homer drops his forehead
against the table. he’s been awake for so long, a million years at
least, and now that the alcohol isn’t blurring time in his brain every second
ticks by like knuckles rapping against his skull. Ray Ban had brought him a
glass of water, clearly sympathetic to the desperate way that homer wants to be
really, genuinely, permanently dead.“let this be a lesson to you in
the dangers of alcohol consumption,” Donut Mouth tells him, sounding almost
amused. homer thinks he’s coming around, though. he’s stopped trying to get
homer to cut to the chase, and he’d even patted homer’s shoulder when he tried
gulping the water down and had to spit it out when the cold of it hurt his
teeth.homer groans, long and low.
“i’m dying, man. listen – can i just – a nap. a quick one. under the
table. i’ll pick up again right after, i swear to god.”“if you’re gonna be a man at
night, you gotta be a man in the morning,” Ray Ban counsels, and homer lifts
his head to scowl at him, or at least in the direction of him.“don’t come for me with mine
own words,” he grumbles. “jesus. okay. where was i?” he scrubs at his forehead,
trying to massage the headache back and away, and takes another sip of water,
slower this time. god, his whole mouth tastes like he’s been eating cigarettes,
tangy and cottony and awful. he’s never drinking again. he’s gonna quit life.
he’s gonna become a hermit. people will wonder if he was even ever really
there, or just a mass hallucination.Donut Mouth pats his arm with
gentle condescension. “your ex-roommates had just moved in with the alpha
sigs.”“oh, right,” homer remembers.
he holds the water glass against his temple and sighs into the sweetness of its
cold. “okay. so that went wrong, like, almost immediately.”–
it wasn’t quite accurate to say
that the whole thing went wrong immediately; actually, bree moved in
with AC and PK and, to the surprise of everybody, the arrangement worked
brilliantly. bree had always liked PK, ever since they took a class together on
art therapy. she was going into special education, and they’d done a joint
project on using photography to help nonverbal kids with self-expression. he
was also, she happened to know, a sweetly proficient guitar player, though the
only songs he had memorized were “wonderwall” and the entirety of taylor
swift’s “1989.”“once you’ve mastered the
greats, there’s really no reason to keep learning,” AC said supportively, when
bree giggled about this fact. “also, i’m just gonna say it, she’s a bisexual
icon.”PK sighed, shaking his head.
“taylor swift is straight, dude,” he said, in the voice of someone who has said
it many, many times before.“taylor swift is, or was, at
the very least, in a romantic friendship with karlie klaus,” AC
returned. “and you should honor the bisexual spirit that built this fuckin
house.” AC puffed out his chest, and then relaxed. “not literally, because this
house was built in like … the middle ages, probably by some repressed pilgrim
who believed sex was a kind of witchcraft, or whatever.”bree nodded thoughtfully. “no,
yeah, the house is a metaphor for your relationship, i got it,” she said.two loud slams came from the
wall behind bree’s head. “taylor swift and karlie klaus were in love,” chrys
shouted through the wall. “this. is. undeniable.”“man, these walls are
thin,” bree said. “that’s got to be awkward, um … intimately speaking.”AC shrugged. “sock on the door
means knock no more,” he recited, raising a finger.“also, aggy spends a lot
of nights at nessa’s,” PK added. “and geni is taking an astronomy class that
keeps her out until like, three or four in the morning doing, idk, star
bullshit. so.”bree nodded. she folded her
feet underneath her, sitting cross-legged and leaning back against the wall.
they’d pushed the two beds together, using a large sheet and one blanket, and
she could already see that separating the beds would be a nightmare for the
rooms, like, vibe.“hmm,” she mused, looking
around. “well … i mean, i could sleep on the floor.”PK frowned at her. “absolutely
the fuck not, babe,” he said. “we’ll split up the beds. it won’t be that hard.”“oooooor,” AC wheedled,
grinning.PK shot him a glare. “don’t,”
he warned, elbowing him sharply in the ribs.“aw, c’mon.”
“you’re gonna make her
uncomfortable.”“no i’m not! she’s chill! bree,
you’re chill, right?”she blinked. “uh,” she said. “i
guess?”“he wants you to sleep with
us,” PK cut in, before AC could say anything else. “he’s really attached
to this fuckin bed frame.”“i built it myself!” AC cried,
preening. “i fuckin … magic mike’d that shit.”PK shared a glance with bree
and gave his head a minute, but fond, shake. he reached out to tweak AC’s ear.
“it’s a square, bud. anyone can assemble a square. it’s honestly not that
different from buying it from IKEA.”“fuck you! i’m a master
carpenter!”bree reached out and patted
AC’s bicep. “it’s really nice,” she complimented, sincerely. bree believed in
the power of positive reinforcement. “you did a really good job.”AC beamed.
