lot about my current life situation to notice that even the little details of my person are changing just to suit the kid sitting beside me.
Though I'm sure he wouldn't care about mismatched socks.
He probably never even wears socks.
He looks like the type of kid that doesn't wear socks.
I glance at him in the corner of my eye and he's still sitting there, watching me, patient as ever. He probably thinks I need these few minutes to wake up properly, but I'm really just biding my time planning out what I need to say next. Because I definitely had a slew of topics to discuss.
But of all the things I could have said to the boy whose bed I just woke up in, who kissed my face the night before, to whom I had confessed my love to not more than twenty-four hours ago—
"Do you ever mismatch your socks?"
—probably wasn't my best line.
He didn't even respond, just lifted his head a little and stared at me with slightly furrowed brows.
"Wow, sorry, that was dumb, don't answer that—"
Then he poked his feet out a little bit more, so that they poked out beneath the leg holes of his pajama bottoms and teetered over the edge of the bed. He was wearing one sock and it had a hole on the big toe.
So I was half right.
I barked out a clipped laugh, rubbing at my eye with my knuckle as I did. Tweek grinned his tiny crooked side-mouthed grin. We lapsed into silence again but at least the first hurdle has been crossed. It didn't feel quite so awkward anymore.
"Any time you want me out of here, just say the word," I said next as my eyes searched the room for a clock. "I think I have to meet my parents for church soon or some shit. I don't suppose you're feeling Catholic today? Or maybe this Sunday is one for the synagogue."
I never founnd a clock, though. I didn't think there was any room anywhere in this room for a clock, anyway. Every flat surface (and even surfaces that weren't so flat) was covered in random junk. His walls were almost as bad: a subway map of New York city here, a periodic table there. He even had a poster of the food pyramid tacked to his ceiling. There are four posters of who I realized are Nicki Minaj and a couple of Eminem, and there was a tapestry over his bed that depicted this tripped-out looking multicolored Hindu god. Next to an empty steel birdcage and standing by the door there was a bookshelf with seven shelves, only one of which held any books, all ancient-looking and tattered. The rest house a number of disorganized bric-a-brac, like antique compasses and rubber ducks—don't even get me started on that shit, though; mindless junk like the ones that decorate that shelf pretty much dominated the rest of the room.
On a space of wall that wasn't covered by anything, I saw that there was clearly some kind of red and purple paint. There was rhyme and reason to the way it was splashed on the wall, I think, but I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be because a huge glass-framed Temple of Doom poster and a motivational poster of a blue whale covered three-fourths of it. I was about to ask about a number of things I'd just seen when my eyes travel to a fedora and a coiled whip hanging on nails near the first poster and I stop.
Tweek had long since answered my first question, responding with something along the lines of, "no I'm staying home today," but I blatantly ignored him to say, "is that an Indiana Jones hat? And a whip?"
He blinked over at it, as if he forgot it was there. "Yeah."
I leapt to my feet immediately, crossing the distance between the bed and the wall. I tripped and nearly fall over a number of things on my way over there (big plastic bins filled with rocks, an empty coffee can filled with a collection of key, t-shirts and a pair of boxing gloves) but I ignore everything in favor of the objects on the wall. I run my fingers across the leather of the whip and the brim of the hat.
"Are these authentic?" I finally asked, not hiding the awe in my voice.
"Um, I bought them from a magazine, if that's what you're asking. The add claims they're movie exact-replicas, anyway."
I grabbed the hat off the hook and, pushing my own out of the way, set it on my head. Clutching the brim with the tips of my first two fingers and my thumb, I adjusted it securely, feeling ninety percent more like a badass already.
I threw a glance back at Tweek, waiting for assessment. He shrugged and snorted at my ridiculousness, but gave an approving nod.
Grinning, I set it back on the hook.
"You keep a whip in your room, eh? That's some kinky shit, man."
He sputtered in disbelief before he properly answered. "It's not like that!"
"I'm kidding."
He scoffed. "Like you even know the meaning of kinky."
I raised an eyebrow. "And you do?"
"More than you, I'm sure."
I chose to ignore his remark. It wasn't completely false, anyway.
