L U K E
Jason's bedroom was different than Daisy's in every way. Daisy's room was only big enough for a double bed tucked next to the window, a cow-printed chair where she dumped all her equally extravagant-looking clothes, a desk for her to study in, a tiny closet, and a colorful rug she tended to lie in every time I came over.
Meanwhile Jason's room was big enough for his bed, a normal-looking armchair, a desk too messy for any work to possibly be done there, a big closet, and a couch in front of a flat screen and a games console. Their parents definitely had a favorite child.
Daisy's room was also full books and posters of boybands and movie stars stuck to the walls, whereas Jason's was full of big-boy weights and posters of big-budget action-packed movies and frat-boy comedies Daisy wouldn't watch in her lifetime.
I knew this about their bedrooms because I had been in Daisy's room many times in the past few months, either watching something, anything, on the screen of her laptop, or (barely) studying for something, anything, together. Today, however, I had been dragged to Jason's room. Not by him, but by Daisy.
He had physiotherapy and wouldn't be home for hours and she wanted my help to get back at him for killing her baby in a housefire. This only made sense to me after she told me she had left her laptop in the living room to go help her mom with lunch last weekend, and Jason had found it and decided it would be funny to ruin her Sims game. Obviously, it had been funny to no one but him.
To get back at Jason, Daisy wanted me to login to his latest video game obsession and destroy it. As it turned out, Jason's latest video game obsession was the same as mine, except I had finished playing it already and he hadn't. Also, there was no real way to destroy the game for him, except by playing it, and moving the storyline along without him here to see it, which was exactly what we did.
Did I feel bad about ruining for Jason what for me had been one of the best experiences of my life when it came to media consumption? Absolutely, I did. I liked Jason. He sat with me during gym class when my asthma got too bad and occasionally said hi to me in the hallways. But of course, killing someone's baby in a housefire wasn't very nice, even if it was a virtual baby in a virtual housefire in a virtual simulation of life. I also liked Daisy better.
I liked her a lot. I had made a personality of being laughed at, but in the past few months, Daisy only ever laughed with me. I had never thought much about the difference between being laughed at and being laughed with, but it turned out it was life changing. Perhaps because it had been a while since I had received any kind of real approval in terms of my existence, the experience of Daisy's validation was like a psychedelic drug. Every time Daisy watched or read something I recommended and came back to tell me she had loved it I felt high out of my mind.
I also thought she was the most interesting person I had ever met in my life, a suspicion I had since I first met her in freshman year, but never thought to look further into. Had I done it and the last few years of my life probably wouldn't have been as terrible to me as they had.
She was sitting next to me now, cross-legged on Jason's couch in sweatpants and a t-shirt of a boyband I didn't know, and definitely enjoying herself way too much killing zombies, even if she wouldn't admit it. We had been at it for hours and she had decided who she liked best, a character that was going to die very soon.
For some reason, I thought I should tell her this.
She pressed pause and looked shocked at me, "Why would you tell me that?"
"You just like him cause he's hot."
"And respectful," she said.
"No, I'm pretty sure it's because he's jacked."
She pulled her knees up against her chest, and asked, "Are you jealous or something?"
"No." I was a skinny sick-looking guy. Of course I was jealous. Was I going to lie about it? Absolutely, yes. "I just find your objectification of men disgusting."
She threw her head back to laugh. I smiled.
Then she said, "You have no reason to be jealous. All you have to do is make a move."
My face fell, "Excuse me?"
She shrugged, "I've actually been waiting for you to make a move for a while."
I almost choked, "You have?"
"It's really embarrassing."
I shook my head, "I didn't know." I didn't know!
She shrugged again, "Well, you know now."
Except I also didn't know how to make a move, which was why I hadn't ever made one. I had thought about it, of course, but eventually I had just settled with the idea of staying friends forever and living through whoever was lucky enough to date her. That seemed good enough to me. I would never have guessed it wasn't enough for her.
"So you want me to make a move?" I asked again, just to make sure I hadn't imagined it.
"If you want to."
I smiled, and said, like an idiot, "I don't."
Her face fell just as mine had, except in a horrible way.
"I'm kidding," I said, as fast as I could. "Of course I do. Have you seen yourself?"
"Fuck you," was her answer. "I find your objectification â"
She stopped talking when I moved closer. Her knees were still pulled in against her chest. I reached for her face. She was smiling. I was trying my best. When we finally kissed, her hands moved for my hair, and her legs wrapped around me. I kept trying my best. Her skin was very soft, and so was her mouth, and I wanted the couch to swallow me. When she pulled away, the smile was still on her face, except bigger, much bigger. I scratched the back of my head.
"Was this your first kiss?" she asked.
I frowned, "No. Why? Was it terrible?"
"Not at all," she said. "You're a very good kisser."
The door opened and suddenly Jason walked in. Daisy moved away from me as fast as she could, and I put a pillow on my lap. This was and wasn't good timing.
On one hand, I had just made out with his sister on his bedroom's couch. On the other, I had almost had to explain to her that in middle school I had been so bad at math, my parents had to get me a tutor, who had turned out to be a twenty-something girl who had just finished college and thought I was a very charming and very handsome young man, even though I was just a ten-year-old trying to be funny.
That girl was probably the reason I was very good kisser. She was also my sleep paralysis demon, but I wasn't going to tell Daisy that. I wasn't actually going to tell her any of that, even if Jason hadn't shown up. I would just come up with something else, anything other than the truth.
"What the fuck are you doing in my room?" Jason asked in his oversized sweatshirt. He looked at the screen where the game was on pause and laughed. "I see what this is. It was an accident, Daisy. I didn't mean to â"
"It was not an accident!" she stopped him.
"Yeah, it wasn't," he admitted. "I did it on purpose, and I would do it again, if I could."
"You're sick," she said.
He dropped his backpack on his desk chair, and sat down in the space between us, "Joke's on you. I was fucking done playing with Abby."
"Why? Cause she's a woman?" Daisy asked.
Jason shook his head like she was an idiot, and said, "No, cause she killed Joel."
"Well," I said. "Joel killed her dad."
"I don't fucking care. I didn't know her dad, did I?"
"I think that's the whole point of playing with Abby. It's so we get to know â"
"I don't care," he stopped me, right before covering Daisy's ears with both hands so he could say, "I cried my fucking eyes out when Joel died."
He let go of Daisy. I said, "So did I, but â"
"What the fuck is happening?" She asked before I could go on.
"We're talking," Jason said. "You're probably not familiar with the concept, cause you never talk to me anymore, do you?"
"You're such crybaby," Daisy said, getting up from the couch and looking down at me. "Let's just go to my room."
I got up. Jason rolled his eyes, grabbed the controller, and pressed play.
By the door, Daisy put on a bright smile on her face, and said, "By the way, Owen's gonna die."
Jason paused the game again to look at her. I was too stunned to speak.
"No, he's not," he said, except he didn't look like he believed himself. He looked at me, "Is he? He's not, right? I actually like him."
"Sorry," was the only word I managed.
He grabbed a pillow and threw it at Daisy, "You're such a bitch!"
Daisy left the room laughing. I followed, an apologetic look on my face the whole time, my hands up in surrender. Jason cursed under his breath and pressed play again.
Once we got to Daisy's room, she threw herself on her bed and looked up at me, and I told her my dad had messaged me to go home, even though he hadn't.