The only reason I agreed to hang out with Meg again was due to Michael buying me french fries first.

"I can't afford to keep feeding you," he told me as he compliantly pulled up to the McDonald's drive-thru. "Do you know how much money I've spent since I moved back here? Almost a thousand dollars. Do you know how much a thous-"

"I thought you were rich," I said dismissively.

He coughed under his breath and moved up with the line of cars. "I may have... slightly... exaggerated."

"Of course you did."

He ignored me, turning towards his window to roll it down.

"Welcome to McDonald's, how can I help you?" The girl inside sounded tired, like she wanted to go home. I felt her pain.

"Hi, can I get two double cheeseburgers with no mustard and a large fry?" said Michael. "That's all."

"Would you like to try our new deal of two quarter-pounders for one with an M&M McFlurry?"

"No," he said, his tone slightly passive-aggressive. "I want what I said." My stomach rumbled.

"Alright, your total is 7.71 at the next window," the girl announced.

He rolled around the corner, getting in line after a beat-up old gray truck. The driver's window was down and a meaty, tattooed arm hung out lazily. I watched, hungry enough for my mouth to water, as the arm was handed two bags of food and a tray of drinks.

"You should really consider contributing to our food supply," Michael told me as he stopped at the first window. I fidgeted in my seat while the tired girl took his credit card, smelling the fresh coffee and sizzling burgers inside.

"I'll go to the store this weekend," I said, though I knew I'd more than likely forget. "What do you want?"

"Stuff we can make in the oven," he said. "Like chicken nuggets. Get lots of chicken nuggets."

My stomach grumbled twice as loud at the thought, and I wondered if I could persuade him to go back around and order a six-piece here. But by then we had made it up to the second window and a middle-aged man was handing over my food.

I wondered if that would be me, working at McDonald's in twenty years.

Probably.

I dug the burger out, unwrapped it, and took a huge bite. I wasn't a fast-food fan, but I'd been starving all day, so this felt like the best damn thing I'd ever tasted. I groaned and stuffed more into my mouth, savoring the grilled meat and prominent taste of pepper.

"Dude," Michael said while I scarfed the rest of it down in a total of three bites. "The burgers were both for me."

I looked up guiltily, pausing in my chewing to shove a wad of mangled hamburger into my cheek. "Oh."

"Whatever," he sighed. "Meg will probably have food."

I lifted the carton of fries from the greasy paper bag, extracting a handful to refill my mouth with, then held them out to him. "You can have one of my fries."

He laughed and took a single french fry. "My, aren't you generous?"

"I know," I said, sucking a trace of ketchup off my thumb.

Michael twisted the fry around between his index and middle fingers and positioned it in his mouth like a cigarette. "They should make one of those couple's t-shirts," he said, making the fry bounce, "and it's like a little burger and fries cartoon and it says 'you're the fries to my burger' or something."

"No, they shouldn't," I said. "That's weird."

"I think it's cute."

I leaned back and angled the carton so I could more easily pour fries into my mouth. "Sounds like something Sarah would buy. And then try to make me wear since she could never get a boyfriend."

"You should, eh... lemme give her a call," he said slyly.

I glared at him. "Don't even think about it."

He leaned over and stole another fry while I wasn't guarding them. "Calm down, she wouldn't date me anyway. She obviously likes you."

"Well, her first impression of you was watching your drunk ass stumble to bed and pass out."

Michael chuckled and turned back on the road to drive to Meg's house. It wasn't far from campus; we'd been able to walk the distance that time with Rolph. "You met me on a bad day," he said. "The whole week was pretty much a nightmare. Fighting with Kitty, breaking up and getting back together every day, the whole car thing..."

I sniffed a little and looked out the window, watching the brightly-colored trees roll by as he drove. "Was she, like, abusive?"

He shrugged. "We both were."

"What does that mean?"

"She'd hit me," he said. "I'd hit her. She'd break my shit when she was mad, I couldn't stop seeing other women. It was just... toxic."

I nodded, and then I shut up because I was horrible at talking about things like this and I didn't get why he ever liked Kitty in the first place.

"I don't get what I keep doing wrong," he said suddenly, his eyes cemented to the road in front of him. "I've tried dating so many people and it always just ends up with them getting hurt and hating me."

I snorted. "Yeah, 'cuz you go and fuck like ten girls a day."

"I do not," he said.

"Anyway, most people just find one person they like and stick with that. So it makes sense all your girlfriends get mad when they find out about all the other girlfriends."

"I don't like commitment," he said stiffly. "I get bored."

"You haven't found the right one," I said, before I even thought about my words. It just seemed like the natural answer after hearing it so much.

"Meg never cared," he told me. "It's one of the few things I liked about dating her. We could go weeks after a fight not talking and being with other people, and then we'd just find each other again and pick right back up."

"I don't think that's healthy," I muttered, but what did I know? I couldn't date a girl for more than a week anyway.

