Hey, Jack, It's a fact they're talkin' in town.
I turn my back and you're messin' around.
I'm not really jealous, don't like lookin' like a clown.
- Joan Jett
There's a storm on the way
And it's coming no matter what I say
- Gnarles Barkley
She was starting to get pissed. Really pissed. It was a constant throbbing in her stomach, a gnawing that kept her awake at night. He rarely ever wanted to hang out, and on those rare occasions when he did, he acted like she was one of his little buddies. She didn't want to be treated like a girl, but she did want to be treated like he liked her. Last Spring he acted that way. She couldn't exactly point to any one thing that indicated his affection for her (other than that dorky kiss he gave her outside his house the day she socked him – thinking of that always brought a smile to her face), but it was there. She could see it and feel it. Now, she might as well have been another boy.
When she saw him at the mall, her first instinct was to slap him across the back of the head as hard as she could, hopefully knocking him out of the booth and onto his ass. Sorry, lame-o, guess I don't know my own strength, but as she stalked across the food court, she realized she didn't have it in her; her Lincoln, her heart was tender, and that pissed her off even more, so she wrapped her arm around his neck and ground her knuckles into his scalp as hard as she could.
"Hey, lame-o!"
He thrashed his head around and told her to cut it out, but he was laughing, which made her both happy and angry at the same time. Angry because the nuggie was supposed to freaking hurt, happy because she liked the sound of his laughter.
"What'cha up to?" she asked after releasing him.
"Christmas shopping."
"Yeah, me too." That was a lie. Kind of. She had some money in her pocket and her eye open for something for her brother and mother, but she'd come to the mall largely to clear her head. It was too damn cold to walk around Royal Woods for long. The news said the storm would hit tomorrow evening and that it would be even colder. From what she saw on Channel 5, it was going to be a big one; Snowpocalypse 2017. Pretty rad.
"You hear about the snow coming?" she asked.
"Yeah, kind of," Lincoln said, "it's going to be bad, right?"
"Worse one in, like, fifty years," she said. "I'm looking forward to it."
They chatted about nothing for a few minutes. She wanted to stay longer, maybe sit down, but she didn't want to look like a fool, so she said "See ya" and left; she fought the urge to look back.
She hated feeling this way. She was supposed to be tough. That's how you got through life, by being big, mean, and hitting things, because when you were big, mean, and hit things, people didn't bother you. She learned that before she moved to Royal Woods, when she was still living in East L.A. No one bothered the tough people. But the weak people...they ate them alive. Her mother was weak, and so was Bobby. She loved them both dearly, but it was true. People stole from them, people used them, a bunch of boys beat Bobby up because he accidentally wore the wrong color shirt in the wrong neighborhood. When she was little, girls used to push her around on the schoolyard and call her names. The only difference between her and her other family members was that she eventually got sick of it and started popping noses. After that, things were better.
Violence doesn't solve anything, they said. Bullshit. Yes it did. It solved a lot. Look at all the wars they taught about in history class. The Civil War and WWII. Those didn't solve anything? The fact that people weren't still in chains or being shoved into ovens told her they did. You had to be hard and violent to get through life. Simple as that.
Only when she was around Lincoln, she didn't feel hard and violent. She felt warm and tingly. She felt...she felt like a softie, and she hated it. Deep down, though, she kind of liked it. She felt good with him. At ease. Or she did until he started flaking out on her. She was just starting to let her guard down, and wham, an icepick to the heart. It hurt so bad sometimes she felt like crying, but she never did, because crying is for the weak. Crying doesn't solve anything. Not like violence.
She needed to talk to him. Sit him down, ask him what the hell was up and where they stood. If he wanted to be with her, she'd say yes. She'd even shout it from the rooftops. If anyone had shit to say, she'd sock them in the jaw. No more messing around. Lincoln was a great guy and she liked him. She wanted people to know, she wanted them to see him and be jealous of her because she snagged herself an awesome man.
Her mind wandered. When she came back to herself, she was walking to Dollar-Rama. She shoved past a fat guy and went down an aisle. Okay. Mom first. What to get, what to get.
She roamed toward the back of the store, and heard a weather report. She looked over, and small a row of baby TV sets lining the back wall. She walked over, and saw Luan standing there, her arms crossed.
"Pretty neat, huh?" she asked, and Luan jumped.
"It's kind of scary."
Scary? She chuckled to herself. "I'm not worried. This isn't the first snowstorm we've ever had. Tell lame-o I said stay warm."
She turned and went back the way she had come. For some reason she couldn't fully grasp, she had come to dislike Luan over the past couple months. It was nothing the Loud girl had done or said (they rarely interacted), it was more on an instinct. Her mother might call it woman's intuition. Her corny jokes didn't help. God, they were so bad.
Whatever. She had shopping to do.
