Quad Squad

by R. Barri Flowers

  Part of it was that there were a couple of girls he liked and he couldn’t really choose and if you go out with one of them then the feelings of the other ones might be hurt.

  But way more of it was that he could picture it, just like hear the words, him asking someone do you want to maybe do something, or however you say it, and them going, um, I have to do something, I have to wash my pet or something like on bad TV.

  And if people knew the truth, the real truth, then if he was being really really honest, he was so totally petrified of all of that he just didn’t even want to try it.

  Plus he didn’t even know when he would go out much because a lot of the time he went to RC car races with his dad on like nights that are date nights. Once the whole grounding thing was over.

  But how even would that work anyway? It wasn’t not like he could pick a girl up because he didn’t have his license yet although he totally knew how to drive. His dad had showed him everything last summer and said that Jerry was actually really good at it.

  So then what? Was he supposed to get a ride to a date? From, like, who? His dad? Come on. How was that supposed to work? Or okay you could meet somewhere, but where? And are you supposed to buy the stuff for them or do they pay for their own stuff? And more importantly, like more important than that, is how do you go from like, oh here have some pizza, wasn’t that movie sick, to kissing them and whatever? He really did not even get that part.

  Also, he was thinking that he could maybe become a pilot, because they make a ton of money and he loved being in planes, he had been in one three times, and he was really good at controllers and things like that, which were basically like what a pilot does. Or also he was thinking a chef like at one of those expensive restaurants, In his opinion he was actually a really good cook, but also other people always said so, like his mom and dad, and if that was your job, you could eat whatever you made. He hadn’t really decided. He figured there was still time.

  She didn’t want to tell anyone. And she did. The school counselor, she was cool, Sabrina had almost told her, but then she hadn’t. This was when Sabrina had gotten busted for being stoned in class but if they don’t find anything on you not much they can do. The lady was like oh I need to call your family and Sabrina was like go ahead they don’t care about me so whatever and the lady had actually been nice about it and not called. Basically it was obvious that the lady was fishing for Sabrina to tell her certain stuff but she wasn’t about, no way.

  Like, she wanted to, sort of? But she couldn’t. If you did that, your family would never ever ever forget it and they would never ever talk to you again. Which would be fine, she wanted to be 18 already and get away from those fucking people or even run away right now, but also she didn’t want mom to be mad, not that it helped what Sabrina wanted, mom was going to be mad no matter what, but if Sabrina told about --

  Anyway, it didn’t matter, because it was Friday night and all over the world people were out having fun and dancing and smoking pot and having a good time and maybe kissing their boyfriends and she was home alone again, not that she minded so much, at least when you were alone you didn’t have to be all fake friendly and happy and act like you’re having a good time.

  Which she definitely, definitely wasn’t. Some days were bad and some days were worse. She didn’t really even have the energy to go to the bathroom, she had been lying on the floor next to her bed because she had sat down to take off her shoes when she got home and then had never found the energy to get up, just kind of lying down and listening to music on her phone and running the battery low and not caring and thinking about her mom’s Xanax and what would happen if you also drank a bunch of the vodka from the freezer at the same time. There was a singer who had died that way, but Sabrina couldn’t remember her name, and that made her super sad. Like, she had lived her whole life and been famous and everything and probably had a million boyfriends and then just OD’d and it was all over with. Life was shit, basically, and that singer, what was her name? Sabrina just could not remember.

  “Yyyooooo,” Malik said, Andrea getting in the back. She was just a tiny bit messy from running out of the house quick, she had been expecting them but it had taken forever to get her hair right and now she pulled out her phone to see what it looked like, not terrible. Ray pulled away without even saying anything, just a quick check in his rear view that Andrea thought looked a little bit like he was checking her out, which was kind of interesting. It was in fact going to be a super interesting evening.

  “What up, Malik?” she said. “Party time.”

  “Word,” Malik said. “You know Terence and Boston?”

  “Yeah, I think so?” Andrea said, not really knowing who he was talking about.

  “Yeah, they’re going to be there, I’m hearing,” Malik said.

