Super Fake Love Song

by David Yoon

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Dad sat straighter. “Do you want me to be more involved in your fantasy gameplaying? Because I totally would love that, what ho, good sir.”

  “And you’re fluent in Fakespearean,” I said with a laugh.

  “You’re trying to tell us we work too much,” said Dad. “Aren’t you.”

  “I don’t know,” I said again.

  Something dinged on Dad’s laptop, momentarily pilfering his attention. Mom gently shut the lid.

  I took a breath and said what I’d been wanting to say for years:

  “You guys worked a lot less back at our old place.”

  I knit my fingers at my belly for a moment, then decided to stop. I put my hands on my hips instead. I wanted answers. I waited.

  Dad looked at Mom. You wanna tell the story?

  Mom looked back at Dad and touched his face. It was a simple gesture, one I didn’t recall ever having seen. You tell the story.

  Dad shoved his laptop away and heaved himself up onto the counter. “Once upon a time, a boy”—he pointed to himself—“met a girl”—he pointed to Mom—“and fell crazy in love.”

  Mom gripped his hand. I noticed that their rings aligned.

  Rings, hands, Ring of Baphomet, Cirrus.

  My gut twisted.

  Dad continued. “The boy and girl got married, got jobs, me at Grandpa’s office, Mom somewhere else, had kids”—he gestured at me—“and from that moment on worked day and night to make sure their beautiful new baby boys would never have to work day and night.”

  “And it was tough,” said Mom. She shook Dad’s hand as if charging into battle. “Every weekend—every free minute—became a pressure cooker situation.”

  “I don’t really understand what that means,” I said.

  “You will,” Dad said, and then caught himself and brrt shook his head like a broken robot. “I mean, I hope you never do, is what I meant.”

  “Honey,” said Mom.

  “Sorry,” said Dad.

  “What I’m saying is they wanted to make sure their two beautiful boys always had enough,” said Mom.

  I looked around at our outrageous custom kitchen. “Uh, I think we have enough.”

  Dad’s face tightened with sorrow. “But these two parents, they were so busy chasing the next dollar they forgot to pay attention to how many they already had.”

  Both Mom and Dad fell silent. I let my arms drop. I had been demanding answers from them, and now that I had them, I only felt a growing melancholy.

  You forgot to pay attention to a lot of things, I wanted to say.

  “We forgot to pay attention to a lot of things,” said Mom.

  “I spend all my time trying to keep a super-duper positive attitude,” said Dad quietly. “More like super-stupid attitude.”

  Dad-joke, I thought, but didn’t dare say anything. I was so grateful for these words that I just held my breath to hold on to the moment.

  Dad slid off the counter. Mom stepped forward. I stepped into their arms.

  “We’re gonna work on working less,” said Mom. “And not keeping up with the Joneses. Eyes on our own paper. Right, honey?”

  “Right,” said Dad.

  She pounded hard on his kidney, causing minor renal stress. “RIGHT?”

  “Right, god,” groaned Dad, just like Gray would.

  “Big baby,” said Mom, and succumbed to a yawn so big it almost made her tip over.

  We released, and I caught a glimpse of Mom wiping her eyes.

  “Good night,” said Mom.

  “Don’t worry about Cirrus,” said Dad.

  “Dad,” I said, walking away.

  “Lights will guide you home,” said Dad. “That’s ‘Fix You’ by Coldplay.”

  “Coldplay is U2 for beginners,” I said, and threw them both a weary smile. I shouldered my GeoCities hip bag. “I’m gonna shower now.”

  “Coldplay rules,” said Dad.

  “Sunny drools,” said Mom, and high-fived Dad.

  I headed upstairs. The sight of Gray’s room stopped me, pulled me in.

  I yanked off my Ring of Baphomet and placed it exactly where I had found it so long ago. I cut a square of paper and covered the IM on the IMMORTALS flyer, restoring it to its original torn state.