Miles away and nearly an hour later, the Loud children helped their father board up the first story windows with sheets of plywood. The decision to do so had been made last minute. They were on their way home when a weather report came on the radio. Tomorrow evening, the storm would roll into Royal Woods with 70 mile per hour winds. Up until that morning, there was a good chance it would turn south and they would only get the outer bands, instead, it shifted north, and they were in for a direct hit.
"Guess we better cover the windows," dad said.
They started with the back windows, dad and Lana working together while Lincoln and Lynn worked on their own. Mom stood in the backyard with her arms crossed, supervising. After almost an hour, the entire first floor was sealed up tight, save for the doors.
"It's going to be worse than '78," mom worried.
"How bad was '78?" Lynn asked, wiping her hands on her shorts.
"Bad," dad said. "There were snow drifts to the tops of the houses." He chuckled. "We were stuck for two days before my dad tunneled out the front door. It took him eight hours of digging."
Holy shit, Lincoln thought, scared for the first time.
"Whoa," Lana said appreciatively. "What was he using?"
"A garden trowel."
"And it only took him eight hours? Nice."
Inside, Lincoln found Luan on the couch. On TV, a man stood in front of a map of the Midwest, pointing here and there and talking. Lincoln sat down on the far end, away from her, and watched. After a few minutes, they started showing video from areas already affected by the storm: An interstate in South Dakota, cars strewn along its length, some in ditches and others on their roofs; a power station burning in Iowa; collapsed buildings in Nebraska. In Kansas, ice coated everything, bringing down trees, powerlines, traffic lights, and even a water tower in the town of Pratt: It lay across the town square, parked cars crushed beneath it.
"God," Luan drew, her hand flying to her mouth. That was coming to them.
"Yeah, it looks scary," Lincoln said, then, "but we'll be okay."
"You sound so sure."
"Of course I am." He looked at her and smiled. "Let's watch something else."
Luan changed the channel. They were just losing themselves in a show when a knock came at the door. "Got it," mom said.
Luan heard the door open. "Oh, hi, Ronnie Anne."
Ronnie Anne? Luan looked over her shoulder. The Hispanic girl stood in the doorway, her hands in her pockets. "Hi, Mrs. Loud, is Lincoln here?"
"Yes."
Luan glanced at Lincoln, who was already getting up. She took a deep breath and looked at the TV, her ears open.
"Hey, lame-o, wanna hang?"
"Uhhh...yeah, okay."
"Sweet," she said. "I got the new Call of Honor game. Wanna play?"
"Oh, boy!"
Running footsteps thumped up the stairs.
Luan took a deep breath. She could trust Lincoln. He wouldn't cheat on her. She knew that in her bones. So why was she so worried?
In his room, Lincoln sank onto his bed while Ronnie Anne knelt and popped the game into the console. "It's an early Christmas present from Bobby," she explained. She got up, grabbed two controllers, and tossed one to Lincoln. "He buys presents and then can't wait to give them." She shook her head and sat next to Lincoln. "He's such a dork. Kind of like you, lame-o."
"I guess that's why we get along," Lincoln said.
"Yeah, he's been talking about you a lot." She glanced at him, mulled over what she was going to say next, then: "What's up with you, anyway? You've been really distant. I don't see much of you anymore."
"You see me every day at lunch," Lincoln said. The loading screen finished, and the game started. Two avatars stood in a barren field. In the distance, tanks and enemy soldiers wandered aimlessly. Lincoln could feel her looking at him, but resisted the urge to turn. He hoped she dropped it.
She didn't.
"Yeah, but you're different. And you never really wanna hang out anymore. Getting to spend time with me's like pulling teeth."
Lincoln felt bad. "I just have a lot going on. That's all."
"A lot of what?"
Lincoln didn't reply. He focused on the game. Ronnie Anne had no choice but to play too. "It's been like this for a long time, Lincoln." She thought to add and I miss you, but that was too mushy-gushy. She couldn't say that.
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry. It's just..."
On screen, his character took a round to the head and dropped. Seconds later, an explosion threw Ronnie Anne's into the air, killing her too.
"What?" she pressed.
He sighed. He'd been putting this off since the end of summer, when he and Luan first got together. How long was that, four months? Four months he'd been sitting on his hands, four months he'd lived in dread of the moment he would have to tell Ronnie Anne that there was someone else.
"I'm waiting," she said.
He jumped right in. "Ronnie, I know you like me, and I like you, or I used to, but...I have a girlfriend now."
Ronnie Anne's heart sank into her stomach. "You what?"
Lincoln sighed. "It happened over the summer, I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to hurt you."
Ronnie Anne didn't hear him; the only sound in the world was the blood pounding against her temples. Her vision doubled, and she thought she was going explode in a ball of rage. Instead, even worse, tears flooded her eyes.
"Ronnie..." Lincoln said, reaching for her.
