Cure for the Common Universe (2 page)

Did people still ride bikes? I hadn't since I was nine. Hence, man boobs.

“Bring it in,” I said, nodding to the garage.

“You sure?” she asked.

I nodded at her soaked T-shirt. “I owe you.”

She grabbed the bike's handles and rolled it in. I aimed the sprayer, but she held out her hand, quirking her lips in this adorable way. “You mind? I don't want you getting distracted again.”

She hosed mud off the Schwinn while I leaned against the wall, arms folded firmly over my chest. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it.

“So do you, um, hate me forever?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I like things that knock me out of my usual routine. Like bumping a record player. Might make life land on a better track.”

And that was when I knew I would fall in love with her.

While she sprayed, and my phone vibrated, I did a quick search of my brain for cool things to talk about. All I did was play video games and study for school. That didn't leave me with many options.

“So, uh, did you know that the guy who wrote
The War of the Worlds
came up with the idea for the atomic bomb thirty years before it was invented, and that he even named it?”

“Really?” Serena said. “Huh.” She wasn't looking at me, but she didn't sound bored.

“Yep. Um. Yeah. There are a lot of sci-fi authors who made really interesting discoveries. Like, Jules Verne came up with the idea for the submarine, and—” My phone would not stop vibrating. “Uh, excuse me.”

I had seven texts from the Wight Knights:

Dude where r u?

Dude.

Dude!

Location?

DUDE WHERE ARE YOU?

We are getting fucked.

You are fucking us.

I'd been away from the battle for more than fifteen minutes. If I left immediately, I could still make it back . . .

I put my phone on silent.

“Where was I?” I said.

“Jules Verne?” Serena said.

I smiled. She'd listened.

Once I'd wrung my brain of every cool, non-video-game fact I could think of and the Schwinn was clean and shiny and looked like it cost more than twenty dollars, Serena rolled the bike into the sun to dry.

“Welp,” she said. “Thanks for the cleaning. For the bike
and
me.”

She gave the bottom of her shirt a final squeeze. No more drips.

My heart started to stammer. She was going to leave. I didn't want her to leave; I wanted her to stay. I wanted her to remain in my sight until we went on a date and had our first kiss and she realized what a stellar guy I was and that she should probably be my girlfriend. And while I was sure there
was absolutely positively no way I would ever get a date with this girl, what if actually there was a way and the only way that it would happen was if I opened my stupid mouth and did something about it right that second?

“So, um,” I said, “I still feel bad about spraying you before. . . . In fact, I—I don't feel like we're even.”

She held out her hand for the water gun, like this was an invitation to spray me. I didn't hand it to her. We both smiled.

“Did you have something different in mind?” she said.

“Uh, yeah, actually. Would you maybe, like . . .”

Serena raised her eyebrows, like,
Get to the point, dude
.

“Uh, you know, like, want to—”

RRRRNNNT!

The car wash's timer buzzed, making me jump.

The big red numbers flashed 0:00.

“Little jumpy, are we?” she said.

“Ha, yeah.” I scratched the back of my neck and looked at the ground. I could feel my man boobs pressing against my shirt.

“You were saying?” Serena said.

I hesitated.

I had somehow, impossibly, briefly, momentarily been charming with this girl when I'd thought there was no chance whatsoever that I would see her again. And this had made me just relaxed enough to make her laugh not once, not twice, but
three
times.

Well, two laughs and a snort, technically.

“What-about-dinner?” I said, and then didn't breathe.

She took a moment to consider the question, like the token dispenser thinking about whether to accept my crinkled five.

Had I screwed it up?

I had.

I was sure I had.

Shit.

“When?” she asked.

“Tonight?”

“I can't tonight.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Busy tomorrow. I'm busy till Thursday.”

“Thursday?” I suggested.

“Um . . .” She clicked the Schwinn's gears. I could have sworn she glanced at the mushroom on my shirt. “Sounds good,” she said. She mounted her bike, one foot on the pedal, one on the asphalt. “I'd hug you good-bye, but, y'know.” She frowned at her damp shirt.

“Ha. Right,” I said. “Maybe we could hug on Thursday.”

That was the stupidest thing I could have possibly said. Serena still giggled.

Oh God, what if she changed her mind between now and Thursday?

“Can I call you?” I asked.

“Nope,” she said. My heart nose-dived. But then she patted her pocket. “No phone. I'm not on Facebook either.”

A Luddite! Of course! This girl was anti-technology! That
was why the bicycle. And the record-player reference. That was why she didn't recognize my
Super Mario
shirt. I made a quick mental list of things to never talk about as long as she and I were dating. To be honest, it included most of my life.

Serena pushed off the pavement and pedaled in small circles around the car wash parking lot, moving far away, then close, then far again. “Meet me at Mandrake's on Broadway,” she said. “Know it?”

“Uh, no.”

“It's real good. And they never ID. I'll be there at seven.”

She straightened the handlebars and pedaled down the sidewalk.

“Great!” I waved good-bye with the sprayer. “See you at Mandrake's on Thursday at seven!”

She disappeared around the corner.

I had a date. A real-life date. Suddenly the future didn't seem so war torn. The bright July sky looked almost pretty.

My phone vibrated again.

Ur dead to us.

I smiled. For the first time in years, I didn't give a damn about the Wight Knights. Or
Arcadia
. I had just performed a miracle.

Then again, maybe I could get in one last game before I started preparing for my date.

The Xterra was still pretty dirty. I had only managed to clean the front half, and I was out of tokens. Screw it. Casey could stand to have the ass-end of her vehicle speckly for a few days.

