EARTH IS 4.5 BILLION YEARS old. The Sun is 4.6 billion. The Milky Way galaxy is 13.5 billion years old. Life on Earth, like single-celled bacteria life, began 3.8 billion years ago. Humans only evolved 200,000 years ago. Civilization itself is only 6,000 years old. We’re barely a blip on the cosmic radar. The course of even the longest human life is essentially nothing in the grand scheme. So one fucking summer is less than nothing.
Which is all to say: I’ll get over her.
I’ll forget this whole thing.
Any moment now. I’ll get her out of my head.
That was what I was thinking about as I watched Coleton trash-talking the Transformers pinball machine at the Battleground. Each time he tagged the ball with the flipper and it ricocheted throughout the course, the bells and alarms went off, lights flashing, all of it mixing with the noise of the other arcade games.
After a long run that ended in the ball sliding up and over a side barrier—a truly frustrating conclusion—he glanced over at me, leaning against the machine next to him while he waited for the playout of his final score so he could start his second game. “Why don’t you play something?” he said.
I looked down at the machine I had my elbow propped against—it was the Twilight Zone pinball. I’d played this one a million times while waiting for Coleton’s endless tries against the Transformers table. I was pretty damn good at it too—older machines are harder. I was the number three name on the scoreboard, or at least, I used to be.
I fished in my pocket for a quarter.
My hands were in position, hovering over the buttons on either side of the machine. For a second, I even felt a little thrill of excitement. Maybe being back here wasn’t the worst.
As I pulled back on the bulky trigger, I prepared myself to slide into the swing of the game. I knew the goals and objectives by heart. I knew exactly which loops and ramps would maximize my points. I knew just how hard to nudge the machine with my hips to shift the ball and avoid a tilt. I knew that if I only triggered one flipper at a time, the hit would be stronger, the ball would fly more accurately. I knew I’d have at least ten, fifteen uninterrupted minutes of play as the unspoken rule of pinball came into effect and not even Coleton would direct conversation at me, as I needed everything to concentrate on the trajectory of that shiny metallic orb.
But the metal ball sunk right between the two flippers. Once. Twice. Three times.
Every shot just sent it straight into the gutter, and somehow I was too slow or off target to keep the ball in play for even a minute.
Coleton scored next to me, shouting, “Woo!”
I kicked the machine.
“Dude,” Coleton said.
It felt good. I kicked it again. Harder.
“Hey!” I heard a voice shout behind me.
I turned around. It was the manager, the one we’d known for years, who let us play free on our birthdays, and who gave us free nachos when we won at something. Only, now he was yelling at me.
“What?” I said.
“You got five thousand dollars lying around?” he shouted.
“What?” I repeated, not nicely.
“That’s how much that machine cost, so I suggest you find something else to beat up.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “That’s fine, I’m outta here anyway.”
I stormed out. Marched across the parking lot to the station wagon.
“Chris!” Coleton had followed me out.
I spun around and yelled, “What?”
“What is your problem?” he said. He looked confused, and that made me feel even angrier. I didn’t want to explain anything to him; I didn’t have to explain anything, because no one deserved anything else from me.
“Forget it, Cole,” I said, turning away from him to open the car door.
“I mean, what happened to you?” he said, actually concerned. “Is it the girl?” And while I was thankful he didn’t say her name, he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He’d never lived outside his little make-believe world. He couldn’t understand what I was going through.
It made me burn hotter. I spun around to face him again.
“Yeah, it’s the girl.” I could taste the hostility in the air around me. “And me. And you. And my parents. Everyone—it’s all bullshit!”
I was about to apologize, when he came back at me with, “Oh, so I’m bullshit, you’re bullshit, everything’s bullshit?” He was yelling—he never yelled. In all our years of friendship I had actually never heard him yell. “You know what I think is bullshit?”
“Can’t wait to hear,” I said, because this was officially a fight.
“You bailing on me for the whole summer, cutting me out, treating me like shit, and then you’re back and I don’t even call you on any of it, and now you’re acting like some kind of aggro douchebag!” He stopped to catch his breath. “That’s bullshit.”
I had nothing for him.
“This isn’t you,” he added. “What, you really wanna be this person?”
Maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to take this feeling, the buzz of it, and simmer in it for a while, because anger felt so much better than the crushing, debilitating sadness that had been threatening to consume me.
“Yeah,” I answered. “And while we’re at it, why don’t you find your own ride home,” I told him. I got into the car and slammed the door behind me.
I looked straight ahead as I turned the key in the ignition, but I could still see him out of the corner of my eye standing next to my window, holding his hands up toward the sky, saying, “Seriously? Real mature!”
I wanted to speed off. I wanted to leave him there in the empty parking spot, watching him wave his arms over his head in the rearview mirror while I went off to find someplace better. But as I moved my hand to shift into gear, I turned the car off instead. And as I sat there staring at the building, it got all hazy and mirage-like. I blinked and blinked again, but my vision only blurred more. No. I wanted to stay like this, but that anger was collapsing all around me. I folded my arms over the steering wheel and let my head fall against them.
I didn’t look up when I heard Coleton opening the passenger door and getting in. I didn’t look up when he asked, “Are you okay?” And I didn’t look up when he squeezed my shoulder for just a single pulse, and then said, “It’s gonna be all right.”
“God, I’m sorry,” I mumbled into my flesh. “I fucking hate crying.” And it wasn’t just a stupid macho thing. Crying made me feel physically ill—my eyes would swell up and my stomach would hurt and I’d already felt nauseous for days and I didn’t want to do it anymore.
“Yeah, so do I,” he said, like it was no big deal. “But . . . you gotta let it out.”