Loveseat Nights

1

monday, feb 1

I’m trapped in an unsupervised house with Mona Lieber and her unfortunately-named dog. Something’s definitely wrong with this picture.

“Come on, Bogie, good boy.” Mona leads the droopy-faced canine away from the living room, where I’m resting on the sofa-thing-with-a-fancy-name-I-can’t-remember, and shuts him in a dark room close to the TV. When Mona walks back, she dodges an awkward situation by not sitting next to me.

“So, uh,” I mumble, “what kind of dog is that anyway? I’ve never really known.”

“A basset hound,” she replies.

I nod my head slowly. “Oh.”

It looks like Awkward follows me whatever the circumstance.

Mona sits there, sucking the inside of her cheek, while I just twiddle my thumbs — which makes me wonder, why can’t we twiddle anything else? Why just thumbs? I feel like they’re getting unfair treatment, toes and ears should be able to — 

“So is there a point to this?” Mona interrupts my thoughts.

I snap back to reality. Mona’s living room. Basset hound named Bogie. Awkward situations. Right. “Yeah. There is.” I pause. “You see, I can be a little weak-kneed at times.”

She has an amused expression on her face, as if she can’t believe what I just said.

“Wow, Adrien Finkwell has a weakness,” Mona muses to herself, standing up.

“You don’t think I can have a weakness?” I ask. “Why’s that?”

She laughs half-heartedly and walks over to the fireplace. “Come on, Adrien. You’re you. Varsity soccer captain. Student Council executive president. Boyfriend of Alyssa Brookes.” With each epithet, she gives a small nod; her choppy brown hair, cut abruptly at the shoulders, bobs along.

I laugh as half-heartedly as she did before. “See, that last part is why I’m here.”

Okay, I’m not technically “trapped” in Mona’s house. I voluntarily walked over in hopes of persuading her to keep hush-hush about a certain topic.

“Save it, pretty boy.” Mona holds up a hand. “You’re worried about what I saw yesterday after school.”

“Glad you can understand,” I say, moving closer and taking her arm. “That thing that happened yesterday...do you think that maybe, perhaps, by any chance—”

“Yes?” she ushers me on, removing herself from my grip.

“Could you not tell anyone about it?” I plead.

Mona laughs, genuinely this time. “What’s wrong, pretty boy? Kissing Penny White isn’t such a sin.”

“Do you plan on calling me pretty boy forever?”

“If you keep denying the Penny White thing.”

I slap my hand on the back of my bare neck. “Ally would kill me if she knew. Like, literally kill me. Did you know she has a taser in her purse? No joke. A taser.”

“While I do very much enjoy learning about your enchanting love life, I don’t see what this has to do with me—”

“You were there when I, uh, you know, um, kissedPennyWhite. But it’s not my fault, the girl was wearing a skirt that barely covered her underwear!”

Mona shakes her head and leans in towards me, eyeing me sternly. “You’re disgusting.” For the first time, I notice just how intimidating and blue her eyes are. They’re not a pretty blue, like sky blue or baby blue or the color of Ally’s backyard pool when it’s hot and summertime and we feel like fooling around underwater. Her eyes are blue in the sense that if you stare for too long, you’ll get sucked into that terrifying whirlpool of hate and anger and never come home for Christmas.