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Now Playing: Ode to Viceroy – Mac DeMarco
The group was mostly silent as they trekked back to the car, only occasionally interrupted by Simon hiccupping or stumbling across the now-dark campus. Xavier had never been to a college party that began while it was still light out, but apparently colleges had homecoming weeks too and were pumped about it. Claire called it a “darty” which sounded fucking stupid, but she was cool so people probably said that all the time.
Diego followed them from a few feet behind, making sure nobody bothered them on the way to the car, before dipping. Nicole opened the backseat car door for Simon, and Xavier started to crouch down to help him inside, when Simon startled and shoved himself off his shoulder.
“I can get into a car by myself, man.” Simon leaned against the car for a moment, getting his bearings, before successfully sliding into his seat and reaching for the seatbelt. It took him a few tries to get it into the thing that held it in place (the seatbelt buckle?) and Xavier made sure not to let any humor show on his face.
He and the girls got into the car, Nicole driving (since Simon was now drunk and Xavier was not really supposed to drive anywhere either). “Xavier, your turn on aux,” she said tightly, passing him the cord. He pulled up the playlist he designed for when other people were around—to make sure they got the right wrong impression of him—and hit play.
They’d only been driving for a few minutes when Simon spoke up. “What do we do now?”
His words ran together, like there were no spaces left between them, and he had an uncomfortable looking squint on his face.
Claire sighed, looking much more exhausted than usual. “Go home, Simon? I really don’t know what you can expect at this point.”
“And it’s already past nine,” Nicole pointed out. “Not that that’s really that late, but it’s like a two-hour drive and I don’t know about you guys, but I didn’t tell my parents that I was going anywhere.”
“Neither did I,” Claire responded. Nicole rolled her eyes.
Simon nodded in agreement, overexaggerated, like he was a stage actor trying to make sure the back row could see the movement. Xavier spoke for both of them. “Us, too.”
The car went silent again, save for the speakers turned down nearly to a hum. Xavier found himself watching Simon out of the corner of his eye, checking for signs of nausea or sweating or those tremors Xavier always got when he was drunk. They weren’t constant, like the weed ones, more like those falling-out-of-a-tree jolts you get when you’re in bed and haven’t quite nodded off yet, so Xavier watched Simon for a few minutes straight. Just because he didn’t have anything better to do.
He had his eyes closed, head leaned backwards. He’d look like he was passed out, if his forehead wasn’t all wrinkled up and his jaw clenched. Headache, probably. Maybe dizziness.
When he finally looked up, convinced Simon wasn’t going to vomit or start acting belligerent, he saw Claire’s eyes watching him through the rearview mirror. He couldn’t see her face from this angle, but from the shape of her eyebrows he could tell she was smirking. He furrowed his eyebrows back at her, holding her gaze until he suddenly felt a weight on his shoulder.
Simon had slumped over, the top of his hair brushing Xavier’s neck. Xavier paused, trying to hold still. He waited a minute for Simon to spasm and push himself up, probably saying something pissy to Xavier in the process, but he stayed silent, unmoving. Despite the three layers of clothing Xavier always wore, he could feel how strangely warm Simon was, how deep his breaths had suddenly become.
He refused to look up at Claire again, instead glancing out the window, trying to hold even his breathing still while still appearing nonchalant. Nobody spoke for a few minutes.
Nicole eventually spoke, keeping her voice quiet. “Simon?”
No reply. The only movement from him since landing on Xavier’s shoulder had been a slight turn inward, putting Simon’s head up against his neck and his breath into Xavier’s collarbone.
Nicole continued. “I…I’m actually worried about him. Like, beyond the Maddie-Janet thing.”
Xavier nodded, very slightly, and whispered back. “Yeah.”
“I haven’t seen him eat or drink anything except coffee,” Claire added, “not in the past week or so, at least.”
“I have.” Xavier said with a light huff. “He steals my fries at lunch.” He smiled, a little tight.
“He’s been going home and sleeping, right?” More worry had crept into Nicole’s voice.
