Before Jules interrupted Callie's lunch hour with a (not so subtle) "Dibs!", Callie was a quiet girl whose only priorities are good grades and better talent with playing her prized violin. Neither require having a girlfriend, especially the one who...
This cover is created by the same person this chapter is dedicated to!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Jules, to put it loosely, schools me on herself, telling me all kinds of random facts. Examples? She's pansexual, likes anime (she claims that the creators of My Neighbor Totoro are geniuses), she can hold her breath for a full minute. The trivia seems endless to the point I almost asked her if I was going to have a test later.
"Are you regretting coming here yet?" she asks, completely herself again. I make a mental note to persuade her to go to theater. I think she has some kind of talent, always changing her moods faster than, well, a teenager.
"No," I admit. "This is far more entertaining than my sister."
"You have a sister?" Jules asks, excited. "What's her name? How old is she? Is she nice? If she's not, then I don't wanna meet her."
"Who said anything about meeting Nan?"
Jules turns her head to me. "'Naan'? Like the bread?"
I shake my head, and then reconsider. "That's my nickname for her," I say. "It's short for Nancy."
"Oh." She seems disappointed. "I was hoping that your parents adopted a piece of bread as their kid. I think that would've been an awesome show-and-tell."
I pat on her shoulder. "You and me both."
Jules shifts her arms around, so she's not hugging my arm anymore. She's now squeezing the oxygen out of me. I'm not sure how those ladies in the nineteenth century could deal with wearing corsets all day. I can barely handle thirty seconds.
I'm not going to tell Jules that I compared her hug to a corset. Yet.
My phone rings, and I groan. "I have to go," I say.
"Says who?"
I pry myself off from Jules long enough to take my phone out of the pocket. "Mom."
"Oh. I guess arguing my way to get you to stay is off the table." Jules still holds on to me, even as I get off the bed. She's hanging off the bed, still holding. I look at her. "What? I said arguing's off the table, not that I'm going to make it easier for you to leave."
I roll my eyes. "Nicely put." I grab her arms and pry them off me. "But really. I'm not going to risk getting grounded. Besides, there's school tomorrow."
Jules resigns, and I'm freed. "Now I'll have to deal with my brothers," she complains. "All they do is bug me."
"How do you think I feel?" I tease. Her jaw drops, and I can't keep a serious look on my face after that.
I get out of the house, with Randy telling me that he's open for another session on Tuesday, and I tell him that I can make it. Mom's car is idling by the driveway, and I get in the passenger seat. "Did you get it done? What you claimed you needed to do?" she asks as we drive away from the neighborhood.
"That's good." Mom doesn't seem to care that I didn't speak at all. "Is there anything else you want to do before we go home for the night?"
"Not really." She turns right, using a route I'm not familiar with. I slouch in my seat, glad to have been able to do something with Jules. My phone rings, and I pick it up to read a text.
Dominic: Wanna do something?
Callie: Like what?
Dominic: I don't know. I'm bored, and I need to get out of the house.
Callie: So you decide to use me as an excuse?
"Who are you texting, Callie?" Mom asks just as I ask a smirky face at the end of my text.
"A different friend," I say.
"Wow." Mom seems surprised.
"What?"
"I just, I never knew you have any other friends than May."
I roll my eyes. "Nice to know I get this crap from you," I say while Mom starts laughing at her comment. My phone buzzes again.
Dominic: Kinda. I figure, hey, you have some shit going on right now, and I thought you'd like to break free from it for a while.
Although I'm not in the mood to go somewhere else tonight, I question Mom, "Actually, can you take me to another place?"
She stops at a red light. "Depends on where you want to go."
I ask Dominic, and within moments, he mentions an arcade at a mall not far from here. "Remember that super mall about fifteen miles away?" Mom nods, and I continue, "Can I go there?"
She looks at the time. "Fine. That'll cost you, though."
__________
After a long order (at least, that's what it feels like) about some more chores I'll need to do over the weekend to make up for the spontaneous hangout, Mom reluctantly drives me over to the mall. She doesn't tell me how long I can be there, just that she'll text me when it's time.