"Big fan of Dr. Jones, then?"
"Are you kidding?" He sounded annoyed, but I watched as his eyes lit up as he continued to speak. "It's my favorite movie series! I've seen them all at least one hundred and fourteen times! They're the only DVDs I, uh, own personally."
"Special edition?"
"Collector's edition."
"Action figures?"
He nodded at the bookshelf and I saw that they were all standing around in various poses on the third shelf from the top.
"I even own the Lego game for my PC."
"Now, let me ask you, did you watch the fourth one?"
"Ugh, five times and I was there for the midnight showing." He shuddered. "It was terrible! But it's Indy, man, I had to be there!"
"Impressive."
"I, ah, even have a real working replica of the bazooka from Raiders in my garage."
I raised an eyebrow. "I'm sensing some intense hero-worship here."
It was a joke, but then he responded, quietly, perhaps more to himself than me, "you could call it that."
"Oh?"
He shook his head, burying his mouth behind his arms again. "No, ugh, it's stupid."
"Relax, we all wanna be Harrison Ford when we grow up, dude, it's no big deal."
"Not the actor, man, the character!" His fingers suddenly snaked through his hair as he began tugging on the ends. "Argh—the adventures and the charm and—and the face stubble! It's—"
"Hot, yeah, I know, no one can resist the man."
The light left his eyes and he deflated like a balloon. "Never mind, it's dumb."
I returned to the bed, sitting down gingerly beside him. "It's not dumb. I was just kidding. I know what you're talking about." I coughed. "I looked up to Red Racer when I was younger. I thought he was the motherfucking shit, so I get it, okay? We've all got our heroes."
"I don't want to just do the things he's done or whatever. I don't think I could anyway, even if I got the chance. It's more…I wish I was half the guy he is, man. He's so—just—so fucking fearless, y'know?"
He fell silent, but continued to pull at strands of hair, albeit less forcefully than before, and I realized that he looked smaller now than I'd ever seen him before.
I wanted to kiss him.
But I didn't. Of course I didn't, when do I ever go through with anything I want to do?
I was, however, reminded of what I really wanted to talk about.
"So, um, not to purposely change the subject, but—" My fingers find their way to the back of my neck, rubbing it absentmindedly.
"You want to talk about last night?" he asked, now staring at the floor.
"Not really, but we probably should."
He sighed, probably about as eager as I was to go through with this. "Which part?"
"The part where you, um. Y'know. Kissed. Um. Me."
"I kissed the side of your mouth!"
"Which is connected to me, if you didn't know."
"Whatever, okay, yeah, so I kissed you."
I waited for him to say something more, but he didn't.
"Um," I reluctantly continued. "Did that, uh."
"Mean anything?"
"Yes."
He licked his lips contemplatively, and, after thinking about how to respond, finally muttered, "it just felt right."
"It felt right? What does that even mean?"
"It means what it means!" He threw his hands up as he said it. "I don't know!"
I was getting annoyed now. "There's got to be something, come on now. What, you kiss people when they make you food or something, is that it? Is that, like, a thing you do?"
"No! Ugh, God, I just—" He was pulling at his hair strands again. "What do you want me to say?"
My lips opened automatically, ready to retort with an answer I didn't actually have.
"I don't…I don't know."
What did I want him to say? For that matter, what did I want?
Not to make out with me, not to make passionate love to me on the bed, not to hold me or ask to be my boyfriend—I couldn't fathom any of those things happening and frankly I couldn't say I wanted them, not now, not here, not with him. I wouldn't reject them if they occurred, but it was more that it wasn't like either of us to really do any of those things.
So what then?
"It's not like I haven't done it before," he said finally.
"Done what?"
"Kissed you. There. In that same spot."
"No you haven't." I stared at him, waiting for him to bust up snickering or something, but he just stared back. "Have you?"
He snorted derisively. "You really don't remember anything, do you?"
"I think at this point it's fair to assume that I never remember anything." I strained to locate a memory of when might have done this before, but I was drawing a blank. "Was it before you left?"