  “Cool,” Andrea said, thinking, who even is called Boston?

  “You seen this?” he asked, passing her back his phone.

  “Oh, I know!” she shouted, making Ray slightly jump but not turn from driving. “That’s fucking hilarious.” She handed the phone back to Malik. She tapped at her phone and said, “Here, do you know this one?” He took it and laughed, but then he didn’t hand it back for a second. She waited, her hand kind of between his seat and the door, just smushed in there, then said, “What the fuck, give me back my phone.”

  “I’m just checking what you and Cole were texting about,” he said.

  “What? Shut up, give me that.”

  “Oh, shit, he sent you a dick pic! No way!” Malik said, laughing hard.

  “Oh, my God, shut up!” she screamed, hitting him as hard on the shoulder as she could from her weird back seat angle.

  “You two shut the fuck up,” Ray said quietly, and they both did immediately. It was like having your dad in the car.

  “Anyway,” she said quietly a minute later, when it seemed safe. “Nobody sent me any dick pic.”

  “Bet you wish he did,” Malik said, but he gave her back her phone.

  Andrea said, “I wonder if he’ll be there.”

  “Who, Cole?”

  “No, somebody else,” Andrea said. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Rachel and Maya had been planning a sleepover for a while but stuff kept getting in the way and then by the time they did have time nobody else was available, Sabrina said she was busy and nobody was really talking to Andrea, and Karen and Naeli were just kind of not a good fit for a sleepover? Even the volleyball girls weren’t around or just weren’t answering texts which was super rude, but Maya and Rachel decided without saying anything to just act like they had meant to hang out just the two of them. They watched some bad comedies on Netflix and messed around with makeup tutorials and then decided to bake cookies for something to do. Maya’s mom was out at a movie, so they had the kitchen to themselves.

  Maya was getting out flour and eggs and Rachel was putting on an apron when their phones both blew up.

  “What is going on?” Maya asked, not wanting to stop doing something she was doing for her phone like always, wanting to just do stuff for fun in her actual own house with her actual own friend and not have to jump on her phone every time other people out in the world who weren’t there had something to say; but also not wanting to be left out of anything.

  “Hold on,” Rachel said, scanning her texts. It was super awkward to know what to do. The texts were all about Andrea and some party and they were coming in from people who really barely knew Andrea but knew Rachel and Maya, and were basically snitching on Andrea for going to a party.

  “It’s -- there’s some party, I guess?” Rachel said.

  Maya could tell from that that Rachel was hiding something, because when Rachel read something she always understood it, she was a stone cold reader.

  “It’s about Andrea, basically?” Maya asked.

  “Basically.”

  “Should I even look?”

  “I mean, not if you don’t want to,” Rachel said, glad that this subje
ct was now kosher for discussion. “But how are you feeling about all of it?”

  “I don’t know,” Maya said, truthfully. “Part of the time it just seems stupid to me, like why are we even fighting, it’s just Andrea and we go so far back but she can be so mean sometimes. You know?”

  “I understand,” Rachel said.

  “You don’t have to pick my side.”

  “I mean, it’s sad for everybody? I like her too.”

  “I know. But she kind of stole the only chance I ever had with a guy?”

  “Oh, no way. You are so going to get asked out by a million guys, stop that.”

  “No, I mean. It’s just -- I guess, not like Mike.”

  “Yeah, it seemed like you two --”

  “But, I mean, isn’t it also his fault, if he couldn’t just keep his focus on me then go ahead, right? It’s like, you know what, follow your dick around instead of being a nice human being, I don’t care.”

  “Which means you care.”

  Maya sighed. “Pretty much. What’s this party?”

  “I don’t know, do you have Eliza’s Snapchat?”

  “I un-added her after the whole thing with the --”

  “Oh, yeah, right, I probably should un-add her too. It was just this picture of Andrea at a party, Malik was there? And then some people I didn’t recognize.”

  “What people?”

  “They looked older.”

  “She’s so …” Maya sighed heavily. She said, “I guess it’s not for me to judge.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We should preheat to 350.”

  “Yeah.”