By the time the weekend landed, Liz and I had been chatting nearly everyday. Looking back, it was probably one-sided, I probably initiated most conversations, and comparing the lengths of our texts would be like placing Jaden’s smith’s ego next to his pen game.

The following Monday, I was walking to school, while glued to my phone, waiting for Liz to like my ‘good morning’ text.

“You’re on ‘good morning’ level already?” Lucifer said, appearing by my shoulder out of nowhere.

“Gah!” I jumped, my heart jumping with me. “What the hell! Give a guy a warning!” I bent over to catch my breath.

“Tobe? You alright?” I looked up to see Liz staring at me with her eyebrows twisted in confusion.

“You look like you shitted out your intestines.” She added, because of course she did.

“Huh? Yeah. Sorry, just a jump scare from a song I was listening to.” I said casually, like I wasn’t sweating out of my ass cheeks.

“But you aren’t wearing earphones.” She said.

My balls started sticking to my legs, so I shifted my pelvis a little.

“I- I was playing the song on a really low volume.”

“Oh, must have been a scary fucking song, huh?”

“Ha, yeah.”

And then silence drenched us like sweat.

I searched for an imaginary something in my sling-bag to avoid eye-contact, when she bent sideways, squeezing herself into my line of sight.

“So… are you… ?” She said.

“Yeah, I was just… after you?” I gestured to the sidewalk ahead of us and she chuckled.

“It’s big enough for us to walk side by side, Tobe.”

“Right.”

I sped up to walk by her, letting the silence soak further and further into our clothes until the stench started to choke us.

“So, how was your weekend?” I asked.

“Well, like I told you, I went to visit my grandma.”

“Oh, how was it?”

“It was great! She’s doing so much better.”

“That’s great to here.”

“Yep!”

“Yeah.”

More silence. It felt weird, I didn’t feel like myself. I could usually talk the ear of anyone if I wanted to, but now, here with a girl who’s silhouette twerked in my dreams, I couldn’t find that Tobe. He just stayed further and further out of reach the more I tried to grab his hand.

I cleared my throat. “Hey, do you-”

“Do you have Jacob’s number, by any chance?” She asked, looking at the point between my eyes.

Oh.

Huh.

I remember the first thing that burst in that instant was relief. I didn’t quite understand it back then, but knowing that there was no ‘us’ in the future alleviated all the stakes in the relationship.

The second thing was that I wanted to cry, or explode, or kill Jacob, or myself, or her, but instead I grinned and wiggled my eyebrows.

“Ooooo, Jacob?” I teased, hating myself more with every word.

“Jesus, shut up.” She covered her mouth and looked away, and I think it fully dawned on me in that moment. While my dumbass had been plotting this girl and I’s marriage in my head, she had been living her life. Talking to friends, watching T.V, and occasionally stalking the Instagram page of the boy she liked. She and I were not the same. I gave all of myself out without even telling her she’d purchased me, while she’d given a slice to someone else. She’d been sound asleep at night, and I’d been telling myself bed time stories of a woman and a man that didn’t exist. You could see it in the way I always texted first, or in the one-word responses she gave. You could see it in the texts I deleted, or in the 20 minutes she took to formulate the word ‘lol’. You could see it in everything from how she pronounced my name as ‘taw-bee’, to how she never asked any questions about myself beyond that.

“320-404-0803.” I said.

She hurriedly pulled out her phone and tapped on the call app.

“What was that?” She asked. The red spot on her nose was electric. The snow tripped the light fantastic around her like back up dancers to a play I was not invited to. I grinned at myself.

“320.”

“320… ?”

“404.”

“404… ?” She looked up at me, her eyes dancing in time with the snow.

“And 0803.”

“0803. Thanks, Tobe!” She checked the empty screen of her apple watch. “Shit. I really have to go, see ya!”

I barely raised my hand to wave her off when she vanished. The snow that danced around her lost their zest and just fell on me, the current leaving with her. I stared at her back as she jogged off, my hand still in the air. You see, this first part of the story isn’t mine, it’s Jacob’s. And it would take me many more years to accept that. I lowered my hands, shaking my legs to unstick my balls again.

And then Lucifer began to cackle.

It began as a low rumble, a gentle buzzing of unease, but then it started to crescendo, reaching peak after peak. With each belt of laughter more and more of the snow began to join in. Oh no. Oh no, I was going to cry. I was going to cry, and the snow swivelled into my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t. I remember clutching my chest, trying to force the rabid dog in my chest to stand still, each breath emptying my body and refilling it so fast and so tight and so cold that it burned. I remember clenching my eyes as tightly as I could, pleading that not a single drop would fall. My knees wobbled, and my stomach boiled. I couldn’t tell if I was going to puke, shit, or both, and the pounding in my head began to beat out of tempo with my heart, and it was too cold, and Lucifer and the snow were too loud, and I should have given Liz the wrong number, and my balls seemed to want to be stitched to my leg, and why was I sweating, and why couldn’t I see and it hurt and I couldn’t breathe and my knees kept wobbling and my stomach kept bubbling and I was gonna puke and I was gonna shit and I was gonna puke and why was I freaking out I still didn’t even know her last name-

“Tobe!” Frankie’s voice shoved me in ice water. I jumped up, frantically looking for a familiar face, when I did, I all but ran towards them.