“He said he just got his car privileges back,” Xavier replied, “so I assume he’s back on the rocks with his parents. Off the rocks? Whatever. So hopefully that means he’s doing okay.”
Claire scoffed. “None of us are doing okay, Xavier.”
The car went silent again.
“I got anxiety meds,” Nicole blurted out. After a moment, she took a deep breath and continued, a little scattered. “I was having, like, panic attacks and nightmares so I went to the urgent care. The doctor said she could only write a prescription for a sleep aid, since she wasn’t a psychiatrist and I didn’t bring my parents, but they’re used for anxiety too, so it worked out. It’s like hydrox-something.”
“Hydroxyzine?” Xavier asked. He’d been prescribed it before. Definitely didn’t make him any calmer inside, but it did make him drowsy. Like super-Benadryl.
“Yeah,” Nicole nodded. She stopped talking for a moment as she took a sharp turn onto the highway onramp. “I just…Simon’s clearly been doing worse than me, convinced Maddie was dead, all this weight to help her on his shoulders, but I don’t know what to do. Or if what we’re doing is even helping him or Maddie.”
Claire nodded with a frown. “At least he’s opened up to us. Sort of.”
Xavier looked down at the boy on his shoulder again. He couldn’t imagine Simon from a month ago, no matter how drunk or sleep deprived or hungry, passing out on his shoulder. Whether this constituted progress or not Xavier wasn’t sure, but he’d hold his breath until Simon was sitting on his own.
Now Playing: Cigarette Daydreams – Cage the Elephant
Simon woke up about an hour into the car ride, looking a bit less out of it. He didn’t make a single remark about lying on Xavier’s shoulder, so Xavier didn’t mention it either.
Claire spoke up once he seemed aware, revealing that she’d seen Maddie/Janet while they were leaving the party, but she fled when the group approached. Xavier could see Simon’s shoulders tense up, so he reached for his arm and squeezed it tight. Simon jolted, then relaxed, slouching over in his seat.
“I really tried to reassure her, talk her into staying. She…” Claire paused, looking pained, “she really looked terrified. Like she had no idea who I was.”
Claire waited a moment. “I guess, if she’s really Janet underneath or inside or whatever, it makes sense that she wouldn’t trust me.” She glanced at Simon in the rearview, but he seemed more preoccupied with picking at the stuff caught in his jacket lining.
Nicole acknowledged Claire, then quickly pivoted the conversation. “God, when did our lives turn into, like, Scooby-Doo?”
Claire nearly cackled at that. She pointed at Xavier. “Shaggy.” To Simon, “Velma.” To Nicole, “Wait, maybe you’re Velma. You’re not Fred. Simon could be Fred, I guess. Or he could be the celebrity guest. Like Bobby Flay.”
Xavier huffed, a smile on his face. “And you’re Daphne?”
She grinned back. “Obviously.”
“It’s like Phantasm,” Simon suddenly interjected, voice all hoarse and gravely.
Xavier paused for a second, trying to understand what Simon even meant by that.
“No, it’s not,” Nicole scoffed.
“You’re just saying that because you don’t like it. And you don’t get it.”
“You’re a film snob.” Nicole rolled her eyes, actually looking a little annoyed. “Except you’re snobby about the strangest shit.”
“Phantasm is an indie horror masterpiece,” Simon responded vehemently, speaking too fast and horribly slurring his words. He hiccupped. “That shit is the coolest.”
Claire glanced over at Nicole, half-smiling. “I like a good slasher. You think it’s worth watching for me?”
“It’s not a slasher, I don’t think. Phantasm is like Alice in Wonderland for angsty teenage boys,” Nicole explained to Claire. The cheerleader nodded, as if that cleared up anything. Xavier didn’t think that explanation—or Simon’s comparison in the first place—really made sense, but he didn’t really ‘get’ Phantasm when Simon and Maddie showed it to him last month.
“No it’s not. And the ghost shit is just like Phantasm,” Simon doubled down. “The ghosts are like those fucking, uh, short people. And we went to a graveyard yesterday. And Janet burned down a house.”