  I reset the steel chair, smoothed the bed. I set things into the milk crate—cables, adapters, blablabla—and dug out the old iPod from my bag to shove it deep under everything. I placed the crate back under the desk right as I had found it.

  I went to my room, scooped up a bunch of Gray’s old clothes, and went back to stuff them in Gray’s closet where they belonged. I stripped down to my underwear and put those clothes in there, too.

  Then I stood in the shower for a half hour. I usually never took showers this hot. Hot showers loosened your skin’s essential oils, making you more prone to dryness and itching that only fed the global lotion and moisturizer industrial complex.

  But this felt good. I stared at my feet, wishing it were as simple as letting everything be rinsed down the drain.

  I got out, put on my flannels, and put my slippers into position for the morning. I bit down on my night guard.

  I began texting I’m sorry to Cirrus, but deleted it after quickly realizing how insulting that sounded. I resolved to talk to her in person tomorrow.

  I lay down, clapped off the lights. Outside, the sun was already rising.

  I didn’t come close to anything resembling sleep. I fantasized about donating all the contents of all my white plastic containers, then rinsing out the containers with a garden hose and donating those, too. I fantasized about donating all my clothes, then wearing nothing but white for the rest of my life to erase myself into a state of superblankness. I would spend years like this and grow into something not quite adult and not quite child. I would become something society didn’t have a name for yet.

  I didn’t, of course, because I still had a responsibility to Jamal and Milo and DIY Fantasy FX. If they’d even still have me.

  Don’t you dare call us losers, Milo had said.

  I flung off the covers, jammed my feet into the slippers. I sat there, just breathing. I put on my big wired headphones and cued up a classic I had considered during my rock research that literally had only three chords and elementary-level drum and bass parts. I slid the volume ever higher. Come at me, noise-induced hearing loss.

  A-with the record selection, and the mirror’s reflection, I’m a-dancin’ with myself.

  “Dancing with Myself,” I decided, was the official anthem of heartbroken nerds everywhere.

  Believe

  When I awoke, it was late afternoon. I had slept the day away. If I could sleep the year away, I would. But that wouldn’t solve anything, and things badly needed solving right now.

  The room was full of stale sunlight that reflected off my white airtight plastic containers with an orange-yellow glow. They always looked kind of pretty this time of day. They were a testament to years of accumulating, organizing, and building. I hoped they still meant something.

  I got up, changed into horrible cargo shorts and one of my favorites, a near-mint-condition vintage F*cked Company shirt from 2003. I sonic-brushed, water flossed, and went downstairs to make a solitary late lunch–slash–extremely early dinner of an egg white salad on high-fiber bran toast and a bowl of cubed cantaloupe.

  I figured I should tell someone where I was going. I searched the house. Gray lay in his bed downstairs, peacefully snoozing with an open book by his side.

  The kitchen was empty; Mom and Dad hadn’t come down from their bedroom yet.

  I let everyone sleep in.

  I stood ready on my Velociraptor, feeling like a daredevil in my helmet and skid pads. I opened the garage. I felt like someone should know about this big thing I was heading off
to do, and I couldn’t think of anyone to text.

  Hey, I wrote Jamal.

  Hey, I wrote Milo.

  I waited five whole minutes. I knew they’d seen my messages because, like fools with a death wish, they kept their phones in their pockets at all times.

  Neither Jamal nor Milo wrote back. They were mad, or pretending to be busy, or both. Today, I would make it up to them. I would fix things. I will try to fix you.

  Six hexes upon you, Dad, for forcing Coldplay so deep into my head.

  I glided out of the garage with telemark grace. I went slow down the hill. What could I possibly say to Cirrus? I did not know. The important part was to get there before I chickened out and went back to hide in my beautiful warm bed for the rest of my life.

  Her condo looked unchanged. I absurdly wanted it to have morphed drastically, to reflect how I was feeling. But why should it? Why should anything?

  I kicked my kickstand, marched up to the front door, and rang the bell. The doorbell stared back at me with its little impassive video eye. A moment passed. Then ten. I rang again. Did she see me?