She slapped his arm away and got up.
"Please, I..."
"Keep the damn game," she said through her tears. "I bought it for you."
Trying so hard to fight back her tears, she fled down the stairs and out the front door. Luna passed her going up. "Hey, you okay?" she asked, but Ronnie Anne ignored her.
In the bitter cold, she gave into the storm, her body shaking. She started down the sidewalk, rubbing her eyes.
There was someone else.
Someone stole Lincoln out from under her, and why wouldn't they? He was wonderful.
That made her cry harder.
In his room, Lincoln watched her, his stomach in knots. The way she hitched as she walked, her hands to her eyes, made him feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world.
Sinking onto his bed, he slapped the controller onto the floor, where it bounded end over end and hit the console, causing the screen to go hazy for a second. He hoped he broke the damn thing.
"Linc?"
He looked up. Luan was standing in the doorway, worry on her face. "What's wrong?"
He sighed. "I told Ronnie Anne about us. Not about us, but that I was with someone."
Luan nodded. "I had a feeling she liked you."
"She did," Lincoln said, "and I liked her. I mean, I still like her, but not like that, and I didn't want to hurt her."
Luan sat next to him and put her arm around his shoulder. "I know how she must feel. You're amazing."
Lincoln cracked a small grin. It always made him smile when Luan told him he was great, or wonderful, or beautiful, or sweet. The smile died quickly, though.
"I'm sorry," Luan said.
He shook his head. "Don't be. It had to happen. I should have done it months ago. I kept putting it off."
"Because you're sweet and caring and you knew it would hurt her."
"I don't feel sweet or caring," he said, and sighed.
"You are," Luan said, and kissed him on the cheek. At the touch of her lips, an electric thrill went through his body. He turned and gazed into her eyes. She grinned, and he kissed her, slipping his tongue into her mouth. She kissed him back, and he ran his fingers through her hair.
"Yuck," Lucy said from the hall. "At least shut the door."
The door closed and Luan pushed him back on the bed. Her heart pounded gently against his chest. He ran his hands up and down her arched back and lost himself in her. "You're sweet, and loving, and caring, and considerate, and everything else good and beautiful," Luan said. She stroked his cheek and gazed deeply into his eyes.
"If you say so," he said.
"I do, and I'm always right."
"Always?"
"Yep," she leaned down and kissed his forehead. "Come on, I wanna watch the news."
Lincoln's nose crinkled. "The news?"
"About the storm."
Lincoln sighed. "You're going to drive yourself crazy with that stuff."
"I know," she got up and went to the door. "You can come if you want."
"Give me a minute."
She smiled at him and left the room. Alone, Lincoln laid on his back for a moment before getting up and going to the window. Ronnie Anne was gone, but he could still see here, stumbling down the sidewalk and crying. He sighed.
In the hall, Luna stopped him. "What's up with Ronnie Anne? She ran outta here crying."
"Nothing," Lincoln said. "I just told her I had a girlfriend."
Luna blinked. "Dude, you just told her? She really likes you."
Lincoln felt even worse. "I didn't want...that to happen."
"Yeah, I guess I see your point."
In the living room, Luan, Lori, Leni, Lynn, mom, and dad were shoved onto the couch watching the news of Channel 4. As he entered, it cut from the weatherman back to one of the anchors. A picture of a man with scraggily hair and stubble appeared over her right shoulder, and everyone groaned. "I wanna see the weather!" Luan said.
"In other news, a jury today convicted Eric Wayne Freeman of the 2014 slaying of Detroit taxi driver Khaled Asam. The jury took just fifteen minutes to return a guilty verdict, stunning the defense. Freeman, a drifter from Texas, shot and killed Asam on February 26, 2014 in a robbery gone wrong. Freeman has been convicted of seven similar murders across the country, and will begin serving a life sentence at Upper Peninsula State Prison this weekend."
"They should fry his ass," Lynn said.
"Lynn," mom said sharply.
"Sorry."
Lincoln sat on the arm of the couch next to Lori. "What's the latest?"
"Oh, just the end of the world," she said. "They're calling it 'Snowmageddon.'"
"I thought it was 'Snowpocalypse,'" Luan said.
"It's whatever hype the media wants it to be," mom said. "I know one thing: It's going to be bad."
Before dark, dad boarded up the second story windows, and mom made a last minute trip to the grocery store. Lincoln went with her, and was shocked at the chaos he saw, empty shelves, people fighting over gallons of milk, cans and bottles strewn across the floor. Every register was open, but the lines still snaked to the back of the store. The din was so loud he could barely hear the Christmas music coming from the speakers.
It took them three hours to grab half a cart full of things. At home, he sat in front of the TV and watched the news with Luan without being asked.
He told her about the scene at the grocery store.
"I'm starting to think you're right to be worried."
"I told you, Linc," she said, "I'm always right."
