This isn't right. Takes me forever to figure that out, but when I do it's crushing.

What're we doing? Lying? Why are we lying? Why are we running?

Pull up to the house, climb out, lead Babs around to the side door, over the gravel, key in the top lock, jiggling…

Doesn't look like my sister's home.
I didn't know you had a sister.
Yeah, me neither.

Door opens up to the kitchen. I let her in first.

Shoes off?
Wait til we get downstairs.

Arms full of Wendy's, she follows me through to the den.

"Daffyyyyy?" Mom yelling from her bedroom. "Is that youuuuu?"

Babs freezes. I motion for her to keep going: Basement door, right there.

"No, Ma. It's me."

She opens the door, steps down, turns back.

"Pluckyyy?" Mom still yelling. "How was school?"

"Fine, Ma." I give Babs a nudge. I give her another nudge. "I'll be downstairs, okaaay?"

She yells something else, but it's drowned out by the clunk of the door.

Lights flicker on, humming. Babs thumps down the rest of the stairs, me following.

"This is it," I tell her. "What you so wanted to see."

Place is a mess—exactly how I left it. Wires everywhere, snaking from the wall to the router to my laptop, which lies closed and blinking in the floor, then up to the Xbox, TV and back. Mom's old couch sticking diagonally out from the wall, crumpled Mello Yello cans lining the floor in front of it. Miscellaneous homework spread out across the coffee table, heaps of dirty clothes, an old vacuum cleaner balanced precariously against the closet door, two empty grease-shadowed pizza boxes, a bulbless, broken floorlamp…

Babs stands biting her lip. It'd be nice if she, like, regretted coming over. That'd be nice.

Instead she lifts one foot and jostles the table with it, upending a mountain of homework, then very daintily sets down our leftovers and takes a seat on the couch.

Alright. What now?

"Your mom seems cool," unfolding those sandwich wrappers.

"You haven't even met her."

"That's why I said she seems cool." Smirk, chewing a fry. "You gonna, like, introduce us?"

"Nah, that's okay."

Smirk morphs into a sad face. Same one I visualize every time she texts colon, open-parenthesis.

"It's complicated," I tell her.

Huh. That's a funny way of putting it. That's a really funny way of putting it.

She shrugs. "You just gonna stand there and watch," patting the cushion next to her, "or are you gonna siddown and finish yer friggin boy-gah?"

"You're the one who's committed."

"Yeah yeah." Bending down almost to the table she takes another small, belabored bite. Still less than halfway through, and she left her pop at the restaurant. Shouldn't have left her pop at the restaurant.

Eventually I join her on the couch.

So, like, complicated how?
What's complicated?
I'm asking you. Something about your mom?
Oh. She, uh, has cancer.
Wow. Zat, like, how you always break the news?
If I can. Best to just throw it out there.
Does Buster know?
He didn't ask.
Neither did I.
Well, sorta, you did.

She drops her sandwich, turns and hugs me.

Hugs me for a long time.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," I say to her shoulder.

"Can I meet her? I really wanna meet her."

Meet her?

What would be the point? Meeting the parents, isn't that reserved for, like, special friends? Significant friends? Friends who don't compulsively rope each other into awkward situations? What kind of friend does Babs think she is? How would I even introduce her? "Uhhh, Ma? This is Buster's girlfriend. We had Government together last marking period, and now we, like, sit next to each other in third lunch. Sometimes."

Is that how it would go? Is that how she thinks it would go? That can't be how she thinks it would go.

Suddenly I feel a laugh coming on, tickling the back of my throat, about to leap up into my nose, but then her phone rings.

"Are we livin in vain?" Bzzzt. "Are we livin in pain?" Bzzzt. "Girl, remember my name—" Bzzzzzt.

"You gonna answer that?"

She lets go of me, sitting back, then gazes down at her open purse as if peering into the mouth of some dark, terrible cave.

"He can leave a message."

Six o'clock. Shit. How'd we get to six o'clock?

Look over at Babs and she's yawning, sitting with her back against the armrest, feet up.

"So, like, what's this SL1 PVP thing all about?" That was two hours ago. She's been "watching" me play ever since. Even started streaming, just in case Buster checks my Twitch page. Just in case he gets suspicious.

Covering my ass.

Jig's gotta be up by now. By now he's probably tracked down Fifi, tracked down Shirley, unraveled most of Babs's flimsy lie, thunk on it for a while, and at this very moment is composing some long, dangerously emotional text message which, like gunpowder, will soon shudder dramatically in the belly of that fake Gucci purse lying next to me on the couch.

Or something.

Bored yet?
Nope. Fine.
You look bored.
Just filing my nails.
Okay, but, like, I've gotta ask…
Whazzat?
You'd rather be here filing your nails than—
Don't be so hard on yourself, Plucky.
He's not a bad guy.
We've been over this.
Not really, we haven't.

For once she takes more than a split second to respond. I glance over at her, but she's looking the other way.

Wish I could pause the game. Wish I could set the controller down. But you don't just pause in the middle of Blighttown. Not in the swamp, you don't.

"Saturday," she says, clearing her throat, "we were at Burdick's, and he started talking about kids. Like, if we had kids, what we'd name them…"

"Yeah, so?"

She snorts. "We've only been dating two months."

"He's just being melodramatic."

"Melodramatic?" I can feel the couch move as she sits up. "Monday he asked me to marry him."

Controller slips out of my hands. "He what?"

Big eyes.

