She reaches for my hands. I pull them away.
Now’s the time to ask: “Where’s my invitation?”
Becca stutters, “W-what invitation?”
“My invitation,” I say, “where is it?”
“Why would you need—”
I interrupt, stepping closer and closer, until we’re inches apart. “It’s my exorcism. Where’s my invitation?”
“Yeah, yeah, but see…” Oh, look at Becca’s eye twitching.
And let’s just get right down to it. I’ll save her the trouble.
“You figured since I’m going to be the ‘star’ of it, I didn’t need one.”
Becca agrees. “Because you don’t get invitations to your own, like, thing, whatever it is. You’re part of it, you are it, babe…” And then she tries to grab my hands again. “Are you okay? I’m so worried about you, Hunter.”
I push away from her, acting all moody. Really playing up the whole thing to be more dramatic and emo than it really is.
I wander off because doing that would be the funniest.
Becca’s all like the concerned girlfriend that, because of the situation, seems to look like she isn’t actually the problem. Funny, so damn funny, how the situation changes things. Like Becca isn’t obsessive. Just know that she counted every single damn invitation. She not only got them made up, but she also created raffles and other things to get more people to show up to the exorcism.
It’s Becca. She does stuff like this.
I can’t stand it. It really does make me angry.
Walking to last period, I see Blaire and Blaire sees me. She stops, looks right at me, and then leaves — just turns the other way, the way she came. I want to call out to her. Be like, Blaire, it’s me…
But that doesn’t happen and instead, the day keeps going. It ends exactly the same way every other school day ends.
I drive home.
I find it all so funny, seeing everyone exposed like this.
I mean, I’m not doing this to hurt them. I’m just doing this because I think it’s more than a little due. They owe me. But maybe they don’t.
But I got a laugh out of it.
That’s all that matters, right?
On the drive home, I get to thinking about those invitations. I start fixating on those invitations. Like always, if I think about something long enough, it clicks. It becomes something real.
Turn one corner and I’m laughing about what happened today. How I really messed with people.
Turn another corner and I’m grinding my teeth, trying to tear the steering wheel off just thinking about what those invitations mean.
Left at the light — I think about Brad and feel a little sorry for him. Maybe I really was a little mean.
Left at the next light — I think about Becca and how she sees me as property, sees me as something expected, like I’m really not a person to her, just the part of her life that reads “boyfriend.”
At the red light, I’m fuming, thinking about Becca.
It’s my fault for staying with her, yeah.
It’s my fault for a lot of things. But then there’s this idea of change. People change over time. What makes me the most mad…
I really can’t figure out what it is that does it, just sends me over the edge. I speed down the neighboring streets, screeching tires as I make a sharp turn up the driveway and put the car in park.
I storm up the stairs.
I think Mom or Dad is home. Someone stirs from the kitchen.
No, it isn’t H. He’s already upstairs in my room.
I go right up to my room.
A voice from downstairs: “What’s going on?”
Dad.
This means I’ll have to lock the door. What he usually does is what he ends up doing today. He follows me up the stairs, stops at the door, talks to me with his face pressed against it. “How’s it going?”
Don’t say anything. I don’t have to say anything.
“Everything okay, Hunter?”
Everyone is asking me that like it’s supposed to help. It’s not helping. It’s making me lose my mind. So annoying.
“Hunter.”
Man, I wish he’d go. I have nothing to say to him.
Get the hell away.
I hear a crash from downstairs. Broken plates.
I hear my dad mutter, “The hell was that?”
I’m like, “Thanks, H.”
Damn, I didn’t realize that I was clenching my phone so tight. I broke the case. The plastic is cracked all the way down one side. I throw the case away and toss the phone on the pillow. I lie down next to it.
A video plays on the laptop.
“Yeah, that one’s pretty awesome.”
But it’s not enough to get me off the topic of Becca. Nothing helps. I scroll through news stories on my phone. I delete text messages, most of them old ones from Becca, waiting for what it is I was trying to think of to arrive. I wait and I wait, thinking about how we have nothing in common.
Forget the phone. I close my eyes.
No idea what time it is. Don’t really care.
The reason she makes me so angry is that while everyone changes, talks about change, and is going on and on about themselves, Becca remains exactly the same. Comfortable. Predictable. She is there to hold me back. She is there to make me feel like I’m small. She’s become everything that bores me.
So everyone’s talking in the past tense? Well, then it’s starting to really feel like I can’t see her. I look everywhere but the only way I spot her is if I’m looking back.
The laptop shuts off.
“Thanks.”
Before I finally slip away into sleep, it registers as true.
What I must do.
For me, there’s more to this than looking back at things in doubt and confusion, like they’ll just go away with time. I’m not seeing how time really changes anything if you’re not willing to change with it. You know what I mean? Sometimes, you just have to trust the one that gets you. And I mean really gets you. Sometimes you just have to trust your own instincts.
I mean, right?
The dream opens a lot like the end of most movies — darkness and a sound track. The sound track is mostly my thoughts. I hear breathing in the background. Yeah, that’s me. I’m fast asleep but still not running through this fast enough. I want to go back to the good parts but I can’t find it. So it’s the end of the movie and I’ve forgotten what it is I’m watching.
What am I watching?
I guess I’m watching you.
I’m watching you standing there, a group forming around you. Wait, if that’s you, then where am I?
It takes a second for it all to kind of click.
It clicks when I see her standing next to you.
It sounds like I’m talking but those aren’t the right words. It’s really not what I’m supposed to say. I’m getting it all wrong. What’s going on?
People are watching like they belong in the scene. They are extras, faces forming a crowd. They are talking in whispers, and Becca and you are chanting the same short sentences. They’re angry, what I’m saying.
What she’s saying, it’s a mixture of “I’m sorrys.” But she isn’t really sorry. She’s just saying that. And you aren’t falling for it, are you? No, you’re not.
You tell her that it’s been a long time coming, this moment, this day.
Becca’s saying, “This is, like, so unlike you.”
And that’s kind of the point.
It’s what gets me excited.
That isn’t me. But it could be. It really could be, if I wanted it to be me. And she’s trying to tell you what you’re supposed to say. She’s talking to you in that way that she always talks to me. It’s annoying, right?
She’s saying that it’s your fault that I’m acting this way. “It’s the demon, Hunter.” Becca’s in tears.
We’re making a scene, and everyone’s watching. Normally I’d care about what they’re thinking, but something about the dream seems rehearsed, like you’re showing me how it’ll fall into place.