Tweek nodded, but didn't elaborate. As usual, he was expecting me to recall the memory myself. I knew asking him to tell me was a hopeless venture, so I tried something else.
"Do it again."
"What?"
I gestured to my mouth. "Right here. Lay it on me."
"And this is going to achieve…?"
"It might trigger the memory."
"Did it trigger something last night?"
"I was too busy being blindingly infatuated with you and panicking at the impending impact of your mouth against mine—if any memories were triggered, I missed them."
He rolled his eyes, but I spied a hint of red creeping on his face. "Ugh, fine. Don't move."
I obeyed, keeping my hands folded in my lap. He hesitated, then leaned over, craning his neck and shutting his eyes. His hand found its way to the bed, on a space near my knee, to steady himself, and even though it was the side of my leg against the side of his hand, the faint touch near killed me. I knew it was coming this time, but my stomach still flip-flopped in anticipation.
At last, his lips met my face, ghosting over the side of my mouth again. Without thinking, I moved the angle of my head at the last second, and his lips slid across my mouth, meeting my lips squarely, evenly, the way kisses ought to be. I pushed myself to kiss back against him, but he pulled away almost immediately, and I was left puckering at the air.
"Craig!"
My eyelids fluttered in surprise, opening to stare at him wide-eyed and fuming at me.
"I told you not to move!" he snapped before shaking his head furiously. "Did that even work?"
I licked the corner of my mouth and glanced at the ceiling, trying to conjure the memory. "No, but I think it's because I moved. You should do it again."
He shoved me hard, and kept doing so until I was forced to scramble off the bed and to my feet. Even then he didn't stop, stretching his arms to keep pushing at me until I was a few feet away and much closer to the door.
"I'm serious! I won't move this time, I swear!"
"You can go now," he said brusquely.
I narrowed my eyes. "We're not done talking."
"I'm done talking."
"Just answer me one thing, okay? I get one question, don't I?"
He didn't respond, and I accepted that as a yes.
"You kissed me." I rubbed the back of my neck again. "And I just want to know. If you. Uh. Feel things. The same things I feel, I mean. About me." I felt my face turning hot as the words stumbled their way out of my mouth.
Truth be told, I didn't even think I wanted that either. Maybe even less that I didn't want it, but more that I didn't expect it, so I never even entertain the idea. I just needed closure, a definitive answer, so I could put this bullshit behind me.
"I thought I made that pretty clear last night," he said quietly.
"Trust me, you didn't."
"It's complicated,"
"Complicated? Why does it have to be complicated, it's either a 'yes I do' or a 'no I don't,' so which is it?"
"It's not that simple!" His eyes trailed to the floor. "I don't want to talk about this right now, can you please just go?"
My fingers curled into tight balls at my sides. "Why should I?" I deserved an answer, didn't I? I'd done my part, I'd laid my cards on the table. He wasn't allowed to leave me hanging like this.
"You're being unreasonable, that's why!" he said. "And you stole a fucking kiss! You can't do that!"
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, okay, so I can't steal motherfucking kisses but you can just—"
Halfway through my words I realized that I was about to do something stupid, a stupidity very similar to poking an already enraged dragon in the eye with a stick, so I bit my tongue. In an effort to dodge that bullet, I bent to grab my shoes and began tugging them on my feet one by one.
"I can just what?"
"Nothing." I got the right one on and began shoving on the left.
"Finish that sentence," he challenged, his voice menacing and venomous, and I wouldn't have obeyed his words if he'd paid me to.
"Calm down, Tweek. I'm leaving okay, see?"
One glance at his face told me he was still fuming, but he said nothing more. I'm pretty sure he had plenty to say, though, because he knew as well as I did what I was about to say next. I was about to point out that he steals shit all the goddamn time, that this entire room was filled with his prized nicked possessions Maybe even the furniture wasn't his either. If I'd gone any further, I probably would have outright accused him of robbing the store last night, but that really wouldn't have gone over well.
But we'd never had a real conversation about this and I wasn't eager to start now.
I turned to grab the doorknob, hesitating only for a second to stop and glance back at Tweek. "I have one last thing to ask, if that's okay." Not that it mattered, because I was going to ask it anyway.