“Wow,” Jacob said. “Someone’s excited today.”

I turned to him, looking for the rage that I know would eventually bubble up later. Behind me, Lucifer giggled.

“Yeah, well. Rough weekend.” I said casually wiping my palms on my jeans.

Frankie took it a little too seriously. “You straight?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, of course.” I said.

“Great,” Jacob replied, slapping my shoulder, “‘cuz we’re about to be late to Mrs. Greenwell’s class.”

“Shit!” I exclaimed, my eyes widening.

The three of us ran like mad men through the snow, dashing into the school and crashing through the halls like a hurricane. We ended up being late, of course, but much to our surprise, so was Mrs.Greenwell. The three of us sauntered to the back of the class, hi-fiving people, and shrugging off comments of how lucky we were. We strode to the back and sat down, and Frankie instantly whipped out her phone. Her fingers danced across the screen with speeds I didn’t know to be possible, and her grin was so uncontrollably wide she kept biting and unbiting it.

“So how was your weekend?” Jacob asked, me snapping me out of Frankie.

I looked at him for a moment, and raised my lips into a smile.

“Bro, fuck that shit,” I said, “I got good news for you!”

He blinked. “You got your joystick wet, didn’t you?”

“Even better! I- wait. Why would me getting some action be good news for you?”

Jacob placed his hand on my shoulder. “I have a deep investment in you and the moisture level of your penis, mate.”

I nodded, and gripped his hand. “Thanks buddy, like wise.”

“Jesus, peg him already.” Frankie said, finally putting down her phone.

Jacob and I turned to her. “I’ll have you know this is pure platonic bromance.” I said.

“And the fact that two men can’t show affection says a lot about the way you think and your misandry.” He added.

“Misandry? What does that mean?” I asked.

“It’s basically misogyny with an uno reverse card.” Jacob tucked his imaginary glasses up his nose.

“Ohhhh.” I replied. “Thanks, man. I’m gonna give you a hug after this class.”

Frankie grinned. “Is that before or after you blow him off?”

I turned back to her. “After why?”

She snorted before being drawn back into her phone with a ding.

“Anyway,” Jacob said, doing his cool pen spinning thing “what was the good news?”

“Right! Liz asked me for your number.”

“Shut up!” He said, stressing the ‘t’ almost like a Nigerian would.

“I’m not even fucking with you!”

“Did you give it to her?” He asked.

“Did I- bitch, of course I gave it to her!” My stomach churned.

“Nice!” We hi-fived, loud enough for a few people to turn back to us, but Jacob was too excited to care, and half of Frankie’s face had been squished into her phone.

“Yo, Frankie,” I said, “this is a big deal. I just blessed Jacob.”

“Fantastic.” She said absentmindedly, tapping away.

Jacob and I looked at each other.

“He and I had intense, sweaty, mind-numbing sex.” He said.

“Mhm.” Frankie bit her lip, and then tapped some more.

“I went so deep into his guts I deep-throated his uvula.” I added.

Frankie kept typing. “That sounds great guys, now hush.”

Jacob and I looked at each other some more, before nodding.

I leaned over my desk to see who Frankie was texting, it took a while for her to notice me, but when she did she jerked away and karate chopped my face.

“Don’t read someones texts, asshole!” She said.

“Did you see who it was?” Jacob asked.

I rubbed my nose and wiggled my eyebrows at Frankie. She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she said, “since you guys are losers who don’t believe in privacy now, it’s Adam.”

“Adam?” Jacob asked. “I thought we didn’t like Adam?”

“He’s kinda funny, okay?” Frankie admitted, “I think I like him.”

Jacob thought about it for a moment. “You gonna let him smash.”

“That’s inappropriate. Karate chop him for me, Tobe.” She deadpanned.

I karate chopped Jacob’s face, and we all laughed. Jacob and I went back to talking about Liz, and Frankie went back to her phone. There was a buzz in the air that morning, and it seemed to stem from anyone but me.

I turned to see the smile on Frankie’s face, and decided then I was happy for her. Back then, we didn’t see the storm ahead of us, and thinking back, even her saying his name was like summoning a witch, or a curse. However bad you might think it was, I guarantee you it was worse. It almost feels as if Frankie saying his name was like speaking into existence the worst thing to ever happen to her, one of the worse things that could ever happen to a person in general.

But we didn’t know back then, we couldn’t have.