"Okay, lemme rephrase that," showing her palms. "He asked if I'd be willing to marry him. Like, in the future. If everything worked out. But still—"

"He's in love. Guys say stupid things when they're in love." You would know. You would fucking know.

She lets her eyelids down. "Comforting."

You want me to talk to him?
No.
I wasn't going to anyway.
I didn't think so. You ever, like, been in a relationship, Plucky?
Sorta-kinda. Once.
I didn't think so.
What's your point?
Just that it's a lose-lose sitcheeation, the one I'm in.
Dating someone who loves you?
Dating someone I don't love. Someone I don't even really like.
Not yet. But like you said, it's only been two months.
Pfft! Don't remind me. Imagine what he'll sound like in a year…

She sinks back into the couch, bouncing a little when her head hits the cushion.

You're out of your element, Plucky. Way out of your element.

"Sorry," she says after a while. "I probably sound like a friggin sourpuss."

"Probably."

"Yeah, but it feels good to vent, y'know? Without, like, having to worry about some blabbermouth yapping to everybody at school…"

Slowly I bend down to pick up my controller. I can feel her watching me, but I don't dare look.

"Maybe," she says softly, almost to herself, "maybe that's why I don't mind just sitting here."

Upstairs a door slams, then the floor creaks. My eyes flick toward the tiled ceiling.

Someone home?
My sister.
I didn't know you had a sister.
We've been over this.

Voices swirling upstairs. No words, just tones. Mom, Daffy, Mom, footsteps, more creaking.

"Quick," me whispering, "clear off the table!"

"What for?"

"Just do it!"

She jumps up, shoveling our sandwich wrappers onto the floor, and while she's doing that I shut off the Xbox, fling away my controller and start heaping armfuls of homework back onto the table. By the time the basement door squeaks open we're huddled over an old geometry textbook pretending to look busy, her not really knowing why.

Not really knowing why, but still playing along.

"'Sup, fuckstain," Daffy bounding down the stairs. Her usual greeting. Wearing that ridiculous Acmeloo Grad Bash 2006 teeshirt, acid-wash jeans and oversized zero-prescription nerd specs. The glasses, I've learned, usually indicate that she is currently or will very soon be getting high.

"You wouldn't be-leeeve," she drones, eyes on her feet, "the story Mom just told me." She takes a few steps toward the couch before finally looking up.

Shit. Here we go.

"Well well," one hip jutting way out. "Looks like we've got ourselves a study session."

Babs is smiling.

Daffy leans forward, lowering her bill to my ear, then blurts out: "Didn't know you were into the pink ones, little bro."

Ugh.

"And you arrrrre…?" maneuvering around the front of the couch, hand outstretched.

"Babs Bunny. Plea-zed to meet you." She reaches up to complete the shake, but Daffy jerks her hand away.

"We were just, uh, working on a group project," I butt in. "You know, for school?"

"School, eh? Sounds likely." Daffy rolls her eyes, then lets them drop. "What's this," rounding the table, "a little snackypoo?" She scoops up our leftovers. "Someone didn't finish their," peeking under the bun, "spicy chicken sandwich?" She takes a bite. "You don't mind, do you, Pluck?"

"Careful, it's hot."

She stands chewing for a moment, "Not that hot."

"Whatever."

"Anyhoo, remember my old friend Dot? From high school?"

"Unfortunately."

"She's in the hospital. Mom told me."

"What happened?" Babs looking concerned, and she must really be concerned, because I can't imagine how anyone could fake looking that concerned.

"I'm gettin there, I'm gettin there," Daffy still smiling. "Remember she had that pet deer?"

She did have that pet deer. Nuzzling it in her MySpace picture.

"Last week the DNR showed up at her house, said if they didn't release the deer into the wild by such-and-such a date they'd come back and shoot it. Well, you know how Dot is," drawing circles in the air by her head, "she wouldn't give up the deer. Then, yesterday, she got into some biiiiig fight with her stepdad and stole the keys to his convertible. Mustang convertible. Pissed him off so bad he kicked the deer out himself, and don'tcha know…?"

"What?"

"The deer, it ran out across Ten-Mile Road right when Dot was coming down the hill. And she was fly-ying. Shattered the windshield, hit her head on the steering wheel, broke the bone right here, all around her eye, and the deer just sort of limped off into the woods. Ironic, huh?"

I've got my chin in my hands, elbows on my knees. "You could say that."

"She gonna be okay?" Babs asks.

"She'll be fine. Nothing her boyfriend hasn't already tried on her."

An annoyed sigh sneaks out of me.

"What's wrong, Pluck? You tired?"

"You could say that," glaring, Fuck you.

"Alriiight…" she raises both hands, as if to shield herself from getting punched. "Don't mind me. I'll let you get back to your," air quotes, "group project. Just remember: Keep it safe, keep it clean, don't do anything Jesus wouldn't do. And Baby Barbie, or whatever your name is," pointing now at Babs, "from one girl to another, it's never too late to reconsider." She takes a huge bite of what was once Babs's sandwich, chews and swallows. "You might already know this, but ducks don't have any external genitalia, so unless you've got some gear picked out you'll have to stick to oral. Anyway, nice to meet you."

Blood from everywhere surges up into my face. Babs is silent. Daffy turns and saunters slowly, bouncingly out of the room and back upstairs, whistling what sounds like the chorus from Adia, then very carefully, as if not to disturb us, inches the door shut behind her.

I look at the floor, all those crisscrossing wires. Never should've come here. Never should've fucking come here.

"You think, uh, maybe we should get going?" Babs probably wants to get going. If I were her, I'd want to get going.

Instead she just starts laughing.