"All this bullshit—it's not really about what I want, is it? I think it's pretty clear what I want. I don't want you to kiss me, I want you to want to kiss me. I want you to want to like me and I want you to want all the same things I want for the both of us." I sighed, my face red, but I pushed on. "But I think what you want is an even bigger fucking mystery, just like every other goddamn thing about you. So what the fuck do you want, Tweek? And I don't just mean with you and me, but I mean for you. Just you. I know this is bigger than just the two of us, so, tell me, just what the fuck does Tweek Tweak want for himself? Because if you don't figure that out, we're not getting anywhere."
He doesn't answer and I don't expect him to, so I turn the doorknob and stomp out.
Tweek's parents aren't downstairs when I get there so I'm able to slip out without being noticed. A glance at my phone tells me that I have no time to run home to change or anything, so I head in the opposite direction, aiming for the church.
It's a long walk, made longer by my brain whirling with a constant replay of the past half hour. Service has started by the time I get there, but I feel like crap and probably look the part, so I steal away into the bathroom in the back and try to do some damage control.
I wash my face and run damp fingers through my greasy hair before realizing it looks pretty shitty on a regular basis anyway, and shove my hat on over it. My clothes are a mess, but at least I had changed into jeans and a shirt last night before I had headed over to Tweek's. I tucked in the shirt, tugged on my jacket, zipped it up all the way, then left the restroom.
I had hoped to be inconspicuous when I entered the main room of the church, but of course I had to walk in during a moment of silence. Father Maxi was saying his homily and had chose to pause at that exact moment, so basically everyone on the fucking planet earth heard the main doors squeak open like the sound of tortured banshees. Most of them chose to ignore me, thank God, but, unfortunately for me, my family was sitting right in the fucking center of the building, so, in addition to having awakened the shrill harpy cry that were the hinges on those double doors, I was now forced to loudly stomp my way over to my parents, my shoes squeaking all the way.
Father Maxi, God bless the bastard, was courteous enough to wait until I made it into my pew before continuing speaking. If everyone hadn't already made at least one judgmental glance in my direction, they had now.
The second I scooted past my sister and squeezed myself between her and my mother, my dad reached behind mom's back to grab me by the arm and jerk me toward him.
"Boy, where the fucking hell were you last night?" he growled in a low whisper. When he's mad, however, my father's definition of "whisper" is actually a normal volume for a regular person's voice.
I tugged my arm out of his grip, and he released me.
"I came home late from the prom and crashed at Tweek's place," I whispered back, "Calm the fuck down old man."
"Don't tell me to calm down," he snapped. "Did you fuck him?"
"Dad. Wow."
"Did you?"
"No!"
My mom threw him a stern look. "Thomas, please, at least wait until after service."
"No, Gloria, I need to deal with this bullshit now." He rounded on me again. "You did fuck him, didn't you? Did you make sure you were wearing a condom at least?"
"Thomas!"
"Dad!"
Bea giggled noisily behind her fingers.
The couple in front of us (the Stotches, I realized) turned around and shushed us loudly.
My entire family immediately dropped the issue at hand. Without hesitation, my dad, mom, sister, and I all rounded on these two and simultaneously and automatically raised our middle fingers to salute them. They collectively gasped and turned back around.
The rest of service commenced in peace.
When it was over and most of the people had filed out of the church, my dad quickly hurried us out of our pew. As I tried to put as much distance between myself and him as possible, he grabbed me by the shoulder and leaned close to my ear, muttering "so help me God, the second we are out of this church, you are going to hear it."
To my great fortune, I'd ended up running into Clyde and Token just outside the doors to the church, and I couldn't have been gladder to see them.
"You have five minutes to get your ass in the car," my dad said when Token and Clyde asked if they could have a word with me. I nodded and my family left.
"Dude, where have you been? I've been calling you all fucking morning," Clyde said the minute they were gone. He spared me a second glance. "You look like shit, man."
"You look like shit every fucking day."
"Wow, well that was unnecessary."
"Clyde's right," Token said. "You look like you're suffering from a bad hangover. I thought you didn't drink last night."