PK pinched the bridge of his
nose, but when he met bree’s eyes, he was smiling. bree felt, suddenly, out of
nowhere, a swell of affection for the both of them – for the very stupid
muscle tee AC was wearing, which said DON’T BRO ME IF YOU DON’T KNOW ME; for
the high heels discarded in the corner, next to the acoustic guitar with an
COEXIST sticker from 2005 on it; and especially for the way PK was looking at
AC out of the corner of his eyes, warm and wrinkled.“aw, you big dummies,” she
said, without quite meaning to. she reached into her bag and pulled out her
ream of star stickers, which she always carried with her, just in case. she
stuck gold stars on both of their foreheads and said, “no sex stuff while i’m
in bed with you, but yeah. i think we can probably make this work.”*
helen stood in the driveway
with one hand on her hips and one hand shading her eyes, squinting up at the
roof of the alpha delta chi house. dité was stretched out in her bikini on a
plastic chaise. there was a winding wooden staircase leading from helen and
dité’s shared window up to the roof. it had a railing.“look what paris had built,”
dité called down, without stirring or removing her sunglasses. “you ruining
your life is the best thing that ever happened to me.”helen sighed. she’d mentioned
to paris yesterday that the roof was hard to get up to, but that it got the
best sun. she’d said it in passing. it was just whining, she
hadn’t expected him to like, do anything about it.“i have to dump him,”
she said, aloud but mostly to herself.“uhhhh, j’excuse?” dité called
down, sitting up. “the fuck you do, what are you smoking? this is the fucking
best. he’s like a magic genie. i’ve been begging nas to build us a ramp for years,
and all you gotta do is think about it and your boy comes through.”sappho took a long, bubbly sip
of her iced coffee. “maybe you’re a witch,” she mused. “maybe you’ve been
influencing people with your magic powers all this time and didn’t even know
it.”“shut up, saph,” helen
muttered. “nessa is going to kill me. she’s going to come home and see
this extremely illegal addition to the house and she’s going to have me
jumped.”at that moment, athena’s head
popped out of the window. “BITCHES, I MADE FROSÉ,” she announced, and began
climbing the steps. she flexed her arms, a clear pitcher with pink slush in it
in each hand. her baseball cap, backwards on her head, had the logo of the
interim lacrosse team on it; helen knew because ares was on the team, too.
athena was the only girl, though she fit right in with her knee-length board
shorts and glaring white socks pulled halfway up her calves.“how does she always
look like she just walked off the set of bill and ted’s excellent adventure?”
sappho marveled, delighted. “like, it’s still so hot out, what is even
the point of tying a flannel around your waist?”“the hashtag aesthetic, mama!”
athena called down cheerfully. “are you assholes gonna stand down there
marveling at the gunshow all afternoon or are you gonna come up to our cool new
tanning bed and get blasted on frosé? it’s strong. i put a lot of booze
in it.” she leaned over and sniffed one of the pitchers, winced, and withdrew.
“like maybe … too much booze in it.”“no such thing, my beautiful
christina-ricci-in-now-and-then daydream,” sappho assured her, kicking up the
porch steps, ponytail swinging. helen hesitated just long enough for dité to
notice, and by the time helen got up to the roof she had finally removing her
sunglasses so she could glare down up at helen’s face.“girl, what,” she asked,
raising her eyebrows. “like, for real. we got a sweet new set of stairs. paris
revs your engine, for god knows what reason. none of us have to pretend to be
interested in how many reps manny can do at the gym. don’t look a gift apple in
the stem, babe.”manny had been leaving longer
and progressively more depressing voicemails on her phone. helen honestly was
starting to feel bad. like, manny had been her boyfriend for a long time.
it felt kind of dumb that it would end this way.on the other hand, he was
really embarrassing, and he’d filled up priam’s car with popcorn for no goddamn
reason, and she didn’t love that he was acting like if he just out-pranked the
trojans, she’d come running back to him like some … war prize, or whatever.
helen was her own woman, okay. she has her own source of income, which
she doesn’t even have to work that hard at because everyone loves buying weed
from a hot girl, and she’s got like, literally hundreds of thousands of
followers on social media. she’s verified on twitter. like, what,
manny successfully filling some future hamptons-house-owning asshole’s car with
popcorn is going to make her lose her mind?come on.
anyway, this is how it’s been,
lately; she feels bad and then gets annoyed and then bones paris and then feels
bad again.it’s exhausting. helen is not
built for this kind of emotional complexity; she’s not sappho, for god’s
sake.“i can literally do like forty
more reps than him,” athena said, drinking directly from the pitcher. sappho
lifted her personalized plastic martini glass and cheersed athena with it. “i’m
not even bragging, i’m just saying, like, i’ve been working out with jax and
phoenix because we want to do american ninja warrior together, and jax said
that manny hasn’t been to the gym literally since y’all broke up.”sappho gasped, clutching her
chest. “holy shit, i can’t believe you literally murdered manny’s whole
personality, helen mellon,” she said. something twisted in helen’s stomach that
she didn’t care for.“shut up, saph,” she said
again. “or i’ll take my branch out promise back.”sappho gasped, scandalized, and
athena let out a loud whoop before chugging the rest of the pitcher of frosé.“chug, chug, chug,” sappho
chanted.dité reached out and patted
helen’s arm. “just enjoy yourself, it’s all going to be fine,” she soothed.
“and if it isn’t, who cares? we’re graduating. what, were you gonna marry manny
atreus?”“no,” helen said, making a
face. “i mean. probably not.”“so then chill,” dité advised.
“have a little fun. it’s senior year, babe. if it’s not epic, what was the
point?”helen sighed. she reached out a
hand and snapped her fingers until athena, laughing, put a red solo cup with
frosé in it.“bottoms up, bitches,” she
said.
the chilliad: book three | ofgeography.com | a trashbag full of donuts
Max Armenta's Archive 