Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

rafi, two

"I thought you were going to try to take me home." Rafi sat on the curb next to me. "I was afraid I'd have to tell you I wasn't that kind of girl."

"Don't flatter yourself," I watched him burst open his Dorito bag. "I wanted to get away from the Who's Who of Next Year's Spree Shooters convention, that's all. You'd think for all the pot smoking going on in there-"

"-that Cody's friends would be more chill?" Rafi finished my sentenced.

I nodded.

"They're uh," Rafi kicked a pebble across our section of the Wawa parking lot, "opinionated fellows, Cody's friends."

"That's one way of putting it." I chewed on my slushie's straw.

"Ehh," Rafi shrugged, "they're not too bad once you get to know them. Nobody's all that bad." He offered me his open Doritos bag. "Once you get to know them."

With some caution, I slipped my fingers past the bag's lips.

"Idi Amin might have done a mean stir-fry, and it's a well-known fact Hitler had a soft spot for puppies," I retrieved a chip. "But you really don't have to acquaint yourself with the finer parts of a lunatic's temperament before you can conclude that he or she is a lunatic."

I took a bite of my Dorito to Rafi's silence.

I glanced at him. He was looking at me the way you'd probably look at a precocious child.

"You always talk like that?" he asked.

"Talk like what?"

"A cyborg with a perfect verbal GRE score," he blinked.

I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be offended. I wasn't.

"Android," I said. "I'm an android."

"What?"

The confusion on his forehead scared me into silence. I couldn't screw this up. I mean, I'd have to screw it up, eventually, but not now. I needed him to be my boyfriend first.

"Nothing," I tried to be normal, "it was stupid."

"I don't think so. I'd bet you're never stupid," Rafi leaned a little toward me, like he wanted in on a secret. "What did ya say?"

"You said cyborg," I watched this smile grow on Rafi's face. "And I said the more apt-comparison is android." He was actually grinning now. "A cyborg is a biological organism outfitted with cybernetic components or implants, while an android is-"

"A humanoid robot." Rafi said. "Sick, you're into sci-fi?"

"No," I lied. "I just know things."

"You're probably like a sci-fi writer, secretly," he popped a chip into his mouth. "You probably could put Philip K. Dick to shame."

This statement triggered me.

"First of all, nobody can put Philip K. Dick to shame," I said, in the process exposing my true Replicant nature, "and secondly, I don't write. I'm not a writer."

"You're so totally not into sci-fi," Rafi said. "You watch the Kardashians."

"I am a big fan of Kourtney Jenner," I agreed.

"Bullshit," Rafi jabbed me on the shoulder, "there is no Kourtney Jenner. What do you take me for, an uncultured swine?"

"I follow her on Instagram!" I insisted.

"Admit it!" Rafi's voice rose to a squeaky pitch. "The only Cardassians you keep up with are on Deep Space Nine!"

And he had me laughing.