"I didn't, no, I'm just having a crappy morning."
"Oh yeah, then what's your excuse for every other day?" Clyde snapped, still miffed about my last comment.
I flipped him off.
"Whatever, we'll deal with that later," Clyde said, waving it away. "The store got robbed last night."
"Yeah, I got your voicemail."
"Then why didn't you call me back?" he screeched.
"I was…tied up. How much was taken?"
"The entire moneybox. There was like a five hundred dollars in that thing."
I frowned. "What's Johnson doing hoarding that much money in the store?"
Clyde shrugged. "Beats me. But he's pretty mad, man."
"You talked to him? Does he have any idea who did it?"
"How are you supposed to trace that? He got there early this morning, the door was already open, the place looked fine but the box was missing. There's no way he could know."
"Didn't he call the police or anything?"
"Well, yeah, but Barbrady's on the case, and he has enough trouble finding his way out of his patrol car without getting tangled in his seatbelt."
Then what was Tweek so scared about? He hadn't even left a trail. And if they put Barbrady on the job, they might as well have hired a one-legged duck to find the money, with all the good he'll do.
When I opened my mouth to say something further, a loud honk of a horn from the parking lot interrupted me. It was my dad, and I could tell by the subtle glare on his face that the honk was meant for me. He'd ended up timing the honk well enough so that the Stotches happened to be walking by his car when he did it, and they'd jumped so high, I think it was kind of worth pissing him off just to see the looks on their faces.
"That for you?" Token asked, and I nodded, groaning.
"Yo, your folks need to hold their fucking horses, we're not done," Clyde said.
"Yeah try telling that to them. I'd say you have about fifteen seconds to say whatever you need to say before my dad starts the engine and runs me over."
I watched Clyde's face contort in concentration, probably deliberating which exciting piece of information was most important for him to discuss with me right this second.
His face lit up instantly as he slapped his fist into his palm. "Oh, good news from last night!" He wiggled his eyebrows ridiculously. "Guess who's going out with Bebe now."
"Again?"
"Don't exaggerate, Clyde," Token added, smiling slightly.
"Okay, we have a date, but whatever. I knew she couldn't keep her hands off The Dono-Man for too long."
That sounds really sleazy, but Clyde is so into Bebe I wouldn't be surprised if they end up getting married some day. He just has a funny way of showing it.
As much as I would have loved to hear what must have been a riveting story of their reunion, a story I'm sure Clyde will embellish to its full extent at some later time, I was again met with another loud blare of a car horn.
Though I was dreading the impending ride home, I raised my hand and gave a half-hearted wave at my friends, already trudging backward in the direction of the car. They waved back, wishing me luck and making plans to call me later that night to give me the full story.
The car ride home was uncomfortable. The moment I sat down in the backseat, Dad began grilling me about where I'd gone last night, why I hadn't come home, and a number of variations on the question, "where and how did you put your penis in that twitchy kid."
To his first two questions, I snidely retorted that he probably wouldn't have noticed I was missing in the first place if he hadn't done a routine head-count before church that morning. To the latter accusation, I could only balk and sputter out a protest of, "dad, I'm not fucking gay, goddammit."
His reply was, "oh no you don't. Sorry boy but it's a bit late for that," and when I confronted Bea about this comment later, she explained that dad's been harboring this theory that I've been gay for the past year now. And the only reason she knew about this, she explained, is because he was constantly bringing it up with mom and her or mentioning it in offhand comments.
"We told him he can't just assume anything, but he's been hoping you'd out yourself so he could rub it in our faces."
That would certainly explain a lot. I thought dad had been purposely being an asshole to me just to make me mad, but apparently he'd been serious every time he referred to Clyde as my girlfriend. I wasn't sure how to feel about this, but I guess it was kind of nice knowing dad was somewhat enthused about at least one thing about me.