"I like the beginning," he said as he slowed down to pull into her driveway. "Like, when you first meet someone and it's new and they're all you think about. And then-" He sighed. "Something always fucks it up."

Maybe, I thought, his initial liking of me had already faded. Maybe I wouldn't even have to worry about getting a room with him next year. Maybe we'd be strangers by Thanksgiving. "Can I ask you something?" I said, trying to push the thought away.

"Yeah."

"What's the longest you've dated anyone? Like, without any breaks."

He was quiet for a moment, thinking. "I don't know. Probably Amanda in high school. That was about a good six, seven months. But we were kids. We didn't do much. I used to go over every Sunday and play Uno with her and her thirteen-year-old sister."

"What's the longest you've loved someone?" I asked.

A grave smile appeared on his face as he pulled his keys from the ignition. "I could love someone for a lifetime. At least in some way."

I felt weird now, a strange nervousness spreading through my stomach. I opened my door and got out, welcoming some cold air against my face. It was so terrifying, the thought of how utterly lost I would be when he dropped me. If I was back home, still around all my old friends and everything I knew, maybe I'd be fine. But here, he was the only thing in my life I liked.

Meg's front door was answered by a little old lady with bright red lipstick and an old-fashioned purse over one wrist. "Michael, so good to see you," she said, immediately pulling him into a frail hug. "Come, come in. You must help me decide what shoes to wear."

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Well Cecilia and Margaret... you know Cecilia and Margaret, of course..." She paused, narrowing her eyes between a pair of sandals and some ugly flats. "They invited me to play Bingo at the rec center in town... isn't that lovely?"

"Amazing," I muttered, and she smiled appreciatively, obviously not picking up on my sarcasm.

"Cathy, this is Benjamin." Michael seized my arm from where I was standing awkwardly to the side and dragged me in front of him. "Look at his fluffy hair, it's so cute."

I sort of felt like a bad drawing that a first-grader was presenting in art class. "Uh, hi."

"Welcome to the family, dear," the old woman said, then hugged me too before I could get away. "Go on and help yourself to anything in the fridge." She leaned closer and put her hand up over the side of her face like she was about to reveal a secret. "Really, I always make too much food. Take it."

"Noted," said Michael, already brushing past me. On his way he passed Meg, whose blank expression immediately turned into a scowl when she saw Cathy.

"Why are you even still here?" she demanded. "I thought you were leaving."

"I was only saying hello to my favorite young man-"

"My god, you're literally so annoying," Meg interrupted. "Just go already!" She pushed past the two of us roughly and jogged up her stairs.

I watched Cathy's eyes grow sad and immediately regretted not being nicer to her myself. When I was young I would have killed to have a sweet old grandmother. "Well, I best be off," she sighed lightly, like she hadn't been bothered at all. Maybe she was used to it. "You kids have fun tonight, alright?"

I forced a small smile. "You too."

"Why, thank you. It was lovely to meet you, Brandon," she added, giving my shoulder a pat. I didn't correct her, just stood there while she slowly slid on her sandals and fumbled to open the door before shuffling out onto her porch.

Michael was searching through the fridge when I walked into the kitchen, one hand holding open the door and the other tossing a Tupperware container of cold spaghetti onto the counter. "Your ex is bitch," I said bitterly.

"Which one?" he said. "Oh wait. They all are."

"Meg," I said, frowning at the noodles. "Her poor grandma looked like she was gonna cry."

He nodded slightly as he cracked the lid off the tub to place in the microwave. "Yeah, I've, uh, witnessed their fights. Meg can get pretty cruel."

"Why doesn't Cathy, like, ground her or something?" I asked.

He snorted. "She'd just go out anyway. Personally, I would simply refuse to cook for her. The girl can't even make a sandwich without lighting the house on fire."

"I'm going upstairs," I told him as he stood in front of the microwave, watching his spaghetti spin round and round. "Don't leave me alone with her too long. We'll probably kill each other."

"That'd be fun to see," he commented. I rolled my eyes.

Walking up the stairs welcomed a wave of flashbacks from the party two nights ago, specifically the game we played, Amy, and that yellow-toothed Skull Hat guy and his stupid dare. Passing the first bedroom to the right brought on an entirely different set of memories. Michael kissing me, my body pressed underneath his, waking up to him abandoning me.

Meg was sitting on her fluffy carpeted floor, something I'd never had the luxury of living in a place with, and rifling through a box of nail polishes while Bobby played a video game on her TV.

"Um, Meg?" I said, swinging the door open. "Whose room is that? Across the hall?"

She groaned as she leaned over to look. "That's Gran's. Why?"

I felt myself gag a little, a cold shiver running through my whole body, and covered my mouth with my hand. "Nothing. Never mind."

"You're so weird," she muttered.

I kicked off my shoes and flopped down on her bed, which was probably overstepping my boundaries by a lot, but I didn't care. "So what are we actually doing tonight?" I asked, kicking my little socked feet behind me.

