The End of FUN (19 page)

It happened fast: one second I was walking, the next—WHAM!—I was on my back looking up at the sky. I lay there watching the snow falling from the darkness above. I sat up and dusted off my arms, but as I was going to get up, something stopped me. My left ankle. The weak one. The same one I broke when I jumped off the garage roof. It kind of hurt.

“Are you OK?”

Katie was standing over me. She knelt and felt my ankle. I could put a little pressure on it, but not much. And it was too much. Not the pain, but Katie. The way she was touching my ankle. The way she was looking at me. My hands were beginning to twitch, and then my whole body was, and I could feel it coming: a full-on TSD glitch-out.

My vision blacked out, then flickered back on.

A car was pulling into the drive.

Katie's face was right in front of mine. Her lips were open.

Black again.

Then back on again.

She was right there. Illuminated in the headlights of the car.

“Arnold?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Arnold, there's something I need to tell you.”

And then everything went black again.

I came out of the glitch-out to the sound of a strange, high-pitched voice.

Then Katie's voice:

“Arnold? Are you OK? You had a seizure or something.”

“Yeah, I'm fine. TSD. Hold on. I gotta do a hard reboot.”

But then I saw that she wasn't alone. My dad was standing there next to her.

“What's going on?” he said. “What are you doing here, Katarin?”

And Katie was like, “Arnold fell and had some kind of seizure. I was making sure he was OK.”

And my dad was like,
“Arnold?”

And Katie was like, “He was only out for a second.”

And I was like, “It's no big deal. Just a TSD glitch-out. Just a little more than usual but nothing—”

“It's nothing big. Hold on.” I jammed my fists into my eyes. “There's no place like home!”

And my dad was like, “Who the hell is Arnold?”

And Katie was like, “
Him
. Your nephew.”

And the bunny_luvr21 was like,

“THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!”

With a
pop!
the rabbit disappeared, and it was just Dad and Katie, and they were both looking at each other strangely.

“Aaron is my
son
, Katarin. His name is
Aaron
. He's seventeen! He's in
high school
!”

Katie spun to face me. “What?! Is this true? But
why
?”

I was too stunned to think of anything but the truth.

“Because I wanted you to like me.”

“So, wait a second,” said my dad. “You two know each other?”

“Yes!” I said. “Duh! Of course!”

The cat was out of the bag—or more like the rabbit. The evil, hairless rabbit of truth.

But that wasn't all. What I hadn't realized was that there was
another
rabbit—or, I don't know, maybe there was another bag. But anyway, there was more to it. Because why should he care whether we knew each other? And why did he keep calling her
Katarin
, so formally?

I'm sure genius is a burden, but what about those of us with only slightly above-average intelligence? So often you find yourself in these situations where you're smart enough to realize something's going on and yet you're too dumb to figure out what it is.

But I was beginning to figure it out.

As I looked up at them looking down on me, I remembered something—the thing that Katie had said to me right before I glitched out.
There's something I need to tell you
. Clues cascaded through my brain.

The play.

“Complicated,” she'd said.

The undies on the record player
.

Their shared love of Sparkl*Juice
™
and gin.

Oh, wow. Oh,
shit
. Oh, YAY! for the stab of truth, the way it scratches with a flurry of claws, the way it bites with bunny teeth, the way it lays waste to everything you ever thought you knew.

But how? When? Where?
Why?

For God's sake,
Why?

I had a lot of questions, but I didn't get a chance to throw any of them at Katie. She was getting into her truck now. She was slamming the door and cranking the ignition.

“Wait! Holy shit, just hold on a sec!”

But the windows were up and the engine was going and she didn't hear me—or anyway she didn't answer me—and then she was driving away.

So then it was just me and my dad.

No one said anything, not at first, because where do you even start? Suddenly all I could think about was that pair of undies I'd found, the ones with the see-through crotch. How exactly did they end up on the record player? What sordid scene unfolded before that
?
It was too much to think about. I had to get it out of my mind. I had to leave. But I couldn't leave until I knew.

“What happened between you two?”

“Between
us
?” he said. “How about
you
? How do you even know her? Why was she calling you
Arnold
?”

“She thought that's what my name was.”

“So you lied to her just like you lied to me and Evie.”

“What happened between you two?”

“None of your business.”

Ever wonder if you could take your dad in a fight? Me too. All the time. Usually the answer is no—but this time I was just angry enough to give it a shot and see what happened. Definitely I could get in one good hit before he knew what was going on—the element of surprise. The question was, how hard would he come back at me?

“Just tell me!”

Finally Dad gave a shrug. “We were in a play together last spring.
Romeo and Juliet
.”

YAY! for the play and the movie and the pizza franchise—but not really.
Romeo and Juliet
?

“What happened?”

“I guess you could say there were some sparks.”

“Sparks? What's that mean? You're like twice her age!”

“And you're half!”

“Not even!”

Dad laughed. Suddenly everything was funny to him. “Know what? It's over between me and her anyway. You have my permission to see her.”

“Permission?! I don't need your
permission
!”

He stood there smirking.

“I don't need your
permission
!”

Sometimes when I'm mad I can't think of anything to do but repeat the same stuff over and over.

“I don't need your
permission
!”

“OK, I get it! You don't need my permission. Fine. All I'm saying is she's old news to me anyway, and it's too freakin' cold to argue out here. Can you walk on that ankle, or do you need help?”

No, I didn't need help. I wasn't going in his house anyway. I was going to Evie's.

On my way over to Evie's I had some time to think. One thing became clear: mad as I was, it was probably best not to tell my sister. She didn't need to know about the whole weird love triangle—things were screwed up enough already without adding her expert testimony.

My sister answered the door in her jammies.

“It's time,” I said.

“Time for what?”

“Time for Grandpa's. I need a ride.”

“I already told you, I'm not giving you a ride.”

“Come on, Evie! Help me out, here.”

“Are you OK? You seem…agitated.”

“I'm fine!”

Evie gave me a look. “What time is it, anyway?”

“I already told you—time to go to Grandpa's.”

“It's late, Aaron. I've got work in the morning. Do you need a place to sleep? You can have the couch if you want. But I'm not giving you a ride.”