Just as promised, dad also gave me a talk, or at least something that resembled a talk. Words aren't exactly dad's forte; he's much better suited to the part of parenting where he gets to issue punishments. Thus a majority of the conversation was filled with accusations of my alleged homosexuality, while every so often he'd remark about the importance of condom usage and, at the last second, mentioned that it was common courtesy to call your parents if you're not going to be home late at night. He'd been mad, which was a lot more emotion than I expected out of him, and it was mostly because I hadn't answered any of their calls. Other than that, he got over it pretty quickly, and just told me to go hang out in my room all day until dinner time, which is what I would have done anyway.
I thought about taking a nap to kill the next few hours, since I was still pretty sleepy, but while I was peeling off my jacket, I dug my hand into the pocket and felt my fingers wrap around something small inside. When I pulled my fist out and opened it, I saw that it was the tiny wooden boat Token had bought me from Hawaii.
I instantly remembered the last time I saw this thing. It was a few weeks ago, wasn't it? When the guys came over. It had mysteriously disappeared when Tweek left my house early, so I assumed it had made its way back into my jacket pocket through the same hands that had plucked it from my room in the first place.
Grasping the boat, I flopped backwards onto my bed and swiftly swung the top half of my body over the edge, hanging low enough to reach for the shoebox that was under my bed.
It was a shame, really. The first time Token had given this boat to me, I'd planned on sitting it on my side table. It was cute and would have made nice decoration for my otherwise boring room. Plus, the little number on the side, the 520, corresponded to a road in Hawaii whose name meant peace, and I was hoping having that staring at me every morning would remind me that my life, for all its lack of excitement, could certainly use more peace.
Tweek had taken it, though, and he'd been the one to return it. His actions had tainted it so that looking at it now reminded me not of Token and certainly not of peace, but him, the annoying little shit that was causing me unnecessary problems.
This boat had caused me more annoyance than it needed to, which meant it was time for it to find a new home.
The box was right where I had left it the last time I had opened, however many weeks ago that was. Slipping open the lid made me realize that I literally hadn't touched this thing in years and now here I was, revisiting it for the second time in a month. My little treasure chest, with all my childhood adventures and memories stored away inside it, uncovered and unlocked again.
I tucked the boat into a corner of the box, taking care to put it in a spot where I didn't think anything would crush it if the box happened to get jostled. Most of the stuff in there was pretty small, anyway; racecars and movie tickets and an empty plastic pink egg. The only thing large enough to do some damage was the amateur camcorder, so I pulled that out, placing it on my bed before returning the box under my bed.
Like the box, the camera was another object from my childhood that I hadn't really looked at in a long while. I couldn't even recall the last time I had used it.
What I could remember, however, was the memory of how I'd obtained it.
Its picture was on the back of a box of Cocoa Krispies, large block font proclaiming it to be, "just like the real thing," and coaxing any gullible kid to send in thirty box tops for a chance to, "direct your very own blockbuster hit, just like the pros do!"
Luckily for the Kellogg's cereal company, I was a very gullible kid with naïve aspirations to achieve exactly what I'd been promised on the back of that cereal box. Two weeks and thirty boxes of Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, and Apple Jacks later, I had cut enough box tops to stuff in an envelope and quickly deposit in the nearest mailbox.
You might think I would've been disappointed when, four weeks later, this arrived in the mail.
Of course, it looked like a normal camera and functioned like a normal camera. You recorded footage on it and you could rewatch the footage through a tiny screen that opened out at the side. It was small, though. At the time, it was the size of my whole hand, but it now fit snugly in the palm of my hand, small enough to wrap my fingers around but large enough, apparently, to house five minutes of recorded video. I couldn't take the video off the device, either. There wasn't a tape, nor means for plugging it into a computer. Everything was recorded internally, so if you wanted to record something new, you were forced to record over whatever your last video was.
I had learned that the hard way.
My friends told me it was lame and a waste of money, and it probably was. But at the time, I was elated. It was a shitty excuse for a camera, but it was my shitty excuse for a camera, my first shitty excuse for a camera. I instantly fell in love with this newfound power I had to take a moment in time and immortalize it, to relive said moment for all eternity, to capture ideas and people and places and keep them forever. As far as my seven-year-old self was concerned, I was now on par with the greats. I felt like a fucking superhero.