I enter the strip mall and head my way down to the huge arcade room my sister had dragged me to several times, after she had enough of me admiring the violins a music store had. Come to think of it, it's the same store where I bought my violin. Nancy wasn't happy about that after I showed off my attempt at playing it for the first time.
I'm not sure Nancy's bragging about how good she was at Pac-Man was any better.
Over the years, the arcade room space had gotten smaller and smaller as the employees buy more games that'd attract a bigger crowd. By the entrance, I can see Dominic playing a race car game, cursing under his breath whenever his vehicle crashes into the pixelated walls.
He doesn't notice until I tap him on the shoulder. "Hey, didn't think you'd be here," Dominic says. "I thought I'd be here alone until closing time." His car crashes for the last time, and the menu screen pops up. "Wanna do any duo games?"
"Sure. You seem to play nice."
"As opposed to what?"
"My sister."
"She doesn't like losing or something?" Dominic questions.
I shake my head. "Nan doesn't want me winning," I say, quoting her when I asked her a similar question.
"And the difference is . . ."
"I don't know," I confess.
With a chuckle, Dominic leads me to a couple of games that requires two players. After beating me in three rounds of one of the games, I've challenged him to a competition that whoever gets the highest scores from both duo and solo games at the arcade gets a treat the loser has to pay for.
"Alright, I see how it is," he says. "I'll head over to this corner and work my way from there."
"Fine." I go the opposite way, and start with a Candy Crush-type game Nancy introduced me to. After I've blasted through several levels of it, I end up dying right as the next level starts. To me, it was a surprise that I've lasted longer than the previous time I've played this. And yes, this ego boost got me to relax a little.
Sadly, it doesn't last long.
Just as I get to another game, I bump into someone who's making "pew pew pew" noises. Logan's stopped the "pew"s long enough to laugh maniacally as he shoots the bad guys running to him. The laughing then stops (thank God), when his main character gets killed by the side.
Logan wipes the sweat from his forehead before he notices me. "Hey, Callie!" he greets happily. I figure he'd mention something about May; instead, he adds, "Man, that party was wicked, wasn't it?"
I take it you forgot how it was when I left? I think. "Um, yeah, in a way," I say.
"You mean, the awesome way! Like, you punched the guy without shrieking like a little girl!" Logan puts some change in the machine, and the game starts up again. "That took some lady balls then."
I tentatively start up the game next to him. (Hey, I'm not going to lose the competition, even if I have the option to lie about my high scores if Dominic asks. And I now realize there's a flaw in going in opposite directions when there's no liable witnesses around to keep track of the scores.) "So, who was that guy?" I ask.
"Why are you asking?" If I was looking at him, I bet there'd be a leer or something. "Does someone have the hots for the guy she beat up?"
My stomach recoils. I never thought I'd be bothered by the image I'm getting now. "No, I'm just curious if he's always been that douchey."
Logan was all fun and games until now. "He's a good guy," he defends. "Sometimes his skill is a little off, and you ladies don't like that."
I'm sorry, but when was I ever meshed in that group of "ladies" Logan just mentioned? "Could it be that he just, I don't know, sucks?"
"Trust me, Callie, once you start getting in the real world, you'll know how awesome he is."
I put my hands up, resulting in losing my game. Right now, I don't care about the high score. I do care about the fact I don't have the "lady balls" to smack him around. "Alright, I know enough about you that I don't ever want to talk to you again," I say. You better be happy I have enough details to express my judgement this time, Jules, I add in my head.
"Sure, whatever you say." Just like that, Logan's back to his game. Wait. "Oh, tell May I said 'hi', yeah?"
I give him an acidic smile. "Yeah."
I find Dominic still in the corner he told me he was heading off to, but he's moved on to another game. "What's up, Callie?" he asks. "Did you forfeit the competition?"
I scoff. "As if," I say. "Come on, there's Pac-Man over there." I point at the direction. "Why don't we challenge each other there after you lose this game?"
"Are you saying I can't win this round?" Dominic questions. With perfect timing, his last life vanishes, and the menu pops up. "I stand corrected."
"Great. Now get your butt over there before I deem you a quitter."
