"But are you going to kill her off?"

"Are you insane? I love her character, she stays."

"Yeah, well the only thing love's done is put you in this position; I say kill her off!"

"Yeah, but you say a lot of things... and how does that work? You're a bicycle"

--Coheed & Cambria—Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood & Burial)

-

Yoshi’s the Real Enemy

-

Things I’ve learned From Super Mario 64 during my 8 years of playing it:

1. It’s perfectly normal to rip shells off of giant turtles and throw them at perceived enemies.

2. It’s necessary to shout “woo-hoo” if you want to double the height of your jump.

3. Penguins are assholes.

4. There’s no reason to fear ghosts. All you have to do it punch them in the butt and they die…again.

5. Walking hunks of marble are pussies.

6. Swimming is anatomically impossible for Italian plumbers.

7. It’s not dorky to earn a gold star.

8. The laws of gravity can be suspended if you have the proper attire. Try a bright red hat to complement your outfit!

9. Rabbits are difficult to capture with your bare hands, but it’s possible.

10. Art is to be desecrated and conquered.

Mario 64 has neglected to teach me anything about romance. Maybe most of my problems come from the fact that I consider Mario a legitimate way to learn about the world. Most things in the game aren’t exactly applicable to real life. Except that there are only a few good guys and worlds-full of some really bad dudes who make inarticulate noises of fury for no reason. What did I/Mario do to them?

Nothing.

Example number one: The ninny next door. AKA Bowser. I don’t really have any other examples. He’s the number one enemy. He hasn’t exactly imprisoned my princess, but there are little things that irritate me.

Number one little thing that bothers me: His HUGE FUCKING PARTIES.

I get it, dude. You’re popular. People love you and celebrate their love for you by getting drunk. And loud. The whole world doesn’t need to know how awesome you are. It might disagree. Especially when your drunken hooligan friends go stumbling into my backyard and nearly kill themselves with the pool cover. You’d think one of these asshole macho man-dudes would have seen Lethal Weapon.

I don’t even know how they managed to scale the fence. There’s got to be some massive dexterity involved. Or a large hole dug under it, which might explain why we kept losing our dog before he stayed lost. But even if that’s the case, it’s not my fault these friends of his have a fetish for asphyxiation.

I’m a reasonable person. I have yet to call the cops because I get the need to party. I understand. I do it. We all do it at some point. But every night of the weekend, every weekend? Weekends that tend to start on Thursday and sometime Wednesday nights? Unreasonable, friend Bowser. Mario is pissed. Mario doesn’t get pissed often. I don’t think he has angry noises in his repertoire.

Tex Frazier has managed to become the bane of my existence and we haven’t even officially met. Our only form of communication is the beer cans thrown over my fence, and it’s pretty obvious what that says. “Fuck you, Hetty. You are life’s garbage dump. I spit on you. Ptooey.”

It’s the splashes and screams that wake me from my stupor. I’ve been staring at the TV screen, blindly, probably for at least a half-hour, because I know I wouldn’t willingly watch Everybody Loves Raymond. This is what happens when you do weed, kids. You see terrible, terrible things by accident. Don’t do shrooms and watch TV. It’s an awful wasteland of melting faces, and Debra’s already scary enough.

Come to think of it, is this show always on? Seriously? This is probably what TV in Hell is like. An eternity of 5 billion channels of Raymond on repeat.

Now I’ve gone and terrified myself.

I ease off the couch with a scowl, directing my attention toward the backyard and wondering whether it’s worth arming myself against potential ragamuffinry. How do you arm yourself against idiots? I’ve been told I can get violent; I don’t want to go overboard. The sole weapon in our house is a lead pipe, and I think I’d get squeamish if I had to bash someone’s head in. Other weaponry I can deal with. I am, after all, well-versed in shell-hurling and the aiming of cannons. And virtual chess. But I’m not sure that will help me now.

By the time I decide to play savior and enter the backyard through the kitchen, the morons have already managed to disentangle themselves, although one’s still latched onto the collapsed pool cover like he’s going to be sucked away by an errant undertow.