With the same amount of determination I'd had when acquiring this amateur camera, I'd worked for a long time to upgrade to a real camera, the model I had now. Gone were the box tops and cereal boxes, and in their place were years of accumulated birthday money and Christmas money that I refused to spend until I had saved just enough to purchase a model I'd been eyeing in a catalogue page that was tacked to my wall.
Holding this in my hands now hit me with an intense wave of nostalgia. I'd had my current camera for a long time now, but this, this thing in my hands, this was my roots.
My thumb slid over its plastic surface, over the scratches and the worn-out edges and the layer of dust, and found the rewind button. I pressed down, and, when the camera didn't react as I remembered it should have, I leaned over and tugged opened the top drawer of my side table. Inside was a hastily torn-open pack of AAA batteries, and I removed three. Opening up the camera, I forced all three inside, then moved my thumb again to rewind the video inside.
Half a minute later and it clicked softly, telling me it was ready, asking me if I was ready.
I pressed play.
On the tiny screen, the video started with the camera focused on what I supposed was the snow-coated ground. Quickly and shakily it moved upward to focus on a person's face, and I instantly realized that the face was mine. Hair was shorter, hat was bigger, face was leaner—he was all around leaner—but that was me, alright. I'd recognize that permanent scowl anywhere, even if he was probably eight or nine.
Though the picture was focused on him, I could tell he was the one holding the camera because he was slightly off center and the whole world looked like it was suffering a massive earthquake. His eyes were closed, but he took a deep breath before suddenly popping his eyes open. A small grin stretched across his face, revealing two rows of noticeably crooked teeth, and I was transfixed by it. It was a strangely genuine smile, and I wondered how long it had been since I last smiled like that so easily for no reason.
"Hi," droned my younger counterpart, speaking to the camera. "My name is Craig tucker, and I'm nine years old. It's four o'clock of December the seventh, and I'm here at school about two hours after we got let out." The camera suddenly spun around so wildly that I had to shut my eyes for a second to keep myself from getting nauseous. When I looked again, the camera was quickly panning the empty landscape of my elementary school playground. In the shot, I noticed red-painted handlebars in the corner and heard the faint but distinctive squeak of metal against metal, and I knew exactly where nine-year-old Craig was sitting.
It was the single steel merry-go-round my elementary school featured, and, though the thing seemed ready to give out every time you so much as placed your foot on it, I recalled all the arguments and fist-fights that would ensue just to get a chance to ride on it for even a minute.
The playground disappeared and Craig reappeared, placing the focus on himself again.
"I'm here with Tweek Tweak, he's my friend, and we're making this video because—well, I'll let him tell you."
I heard the yelp of protest before I saw Tweek. Craig spun the camera shakily and had it face him, and I saw he was sitting on the other side of the merry-go-round, his legs tucked underneath him and his fingers splayed across his face, shielding it from view.
"Agh, don't film me!" he cried, taking away one hand to wave it at the camera.
"Dude, this thing only has five minutes on it. Stop being uncooperative."
"You stop being uncooperative!"
"We're making this for you!"
"We're making it for you!"
"Wow, real mature." He scoffed. "We're making it for us, you dumbass, now stop being a little bitch and show your face"
When Tweek refused to budge, I heard Craig sigh and haughtily remark, "I'm so glad I didn't ask for your help with Close-Up Animals."
"What!"
"At least Kenny was actually helpful. Offer the guy a chicken leg, and you have his full attention for a whole day, sheesh."
"Don't compare me to Kenny!"
"It's not going to steal your fucking soul, you pussy, what's the big deal?"
"Hey!" Tweek removed his hands and suddenly there it was: the pout I had grown to be so familiar with. His cheeks were fuller and his hair looked softer. He probably weighed more than me at this age, but time had definitely turned the tables on both of us.
"You little shits," I mumbled to myself, grinning slightly. "Hey, you fuckers, you haven't changed a bit you know that?"
Satisfied now that Tweek had removed his hands, Craig continued, commanding, "say your name."
Tweek's shoulders heaved and he glanced skyward. "My name is Tweek Tweak."
"How old are you."
"I'm eight."
"And why are we making this video."