  I backed away, looked up at her window. The curtain twitched.

  “Cirrus,” I called as quietly as I could, which was stupid because it was impossible to shout softly.

  Nothing.

  “I need to explain myself,” I said.

  The window slid smoothly open four inches. Her hand emerged, flung a rose petal, and retreated to slam the glass shut again.

  I scrambled for the petal.

  It was not a petal.

  It was a guitar pick.

  My heart sank into my stomach to be digested and later excreted out as so much waste down the toilet and into the sewer system to eventually become invisible food for so many tiny ocean dwellers. I put the guitar pick in my pocket. I understood.

  I would go put the guitar pick back in Gray’s room, where it belonged.

  The ride back up the hill seemed to grow steeper and steeper with every lunge of my legs. When I reached Jamal’s, I cruised up the herringbone driveway, through the carriage house, across a sunlit atrium, and into the guest villa garage, which was open.

  Jamal and Milo were there. They watched in silence as I kicked my kickstand and removed my helmet and skid pads.

  “We just finished setup,” said Jamal. “Your services are not needed.”

  Ouch. Critical hit.

  “Maybe I could sing the narration?” I said. “Ha ha?”

  Milo shook his head slowly. “Too soon.”

  “I came to tell you I’m sorry,” I said. “For everything.”

  “Is Gray sorry, too?” said Jamal.

  “Actually, he is,” I said. “More than you might realize.”

  Jamal and Milo looked at each other, then me.

  Milo’s jaw was set tight. “Nn.”

  “Well, the rest of high school should be very awkward from here on out,” said Jamal. He raised his eyebrows. “Track’s gonna be awkward. Lunch should be exceptionally awkward.”

  A hundred seconds passed. I couldn’t think of a single thing I could say in that time.

  “You said we were losers,” said Jamal.

  I struggled. “I didn’t mean loser. I meant—”

  “Sounded like loser to me,” said Jamal. “Milo?”

  “Me too,” said Milo.

  More silence. My mind was freezing to a halt.

  “You know,” said Jamal, “I used to think that hey, worst-case scenario, we would make fools out of ourselves before our big fake band breakup. We’re used to being thought of as fools. I can do fools.”

  I looked back at him. “I really didn’t think that things would—”

  “I didn’t think we would wind up being hated,” said Jamal. “Loathed and despised. Oh no. That was unexpected.”

  I shut up. I glanced at Milo. His eyes sat in a bar of LED light, unwavering.

  “You realize the whole school knows what we did?” said Jamal.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I said—what I said.”

  “So you are officially admitting you did in fact call us losers last night,” said Jamal.

  “I am sorry I strongly implied you were losers by association, thereby effectively inflicting the same damage as if I had called you losers directly,” I said.

  “That apology is wholly unsatisfying,” said Jamal. “I mean wholly.”

  “I’ve been ashamed for a long time,” I said.

  Jamal and Milo stopped what they were doing and stared.

  Milo took a step. “Of what?”

  “Of myself,” I said.

  “That’s stupid,” said Jamal.

  “Jamal,” said Milo.

  “It is, because when you first came to Rancho Ruby, we all thought you were the coolest dude,” said Jamal, irritated.

  I gave a pained look, because that was the best thing to hear at the worst moment.

  “You guys ever wonder why I never talk about my old house in Arroyo Plato?” I said.

  Jamal and Milo eyed me, cautious, curious.

  I took a breath, exhaled. “You’re not gonna believe this, but me and Gray used to be best friends.”

  I saw Milo melt a little. Jamal stayed firm. Go on, he nodded.

  “You’re definitely not gonna believe this,” I said. “But me and Gray used to LARP together.”

  Milo and Jamal quirked at the same time, in exactly the same way.

  “No,” said Jamal.

  “He was Dungeon Master, in fact,” I said.

  “No,” said Jamal.

  “Shh,” said Milo.

