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“You legitimately think it’s me? You think Tess is moving in with me and my dad? Fuck you, Logan.” He turned to look at Walker, still lying on the ground. “What does that mean? Who?”
“Doesn’t matter who.”
“Seems like it matters a lot the way you said it. How young are we talking?”
Walker took a deep drag, sucking the blunt down to the rind. “Rob Mayfield,” he said, pushing the name out while he held the smoke in, and Ellis and I looked at each other.
“The guy that cleans pools with Big Riggs in the summer?” I finally asked.
Walker exhaled, breathing out a lot more than smoke. “Yup.”
“How fucking old is he?”
“He’s twenty,” Walker said, giving the math I’d already done. “Two years ahead of us. Can’t buy his own kegs, but he can fuck my mom and break my whole family and... We went toschoolwith him. Talked to him. He’s been to parties at my house.”
“Probably been at your house a lot more than that,” Ellis said. “You think they hooked up in the—”
“Fucking stop,” I cut him off, glaring. “You don’t need to know that. We don’t need to know that.”
“But that’s the point.Everyone’sgonna know it,” Walker said. “Real fucking soon it’s gonna be all anybody talks about. My mom fucking the pool boy like some stupid porno. My mom the cougar. My mom the slut. And all your shitty jokes are gonna be coming at me from all sides and I cannot listen to you talking about fucking my mom the rest of the season,” he snapped, bolting up, shaking with some bad energy, looking like he was in actual pain, and yeah, why wouldn’t he be.
I’d been close to here, but man, nothere, and my mom fucking dads and teachers made for a lot of shitty rumors and whispers and shit talk, but this was not the same. This was gonna be a rough way to ride out senior year. And okay, yeah, I could see how thinking about that nonstop could fuck up your head and your arm and everything else.
“I will kill you, Ellis,” Walker said, his voice simple and flat. “I’ll kill… somebody. I can’t manage this. I can’t fucking look at you without… literal rage blindness, do you get it? This all has me so fucked up and waiting for you to make it worse is driving me completely fucking crazy.”
“You do realizeIdidn’t sleep with your mom, right?” Ellis finally asked.
“Fuck you, man.”
“I’m serious. Like your mom is… whatever. But she’s still your mom. I mean, maybe she’s not a mom-mom like Riggs’s mom, baking meatloaf and selling lemonade and building bunk beds and shit but she’s still… You know I make those jokes because they’rejokes. Busting balls, that’s it. If your mom is legit hooking up with barely-legals in our social circle… I mean, that’s not funny. That’s fucking weird. And uncomfortable. You think I’m gonna… what? Make fun of your parent’s divorce all season? That’s fucking ridiculous, Walk. Like… that would make me such a terrible person.”
“Youarea terrible person,” Walker told him, and I winced, but Ellis just rolled his eyes, not getting it.
“So pretend I’m not when we’re on the field. Pretend I’m somebody else. Whoever you want. For fuck’s sake, you can’t even see under my helmet. If this is all in your head just fix it in your head. We’re good.”
“It’s not in my head!”
“You’re crazy blind pissed at me for something you’reafraidI’m going to do. That I haven’t even done. That’s in your head.”
“It’s not in his head, though,” I said quietly because I fucking knew how hard it was to be friends with Ellis,andignore him,andget over it when he busted your balls and then called you sensitive, and honestly I didn’t know if that was something Walker had in him. I didn’t know why I had it in me.
But I did know it was Ellis who’d seen something I hadn’t, wanted to help, wanted to fix things, even if he didn’t fucking get it and maybe never would,
My life had way too much drama in it that wasn’t even mine.
“Wait, do you actually think I’m a terrible person?” Ellis asked me, looking so shocked it would have been funny if it wasn’t so stupid and he wasn’t so serious.
“I think you’re like ninety percent terrible,” I told him, not pulling any punches.
“Well shit. What about the other ten?”
I shrugged. “The other ten is legit good guy who just doesn’t know how not to be terrible. Pretty hard for people to tell the difference.”
“Why the fuck are we friends if I’m so terrible?”
“Who else am I gonna be friends with?”
He scowled. “Fuck you, Press.”