Xavier was pretty high watching that film, but he was sure a house didn’t burn down in it. Simon was shaking like an anxious dog, though, so maybe his film takes were a little off. “I don’t get the short people thing.”
“This is a stupid comparison. It would only be like Phantasm if Maddie was actually dead and you were—” Nicole cut herself off.
They all sat in silence for a minute, as everyone seemed to put together where Nicole was going. Xavier was surprised Simon didn’t snap back at her; his shoulders had bunched up again, but his gaze was firmly on his lap, where he was tapping his fingers in some pattern.
Xavier decided to break the silence, taking one for the team. “I was scared of Alice in Wonderland as a kid.”
Claire immediately laughed, a little too hard. It wasn’t that funny.
Simon scoffed, just barely smiling. “What?”
“Even I wasn’t scared of that,” Nicole grinned, “I went as Alice for Halloween two years in a row in elementary school.”
“Hey, it’s a freaky movie!” Xavier argued. “Everyone’s so mean to her, and they get mad about the way she talks and feels, and then that dog erases reality and, like, traps her in the void!”
Xavier carefully didn’t mention that the broom dog scene freaked him out so much that he’d cry, and the half-disappointed, half-confused looks his dad would give him whenever he (frequently) reacted too strongly to the littlest things.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Claire delivered in the worst British accent Xavier had ever heard.
“Boo,” Simon jeered. He turned, jerkily, to look at Xavier. “You didn’t like the vaping caterpillar?”
“I don’t think a hookah is a vape.”
“It’s like a vape. Y’know, for old people.”
“…It smokes using charcoal, man. And shit that looks like pop rocks.”
Simon squinted at him. “What’s a vape smoking? Electricity?”
“Nothing is ‘smoking’ in a vape, Simon.” Nicole cut in. “It was never on fire.”
“Yeah, but like collo-key-lee. Collo-queue-lee.” He huffed. “Fuck, colloquially.”
Xavier didn’t have his pen on him—he was respecting his doctor-mandated t-break—but maybe he should bring it with him next time he and Simon hang out. Investigate. Whatever.
Paused: It’s Summertime – The Flaming Lips
“Okay. Okay. Yep. Bye.” Xavier hung up on his dad, rubbing his eye. He could feel another migraine coming on. He wasn’t even really supposed to be driving, what with the concussion, but Simon wasn’t gonna be sober any time soon.
Simon slid into the passenger seat a moment later and sighed. Xavier waited for the boy to explode on him, or something.
“How am I,” Simon started, sounding defeated, “gonna tell her that we lost Janet. Again.”
To Xavier’s dismay, the boy started tearing up, before flailing like he was trying to kick the dashboard. His drunk hiccups started up again.
“We tell her. Together.” Xavier tried to keep his voice level. Reliable-sounding. “Unless, you still don’t want my help?”
Maybe a little snark slipped in at the end, but Simon laughed along with him a moment later. Xavier exhaled, relieved. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Was that another annoying question?”
“Thank you.” Simon looked at him with that heavy, piercing look he almost always had. Like suddenly he’d cut through the drunken fog. “I do. And it feels new to me. Not doing this alone.”
His voice got a bit choked up at the end, and his piercing look abated. Simon chuckled. “You know, whatever message you wanna give,” he smushed his s-es together, made his v-s sound like f-s, “to Maddie, I’m happy to help too.”
“Thank you,” Xavier whispered.
Simon made that intense eye contact with him again, for just a moment, before turning to the window. He let out a sigh that made Xavier just a bit uncomfortable. “Where the hell is Janet now?”
He reclined the seat back all the way, closing his eyes. Xavier hoped the boy wasn’t going to fall asleep drunk in his own car, but it didn’t feel right to drop him off like this.
It didn’t really feel right to invite him to do anything with Xavier either, though. The only reason Simon didn’t hate him was his status as the only true ghost believer. He all but said it just moments before. Sure, he’d never seen Simon be even the slightest bit vulnerable around anyone, but he was proper drunk and sleep-deprived and probably starving to death, on top of all the stress of the past couple weeks.