For a moment, I thought the sound on the video had given out, because Tweek's lips clearly moved but I hadn't heard him say anything. A part of me believed my idiot counterpart had covered the microphone with his hand or something, but then I heard Craig utter, "what was that," only for Tweek to loudly repeat himself, this time bitterly snapping, "because I'm moving away tomorrow!"
I felt my throat close up.
"Right. And I don't want to forget you exist, because I never know when I'm going to see you again."
Tweek's eyes widened and his hands suddenly flew to his mouth, as if to stifle a sound. Behind his fingers, he whispered, concern in his tone, "you won't, will you?"
"No, dude."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Tweek held out his pinky at the camera. "Swear it! And get it on the video!" On his third finger is a plastic red ring that looks oddly familiar. I bring the camera closer to my face, peering at the image carefully.
From behind the recorder, Craig held out his pinky and wrapped it around Tweek's. He had a matching ring on his own finger. "I pinky promise to never forget you."
Their pinkies remained locked, as if neither of them wanted to let go right away.
"That's what this video is for, right?" Craig continued. "So when I'm forty or fifty or one hundred, I won't forget you. And these—" he clicks their plastic rings together—"From that time we found double prizes in our cereal box. I won't forget that. I won't forget the way you triple-tie your shoelaces or the way you tug on your hair when you get nervous or how you like to chew on pen caps in class or collect rocks because you think they're neat."
"It's because I want to be an archaeologist!"
"Like Indy, yeah, yeah, I know."
Tweek smiled for the first time. "And, ah, I won't forget your guinea pig o-or that you love zombie movies or the way your favorite laundry detergent smells—"
"Which is how?"
"Like fresh rain."
"Yeah, heh."
"I definitely won't forget that you're ticklish on your ears, either."
"You're ticklish on your neck."
"Yeah, well, you're also ticklish on your fingers!"
"Fuck you. You probably have one more, too."
"You'll never know if I do. Not if I'm leaving." And just like that, the smile was gone, melting off his face as the corners of his mouth dropped and he took his lower lip between his teeth.
"Dude, don't cry. It's going to be okay. You'll be fine." Judging by the way I'd said it, I'm pretty sure I didn't believe my own words.
"How do you know?"
"Just remember what I told you, alright? What I told you in the hospital? You remember, don't you?"
Tweek swallowed back his tears, but nodded.
They finally released each other's pinkies, letting their hands drop back into their laps slowly.
"You will be back, won't you?" I heard Craig mumble softly.
"I—I don't know."
Tweek moved suddenly, placing his hand on the merry-go-round to steady himself as he leaned forward.
Then the video cut out.
That was okay, though. I knew what happened next. In fact, I knew everything. I knew all about his triple-knot shoelaces and how he eventually gave up wearing them for ankle boots instead. I knew all about the rock collection—he had forty-seven different kinds, and I'd spent long afternoons in his room letting him recite all their scientific names to me. I knew all about the plastic rings. Mine was in my treasure chest, right there under my bed, and had been there every day ever since this video was taken.
I even remembered the hospital, the day we were rushed to Hell's Pass after beating each other to a pulp on the playground. I could still feel my swollen eyelids, my cut lips, my bloody nose. I remembered the fight that ensued on our hospital beds, too, and I remember lying awake for long hours afterward, afraid that if I slept he would kick my ass in my sleep. I remembered the awkward small talk we'd finally made afterward and the apologies we'd mumbled between tight lips.
I remembered what I told him, how I'd swallowed my pride and told him I thought he was amazing, that I was impressed by how someone so small could so easily kick my ass, that I never wanted to fight him ever again for as long as we both lived. I told him he was stronger than me, stronger than anyone I'd ever met, and he didn't need to be afraid of anything in the whole world.
Most importantly of all, I remembered what happened at the end of this video, what happened after the footage cut out.
I touched my fingers to the space on the corner of my lips, and I could feel him, not the Tweek that had placed his lips there this morning or last night, but the Tweek that had kissed me there when we were eight and nine years old and didn't want tomorrow to ever come.
Memories I never knew were mine all came flooding back, like they'd never left me.
I needed to talk to Tweek.