• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Okay. Why?”

“I was a pussy.”

Oh, Christ. My eyes rolled around like triple cherries on a slot machine.

“No, seriously. Guys only care about two things—getting laid and getting respect from other guys. You only need to get one to get the other. Get laid, get respect. And being a pussy was not getting me laid.”

“Here’s a novel idea,” I said. “How about getting respect from girls?”

Again, my retort had stumped its target.

“I liked the old you, the guy you call a pussy, but who I thought was a nice guy. I even respected that guy. That’s where you lost out. You were dead wrong about nice guys not getting laid, because I just might have slept with that pussy, and I will never, ever in a bizillion years sleep with you.”

Did I not make it to the prom because Scotty spent the rest of the night trying to reclaim his former pussiness in an attempt to get into my fancy prom panties?

Scenario #3: Lies Surprise

Chaos Called Creation hit the stage at seven P.M. for a mini farewell concert. With Len off to Cornell in the fall, they’ve decided they just can’t go on without him. I really wasn’t all that eager to watch Len and Marcus revel in groupie glory for one last time. I told Pepe that we should get going, since the prom was about to start and was about a twenty-minute drive from Sara’s house.

“Everyone arrives fashionably late,” he said with a curious edge to his voice. “What’s the point in going there if everyone is here?”

It started to become clear why he wanted me to stay when Marcus stepped up to the microphone. He had shaved off the rooster tufts, and the resulting buzz cut somehow made him seem more vulnerable and childlike. Or maybe it was the absence of his trademark smirk, which had been replaced with a beatific smile I had never seen before.

“Our first and last song for the evening is our only ballad,” he said. “And it’s the only song I’ll ever sing. So I hope you’re listening.”

He looked straight at me, then stripped off the button-down he was wearing, under which, he was wearing a passion-red T-shirt that said: YOU. YES. YOU. Then he strummed the guitar and began singing his song for me. Yes. Me.

Crocodile Lies

I confess, yes, our Fall was all my fault

If you kissed my eyes, your lips would taste salt

But you think my regret is a lie, and the tears I cry

Are the crocodile kind.

The sweat on your upper lip starts to boil

White hot with anger, still convinced I’m your foil

You keep fighting me, though my eyes are free

From crocodile lies.

You, yes, you, linger inside my heart

The same you who stopped us before we could start

I didn’t want to leave, but you began to believe

Your own crocodile lies.

The only person stopping you is yourself,

You won’t accept that I want no one else,

So until you do, I’ll let someone else have you

Every day, I live the lie

But not the crocodile kind.

How do you react to something like that? How? How do you react when you find out the exact opposite of what you’ve been telling yourself is true? Let’s get more specific: How do I react when I find out that Marcus still wants me after all? Or maybe he doesn’t and this is just another move in the Game? How do I react when I have no clue if Marcus is for real?

Dazed, I drifted in his direction.

“I wanted you to be happy,” he said.

“Happy,” I said.

“If you wouldn’t be with me, I thought that you should be with the one guy I thought deserved you, my best friend,” he said.

“Friend,” I said.

“So that’s why I had to help him out, and tell him the perfect presents to buy you and stuff,” he said.

“Help,” I said.

“Your unhappiness with him just proved that you and I should be together,” he said.

“Together.”

“But I was just as scared to be with you as you are to be with me.” Scared, I thought, but couldn’t bring myself to say out loud.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

As if that was an easy question to answer. So I responded with an inquiry of my own.

“Why now?” I asked. “Why tell me all this now?”

“Because of Hope,” he said.

Marcus went on to