  They were listening. I forged on. “We moved here, for reasons I’m still getting my parents to fully recognize, and right off the bat I got crap left and right from kids. Gray, too. You know what I mean.”

  “Pshh,” said Jamal and Milo, nodding.

  “Gunner came after me, we had to stop gaming, all that,” I said. “Gray had to ditch me, because he had his own classmates to deal with. Suddenly I was on my own.”

  “Nn,” said Milo.

  “What I mean to say is, when I moved here, that was the first time I’d ever been called a loser in the most serious kind of way.” I rubbed and rubbed the back of my hand. “I wanted to hide in a hole and die. But I couldn’t, so I closed myself up. I watched my step. I got cynical.”

  “You weren’t always cynical?” said Jamal.

  “I built my weird fortress of storage cubes—”

  “Fortress of solitude,” said Milo sagely. “You were protecting yourself.”

  I jabbed a finger. “Exactly. But the thing is?”

  They listened once more. On a computer screen, I could see a clock ticking away. I could not let them—us?—them?—miss the livestream with Lady Lashblade.

  “The thing is,” I said, “there was no protecting myself. Because I started to believe the bullies. I started to believe I was a loser. I never meant to call you guys losers. I was talking about me.”

  “You’re not a loser,” said Jamal. “I just told you that.”

  “And I know that now,” I said. “Because what also happened when I moved to Rancho Ruby was I met these two clowns, and they became my best friends, and it’s because of them that I’m not a loser.”

  Jamal’s eyes fell. He was still mad. But I knew he hated being mad.

  Milo gazed at me with eyes of encouragement. This is good. Keep going.

  “No cynicism or fortress of solitude or whatever could ever protect me from my own shame,” I said. “You guys did.”

  “Sun,” said Milo.

  “You are my protectors,” I said. “I’d be dead and buried in a baseball field if it weren’t for you.”

  I realized I was trembling and breathing hard. My nose was running for some reason. I wipe
d it. Jamal and Milo glanced at each other, then back at me, then at the ground. They were thinking. Perhaps judging.

  And why shouldn’t they? Wouldn’t I, if I were them?

  I didn’t know what I expected out of saying everything I’d just said. It would be naïve to think they’d take me back just like that, everything instantaneously forgiven.

  I suddenly felt very exposed. I had the overwhelming urge to sprint home and hide in my room. So I got on my bike.

  The computer screen twitched.

  “It’s fifteen minutes to live,” I said. “Have a great show.”

  * * *

  —

  Back on the street, I refused to cry. There was no such thing as biking and crying.

  It was slowly dawning on me that I no longer had any friends.

  At least Gunner was my friend, right?

  No crying while biking.

  The ultimate irony was that, until recently, I’d finally no longer felt like a loser. Gunner had gone from bully to friend; I had Cirrus; I’d faked being a rock star, only to find I possessed the skills to actually be a rock star.

  Now I was alone, with nothing else to do but help pick up the pieces of my broken brother, Gray.

  As for Cirrus, I would see her in the halls and across the clover field at track, and our eyes would never meet again. In the larger scheme of things, I would become the school’s village idiot—a loser of my own making.

  Maybe there was a chance Milo and Jamal and I would still be friends, albeit in a completely different capacity. Like classmate friends—those kids you hung out with at school but nowhere else, capable of only the shallowest of conversation.

  Or maybe we wouldn’t at all.

  Maybe we would just be acquaintances, and nod at one another in the hallways, and that would be it.

  In one fell swoop, our flux capacitor now sat splintered apart into separate arms, flux things, whatever. I didn’t even really like that movie all that much. Not even when Jamal and Milo and me watched it for the first time in Milo’s backyard when we were kids, and his mom set up the sheet and the projector and his dad gave us all the homemade elote corncobs we could eat and—

  “Sunny,” shrieked Milo.

  I looked back. On a conventional bike, such a lookback would surely cause an instant loss of control and inevitable crash followed by property damage, personal injury, or even death and dismemberment. But not on the ultra-stable Velociraptor® Elite.