On the drive home I couldn't stop smiling. I imagined making Serena laugh over and over again while we dined at Mandrake's. I'd have to find something nice to wear. That was for sure. Should I get my crack waxed? Did people actually do that? If so, where? And was there something the waxer could sign that declared that if they ever saw me in public, like on a date at Mandrake's, they'd have to pretend not to recognize me? The back and shoulder wax was a must. Serena was worth it, I just knew. But what if during the date I bent over to pick up her dropped fork or something and my shirt came up and she saw that I was basically an overfed Hobbit? Could I lose about thirty pounds by Thursday? Probably not. But she didn't seem to care about my weight.

Did she?

Would she have said yes if she did?

Probably not.

Would she?

I took a deep breath and smiled. I thought I had four whole days to think about these things.

Turned out I had about four minutes.

W
hen I got home, two tanklike Tongan men were standing in the driveway.

My dad stood between them.

He was holding a suitcase. My suitcase.

I parked in the street, and was about to get out when Casey walked out of the garage, pushing my computer chair. She left it at the curb and then headed back inside without making eye contact.

All thoughts of getting my crack waxed vanished when I saw one of the tanks point at me and ask, “That him?”

My dad nodded.

I shut off the engine. My heart started to pound, and not in a pleasant, Serena way. I didn't get out of the Xterra. I didn't unlock the doors. I didn't know what was happening, but whatever it was couldn't be good. The sun started to bake the air-conditioning away.

My dad walked up and rapped on the passenger window. “Come on out here, Jaxon. So we can talk.”

Before my dad retired, they called him the Mountain. Not because of his stature but because he would plant himself in people's living rooms and refuse to budge until he'd made a sale.

I glanced at the tanks, who cast ominous shadows on the driveway. I didn't move. My dad tried the handle.

“Tell me what's happening through the window,” I said, my voice wavering, “and I'll decide if I'm going to get out or drive away.”

My dad signaled to the tanks, who stepped in front of and behind the Xterra, blocking me in. I pressed into my seat.

“Okay,” I said. “Tell me through the window, and I'll decide if I'm going to commit vehicular manslaughter.”

“You're going to rehab,” my dad said.

“I'm
what
?”

“You're going to re—”

“I heard what you said.” I rolled down the passenger window, just a crack so that my dad's hand couldn't get through. “What am I supposedly addicted to?”

“Video games.”

I was too stunned to speak for a second.

“Video game rehab? That can't be a real thing.”

“It's real,” my dad said in his maddeningly calm voice. “And you're going.”

I gripped the steering wheel and tried to gather my thoughts.

Did I play a lot of video games? Yes. Did I love them and believe they were the fastest-growing medium that was quickly approaching a golden age that would transform the world for the better forever? Yes.

Was I addicted to them?

No. No, I was not.

“You can't be addicted to video games,” I said. “It's a
compulsion
.”

Casey came out of the garage holding two handfuls of wires. Even in the heat of the sun, my skin ran cold. The wires were from my computer. My window to adventure . . . to my friends. Casey was dismantling it.

She dumped the wires into her Jetta's open trunk, next to my monitor. Then she finally looked at me. “We're selling your computer and buying a treadmill,” she called.

“Can you hold off on that for a minute, sweetie?” my dad said.

She made a show of brushing her hands clean and went and leaned against the porch. At least she'd stopped marching in place.

“An addiction
is
a compulsion,” my dad said.

“No,” I said, trying to keep the tremors from my voice. “It isn't.” My dad and I had had the video game argument dozens of times. I'd done my research. “You stop doing a compulsion if something good comes into your life.” I thought of Serena's laugh. “With an addiction, you can't stop, no matter how much you want to. Like alcohol.” I looked at
Casey and yelled, “Or organic cottage cheese!”

She glared. My dad ignored that comment.

“I've been timing how long you spend in that room of yours. Every time I hear things start to blow up and die—”

“I don't
just
play violent video games,” I interrupted.

“You know what I mean,” my dad said. “Every time your stepmother or I hear anything that sounds like a game, we start a timer. You have clocked—” He took a little piece of graph paper out of his back pocket. “You've clocked more than two hundred and fifty hours in the last month alone. That's more than a full-time job.”

I tried to hide my own shock at that number and attempted another approach.

“Dad.”
I looked him dead in the eye. “I
can't
go to rehab right now.”

“You absolutely can and will.”

“You don't understand. I just met a girl.”

My dad narrowed his eyes. “Where?”

“At the car wash,” I said. “That's why the Xterra's still dirty. I used the money to clean her bike.”

He glanced at the spotty back end of the Xterra, then back at me. “What's her name?”

“Serena. She had a Schwinn. Purple.”

The Mountain didn't budge. “Show me her number on your phone.”

Shit. Why did my new girlfriend have to be a Luddite?

My hands didn't leave the steering wheel.

“Facebook?” my dad said.

I shook my head, and he gave a smile that seemed a touch more satisfied than disappointed.

A fear took me then. What if Serena had just pretended not to have a phone or Facebook?

No. No. I'd made her laugh.

Still, this conversation was spinning dangerously into unbelievable territory. I hadn't had a date since I'd started living under my dad's roof. Or . . . ever. Serena was the first good thing to come into my life in a long while. She was the great hope, the light at the end of the tunnel, the end game, my
Call of Duty
. . . . Only, I wasn't going to shoot her.

“You always want to discuss things like adults,” I said. “Let's discuss this.”

The tank in front of me heard this and rested his foot on the bumper. The Xterra dipped under his weight.

“Don't let him talk you out of anything!” Casey called from the porch. “Dr. Phil said
do not let them negotiate
! You just have to get him down there!”

My dad glanced back at her, then at me. He may have been a tough old bastard, but he could be reasonable sometimes.

“All right,” he said to me. “I don't know how adult you are, hiding in the car, but all right. Let's discuss this.”