Maddie never really opened up around him either, never about anything real. She held him at arm’s length, even once they started dating. He always assumed it was just that they didn’t really trust him. He wouldn’t trust himself either. Plus, they probably already knew everything about each other anyways, the way they effortlessly added onto each other’s bits and debated everything without the slightest bit of true animosity. Xavier never really had friends like that.
He joined a couple of their movie nights at the Apex, one of their marathons at Simon’s house. Their way of making him feel included, especially when he got a bit too freaked at horror movies that they claimed weren’t even scary, dude was to crack dark jokes and make little jabs all film long. He tried to match their energy, but his humor sometimes struck the wrong note, so he mostly kept to laughing and hitting his pen to take the edge off. But that was fine. Why would he want to share the horrible shit in his head anyways?
Simon might’ve actually fallen asleep, so Xavier lightly shook his shoulder. “Hey man. Do you wanna get McDonald’s or something? Help you sober up? I mean, I can just take you home, if you’re not worried about your parents or whatever.”
Xavier was worried about his dad, but it didn’t really matter. He was already in trouble, what’s a couple more hours gonna do?
Simon groaned, turning partway to face Xavier. “Yeah. Yeah, my dad might be up still. He probably wouldn’t give a shit, but being drunk right now. That might look bad.”
Xavier nodded. “Yeah, we’re all on thin ice.”
Simon pulled his seat back up, rubbing at his forehead. “I got car-grounded two weeks ago for staying all night with it at the school. My mom had to get a ride to work and she was pissed.”
Xavier frowned. “You were sleeping at the school?”
“It was an accident,” Simon claimed. He frowned. “Why would I want to sleep there? There’s like, a dozen invisible people who could be watching me at any moment. Freak shit.”
Xavier nodded. He was kinda glad he didn’t know about the school ghosts before seeing them himself at the hospital, he couldn’t imagine being any more paranoid that first day he came back to school, convinced there were hundreds of eyes judging him, trying to figure out if he was a sociopath or a murderer or whatever. If he had known one of them was his maybe-dead ex-girlfriend?
At his silence, Simon continued. “McDonald’s sounds good, man. French fries,” he chuckled, “potatoes and salt. Sucks up liquor, right?”
He hiccupped again, giggling. “Sorry. I don’t know why I feel so drunk. I’ve drank more and been fine.”
“You’re good, dude.” Xavier rolled his eyes. “You’ve seen me worse, and you haven’t even seen me close to my worst.”
Simon frowned at that but nodded. “No drugs until you’re all healed up though, right?”
“Yeah, no complaints here,” Xavier huffed, “my head already hurts like I’ve got the worst hangover of my life.”
He started up the engine of Simon’s car. It didn’t have navigation built in—neither did Xavier’s truck, to be fair—so he glanced at Maps on his phone before shifting the car out of park. The McDonald’s wasn’t far. Technically a town over, but that was, like, four miles at most.
“I should get drunk more,” Simon suddenly blurted out. “I’m all sad but I don’t feel bad about it.”
Xavier frowned. “Not to tell you what to do, man, but I’m not gonna sign off on that.”
“Like you don’t do the same thing.” Simon scoffed.
“Yeah, and I suck, man. I cheat on girls and punch walls and shit.”
Simon probably wouldn’t remember the details of anything that happened tonight, but maybe Xavier could push him away, subconsciously or whatever, from being as much of a fuckup as he was. He had a bright future ahead of him. Or he’d had one, before all this, at least.
“You should pay for my McDonald’s,” Simon said a minute later. “I’ve got, like, three gallons of gas to pay for.”
“Sure, man.” Not much else to spend his money on nowadays.
Now Playing: Mercury – Steve Lacy
“Can I ask about it?”
Simon dipped another fry into his McFlurry. Not exactly a balanced diet, or really that filling. He’d said that a burger would make him throw up, and he had maybe three of the chicken nuggets Xavier had bought for them to share. At least he was eating, Xavier supposed. And he was sobering up, a bit. Not slurring his speech much, or hiccupping at all anymore after basically chugging his Hi-C.