"I suggested bowling," Bobby said over the sound of something exploding on the TV. "Someone just opened up a bowling alley downtown."

"Oh, I heard about that," said Meg. She finally settled on a teal color from her nail polish collection and twisted off the cap. "Isn't it in that creepy area where all the bums hang out?"

He coughed. "Yup."

I busied myself with looking around the room as they talked. Everything was so... girly. There was nothing about her personality that matched it: the flower-pattern sheets, the lacy white curtains, the little string of golden fairy lights draped across one wall. My guess was that she had decorated it like this as a child, and then never changed anything. I wondered if she had any parents, and why she wasn't living with them.

"This town is so stupid," Meg was complaining as she painted her first nail. "There's literally nothing to do here. Except like, speed past people's houses and steal from Walmart."

"Don't steal from Walmart," I said. "Rolph will send someone to your house to kill you."

She looked up. "Who the hell is Rolph?"

I scoffed. "You don't know who Rolph is? Pathetic."

Meg sighed deeply and held her hand up in front of her face to admire her nails. Most of them were blotchy and smudged over her cuticles. "Why don't you enlighten me?"

I was about to go on a long speech about the skinny cowboy and his ambitious dreams when Michael came charging up the stairs and entered the room. In his hand was the tub of spaghetti and a fork.

"What did I miss?" he asked as he sat down on the bed, almost close enough to touch me. I hadn't had any proper contact with him in over 24 hours, since we semi-made up after me meeting Heather. Tonight he was wearing this fuzzy black North Face jacket, and I wanted nothing more than to just hug him and snuggle up in it.

"We're going bowling," Meg informed him. "You're paying."

"I am?"

"Yeah, obviously," she said. "Who else is going to?"

"Wow." He stabbed a noodle. "Lovely to know all my friends use me for my quickly declining wealth."

"Mhm," she muttered coldly. "Let's go before it gets completely dark out."

Michael frowned. "I'm not done eating."

Meg huffed under her breath and started in on her right fingernails. She did this hand even sloppier than the first, at one point slipping and smearing polish all over the side of her ring finger. "Fuck," she growled.

Michael twisted his fork around in the spaghetti and offered it to me, making me shake my head in disgust. He shrugged and shoveled it into his mouth.

"Would you hurry up?" Meg huffed.

"Want some spaghetti?" he asked pleasantly. "We could do the thing from Lady and the Tramp."

"No," she snapped. "And if I have to witness the two of you doing something together I'm going to throw myself in front of oncoming traffic."

"Whatcha talking about?" he teased. "I'm not like that anymore. I have a girlfriend now."

"Yeah, me too," I announced loudly.

Meg snorted. "There is no way you have a girlfriend."

"Actually there is," I insisted, smiling smugly.

"You looked like you were going to throw up at the sight of a vagina."

I made some involuntary sputtering noise and sat up. "Well, maybe your vagina makes people want to throw up."

She opened her mouth in outrage. "That is so not the case," she said. "Michael?"

"I'm not getting in the middle of this," he mumbled, his mouth stuffed full of spaghetti.

"Michael, don't I have a girlfriend?" I asked sweetly.

He blinked. "Uh, sure."

"My girlfriend is currently on a plane soaring off the continent," Bobby said. "I don't know how I'll survive. She's the only person in my life with any brain cells."

Meg shook her head incredulously. "You and Stacy still going strong? You've spent, like, your whole life with that girl."

He chuckled. "Our two-years is coming up. Hopefully by next year we'll have a place together. We've been talking about getting an apartment."

She smiled grimly. "Well, cool. I'm happy for you. Not a lot of people ever find something like that. Of course, there's always the ones that get the chance and pass it up." She glared distinctly at Michael. "I'll never understand it."

"I'll never understand people who think their soulmate is the first guy they have a crush on," he snapped back, his eyes never leaving his food.

She gave a scoff of disgust. "You are not-"

"Alright, quit your squabbling," Bobby interrupted, and I sent a silent wave of gratitude his way. "I don't know how I have any sanity left in me, being buddies with you two."

"Why are you even friends?" I asked. "Like, obviously you're not good for each other and it's never going-"

"Um, excuse me, you literally know nothing about our relationship," Meg said loftily, and though I had to fiercely battle the urge to laugh at our relationship I sank down to my elbows, deciding just to not speak for the entire rest of the evening.

"We're friends," Michael said as he slowly twirled his fork around, "because as much as Megan here likes to paint me as a horrible monster, she's been mesmerized by me since the moment we met and every time I show up at her door at one in the morning, she lets me in."

Meg took a deep breath and violently re-capped her nail polish to slam into the plastic box. "Look. I know I've got some things to work on. Kicking you out of my life is definitely up there."

"Ah," he said. "Well, let me know when you get to it. In the meantime, I'm gonna go take my anger issues out on some bowling pins. Anyone care to join me?"

Bobby set his controller on the table next to the TV and stood up, pulling a thick wallet from his back pocket. "Snacks are on me."