“Ask about what?”
Simon looked up at him squinting. “Why’d you cheat on Maddie?”
It felt like all the air was sucked out of the car. The crickets and other noise-making bugs outside suddenly seemed very interesting and very loud. Xavier fidgeted with the straw of his Coke.
“You feel bad, but—” Simon paused, like he was thinking of the right words, “—I mean, you still did it. Would you feel bad if Maddie didn’t go missing? If she never found out?”
“I always felt bad about it,” Xavier argued, pit growing in his stomach. “I felt more guilty about possibly causing her to…y’know, than the cheating itself, but I felt bad about all of it from the start.”
Just not bad enough to actually quit doing it or come clean, he thought to himself. That realization stung nearly as bad as his guilt.
“Yeah, but why’d you do it.” It wasn’t really posed like a question. Simon’s thousand-yard stare was back, trained up at him. Xavier tried not to look shifty, keeping the eye contact. “You were just that…horny?” Simon laughed, like any of this was funny. “You weren’t really that into her? You didn’t respect her?”
That sharpness that had gradually left Simon’s tone with him was back in full force, like if Xavier fucked up here he was getting tackled in the school hallway again. He couldn’t blame him, of course, but it fucking sucked to be reminded that the closest thing he had to a friend fucking resented him too.
Xavier swallowed. “It doesn’t matter why I did it. Explaining it would just sound like an excuse. It was shitty no matter what. To her and Claire.”
“You really think Claire was as broken up about the whole thing?” Simon ate another fry, aggressively somehow. Rapid little bites.
“She really liked me, I think. Genuinely.” Xavier admitted. “More than I liked her. It was shallow teenager shit that made her interested in me, though. Popular cheerleader, troubled loner, whatever. Couldn’t be my personality,” Xavier laughed, not really finding it funny.
Xavier paused, trying to think of what to say next. He gauged Simon’s reaction, looking for that anger. He looked less tense, more contemplative. Maybe he was getting sleepy again. But it felt good to talk about this to someone. Simon won’t remember this tomorrow, anyways. Not well, at least. He took another sip of Coke.
“She was worried about me a lot,” he continued. “I mean, all the time, but when the whole school thought I…I think she thought I was gonna kill myself.” He swallowed. “I wasn’t going to, swear. But I ignored her texts for days until she showed up at my house, worried. I barely talked to her, freaked out when she touched me. Still didn’t text her afterwards. I think that made her snap to her senses.”
Simon shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I mean, she still went to Homecoming with you. And that looked really bad,” he scrunched up his mouth. “I don’t know if you heard any of it, but people were really calling her some horrible stuff. Even her ‘friends’ on the cheer squad. About you too, but it honestly was par for the course, after the initial shit.” Simon paused again. “Sorry. For making you do that. I mean, I really did think it could’ve been Claire or…y’know. I was running out of suspects, and sanity.” He let out a breathy laugh.
“You said it was Maddie’s idea anyways, right?” Simon nodded hesitantly. “See, you’re fine. My just desserts, or whatever. Claire didn’t deserve that shit though.”
It made a lot of sense, in hindsight. Simon didn’t seem to have a romantic bone in his body but wrote that text to Claire off the top of his head. He flipped between finding Xavier suspicious and including him in his investigations rapidly. He called Xavier hot, then said he needed to be hotter, for some reason. Probably all Maddie.
“But what’s any of that have to do with you and Maddie?” Simon shifted in his seat. “Cheating on her, I mean.”
“What do you want to hear, man?” It wasn’t fair, but Xavier felt defensive. Exasperated. “You were right. I was horny and stupid.”
Simon didn’t say anything in response. Just squinted, like he didn’t believe him. Xavier wasn’t sure anymore about how he wanted him to react. Anger might be okay. Anything but silence.
“I was…having a weird week, the first time it happened, but I kept hooking up with Claire after that.” Xavier exhaled. “Didn’t even feel that guilty about it until, like, the third time. And I felt way more guilty about being caught or Maddie’s feelings being hurt then about the cheating.”
Xavier paused, thinking back on the last week of August, leading into September. “I don’t know what was up with me that first week.” He admitted. “I was, like, throwing bottles at the shed wall and stealing money from my dad. Did Maddie tell you about the rat?”
Simon frowned. “What rat?”
“Nothing, never mind.” He sighed, relieved Simon didn’t know that, at least. “I’m fucking 17. I need to get my shit under control. Can’t be throwing temper tantrums like a baby.”
Now Playing: After Hours – The Velvet Underground
Simon finished up his fries and his McFlurry and immediately grabbed all of his and Xavier’s trash, running back to the cans by the doors of the McDonald’s. Xavier watched him fully sprint across the parking lot and back, confused.
“Sorry, I just had to manage the trash.” Simon explained, solemnly nodding.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Simon nodded again. “Last time I got drunk, I broke down like twenty drink boxes while the party was dying. And took out the recycling twice?” His face scrunched up. “Why do I clean? I hate cleaning.”
Xavier laughed. “I kinda thought you were lying about being drunk before, to be honest.”
“I’ve only been really drunk, like, twice. Parties with my cousins.” Simon was now opening and closing his hands repeatedly, like a kid grasping for a toy out of reach. “Maddie doesn’t like it. You already know that, though.”
“Yeah.” Xavier remembered getting some lectures, mostly lighthearted, from Maddie about drinking and smoking. He mostly refrained from doing it around her, figuring she was just that much of a straight-edge nerd type, no harm to it.
“I didn’t realize how bad her mom was doing,” Simon suddenly admitted. “Like I knew about the drinking, and my parents made some comments about other stuff I wasn’t really supposed to know about, like that she’s probably—”
Simon cut himself off, frowning. “Sorry, I shouldn’t say that.”
“No worries, man.” Xavier shifted the car into reverse and started pulling out of the lot. “Privacy and all that. I didn’t realize your guys’ parents knew each other that well, though. Mrs. Nears talks like she doesn’t really get along with anyone in town anymore.”
“Why do you—oh, you go to her house.” Simon turned to stare at Xavier, focusing like he was a puzzle. “She doesn’t, really. My parents are just nosy, always diagnosing people. Half my family’s nurses, and all that, so they just. I dunno, they’re not polite about shit, but they don’t mean anything bad by it, usually.”
Xavier wasn’t sure he really understood, but he nodded. “You’re gonna be the black sheep of the family then? Mr. Film, uh, Director? Do you wanna direct?”
“I’ll do any part of it,” Simon said, voice still hoarse and raspy. “I mean, Maddie’s a way better writer than me, so I’ll probably try to be better in something else. Can’t compete with her. I dunno, really…”
Simon trailed off, gazing through the windshield at the empty intersection of Split River, red and yellow stoplights flashing. Xavier waited for him to continue.
“I mean, if they still did big practical effects in movies, I’d totally wanna do that. You ever seen An American Werewolf in London?” Simon asked. Xavier shook his head. “It’s awesome, dude. First Oscar for makeup, I think. I saw that when I was like ten, and thought it was the coolest thing in the world. Gross but artistic, you know?”
“Not really,” Xavier admitted, “I’ve got a weak stomach.”
Simon huffed. “Well, whatever. They don’t really do much of that anymore, and I’m not a good, like, painter or anything anyways. Doing prop stuff would be cool. Or blood splatter!” He sat up, grinning. “That would be awesome.”
“Of course you’re a gore guy.”
“Not just gore!” Simon argued. “I just like cool shit happening on screen. Movies should look cool. And not all that gross alien CGI.
“That’s why B-movies and low-budget indie shit are great,” he continued, “even when, like, half of them suck. You look at it and go, ‘wow, some guy thought to grind red velvet cake through a meat grinder to look like raw meat!’” He laughed.
“None of it freaks you out?” Xavier questioned. “Not even, like, people getting their eyes poked out?” The worst.
“Not usually,” Simon said, “but when it does, that just means they did a good job, so I don’t stay scared. It’s not real, you know? When I’m afraid, it’s not real fear. I’m in control.”
“I’m not a good enough compartmentalizer, I guess.” Xavier replied. “Somebody’s, like, neck gets grabbed, and suddenly my neck hurts.”
“You just gotta get desensitized,” Simon nodded, fiddling with his hands. “We can work up your tolerance. I mean, that kind of shit got to me as a little kid, but I got over it, and now I love this shit.”
“As a little kid?” Xavier frowned. “When did you start watching horror movies?”
“I mean, I saw a few in elementary school, but I didn’t really care until I was like ten at least. But my parents used to freak me out with work stories. ER patients and hospice and all that. My mom had this one story, about this kid—oh.” Simon paused. “You don’t wanna hear this shit.”
“No, go ahead.” Xavier braced himself.
Simon frowned. “No, you don’t, it’s really gross. Uh, short version: eight-year-old boy sucked into train. Some vortex shit.”
“…that can happen?”
“If you stand too close to something moving really fast,” he explained, “so I was terrified until I was, like, seven, that cars driving too fast on the streets would suck me up into them, even though that wasn’t really how it worked at all.”
“I guess that’s why movie gore doesn’t scare you, then.” Xavier tried to erase the image from his mind.
“I guess so.” Simon shrugged. He didn’t speak for a minute. “What do you wanna do?”
“Like, right now?” Xavier asked. “Sleep, mostly. My head’s still hurting.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Simon looked bashful. “I meant, like, your future.”
“I dunno. I applied to a couple colleges. Nothing like Northwestern, though.” He was an okay student, taking a couple of AP courses with Maddie (and Simon), and doing well enough so far—a month into senior year—to get that GPA boost. Got a 5 on his AP music theory test last spring, although he certainly wasn’t going to repeat that on any other exam.
“What, you don’t wanna be Sheriff?” Simon grinned. “Afraid you’ll look bad in uniform?”
Xavier rolled his eyes. “Yeah, don’t hold your breath on me becoming a cop.”
“Yeah, I figured, man. What majors did you sign up for?”
“Undecided, mostly.” He kinda wanted to do something music-related, but it’s not like he was anything special at it. “My dad thinks I should do vocational school instead. Like a mechanics course or something, since I like shop class.”
Simon gave him a weird look. “Yeah, but what do you wanna do?”
“C’mon,” Xavier frowned, “I thought I’d be arrested for murder or dead, like, two weeks ago.” He saw Simon scoff at that, but it wasn’t a lie. It was a stupid thought, since he didn’t actually kill anyone, but he really thought his life would be over, one way or another. “I’ll figure something out when Maddie’s back in her body, and everybody’s okay again. It’s hard to care about the distant future right now.”
“Yeah.” Simon frowned at that.
Xavier pulled into the Elroys’ driveway, making sure to turn off the headlights before they shone into the house. He put the car in park and unplugged his phone. Simon was already out of the car, standing a few feet up the driveway. Xavier stepped out and threw the keys at him.
Simon completely missed them, reaching out far too late. He grabbed them off the ground. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Xavier said with a small smile. “See you tomorrow?”
“Totally.”
Xavier made his way back down the driveway, reaching the sidewalk before Simon interrupted. “Wait.”
“Yeah?”
Simon frowned. “Are you walking home?”
“…Yeah.”
“Now? Alone?”
“I’m not gonna take your car, dude.” Xavier said. “You’ll get grounded again.”
“You’re not walking home alone at…” Simon checked his phone. “12:30. You live, like, five miles away.”
“It’s definitely not nearly that far.” He rebuked.
“Whatever. You’ll die or get possessed by Janet or something. She already ran you over. Or you’ll pass out in the middle of the street.” Simon stared hard at him, like he actually believed that. “You look ready to collapse, man.”
“You don’t need to worry about me.” Xavier buried his hands in his pockets. “My dad’s expecting me at home, anyw—"
“Shut up. I’ve got a pullout bed Maddie always uses.” Simon, a bit unsteady, spun around, footsteps echoing down the street. He started walking towards the side door, not once looking back at Xavier. “Just follow me, asshole.”