“Oi!” I bellow, popping my hip saucily. I’m wearing embarrassing pajama pants, a big sweatshirt, and my normally straight, light brown hair is in one giant knot, tangled up with my hair-tie. Not the best get-up for serious confrontation. “Are you having fun?”

There are three of them, but only two are wet. The dry one’s dangling from a branch of the awesome climbing tree we have in our yard. It’s my baby. This idiot’s trying to climb up my baby!

What a jerk.

“Yes, fair lady, yes.” The one on the tree lets one arm dangle as he circles his legs around the branch. “This is like a freakin’ jungle gym!”

His excitement softens my anger. “It’s God’s jungle gym. How did you get in here?” I demand, taking the back stairs one step at a time so I don’t fall down them and thereby lose this wonderful high I’ve been working up to all night. It’s gotten to the point where I’m about to fall asleep, but there’s no way I’m leaving these people back here to dangle off of God’s jungle gym and generally act like monkeys who are bound to drown themselves even if they somehow managed to extricate themselves from the deadly situation the first time it happened. Luck runs out, man. It’s how the world works.

The guy on the tree waves vaguely in a westerly direction. Then he cocks his head, trying to see me straight. He has a very serious look on his face. “Have you ever caught a squirrel with a lacrosse stick?”

I’m about halfway across the yard now, gingerly squishing past the guys at the poolside so I can speak with their leader and perhaps convince them all to leave me in peace. The pounding of the music at Tex’s house is scratchy from volume. I bob along with the beat before I can stop myself, and the guy grins again.

It’s then, when I get close enough to see him in the light of the house behind mine, that I realize it’s Tex himself. His shaggy black hair is sticking out in all directions, and his brown eyes are bleary. He’s wearing a hoodie and long shorts, leaving his legs bare despite the temperature.

Oh hell naw. Not in my backyard.

“You,” I hiss. He looks at me in astonishment, using a great feat of strength to heave himself atop the branch and peer down at me.

“You,” he replied in confusion, pointing at me haphazardly as an after-thought.

“You don’t get to say that,” I admonish. His mouth opens in an ‘o’ shape. I’m surprised he’s not insulting me. I didn’t expect him to be so weird. He’s unshaven and happy-looking.

“Why would you climb a fence from over” I wave vaguely like he did earlier “there just to climb a tree?”

“Are you kidding? This tree is fantastic. I always wanted to climb it when I was little.” He bobs his head in a nod. “Totally cogent reason.”

He says this in such a surfer-dude tone that I’m astonished. Like this was such a reasonable whimsy to let guide him? Whimsy! At his age?!

And what a vocabulary. Far wider range than Bowser has ever had. Or Mario, for that matter. And why do I keep making so many references to Mario? It’s the only game I’ve played for an extended period of time, and Nintendo 64 is my only gaming system besides my Gameboy Advance. Sure, I’ve played Ocarina of Time, but Mario is the only game that manages to keep my attention. I have yet to encounter Yoshi in this game, although there are a plethora of Yoshies in Yoshi’s Story. Where are these other Yoshies when I need them? Do they all die in their end of their video game? Is it only the strongest Yoshi that survives? Did he…kill all the other Yoshies? Is he, in actually, the boss of bosses? Is he the final opponent, when he turns on Mario and attempts to send him plummeting off the top of Princess Peach’s castle?

Yeah, I’ve never finished any of my games.

Moving on.

“That is not a co—“ I stop myself and take a breath, taking the moment to peer back at the intruder hiding in the foliage and wonder why it was I dislike him so much. I don’t usually dislike someone for no reason.

Well, except my brother, but he soon proved to be pretty annoying so I was validated in the end and my parents like me more now. That could just be because they’ve heard of his wenching ways in that far-off college that isn’t as Ivy League as they wanted.

“Please get down,” I finally say. He responds by pulling himself up to the next branch. With a growl, I recognize the challenge, and with skill born of years of experience and the decision that I’d rather not break my tailbone again, I start up after him. He grins widely.

“Monkey-girl. You’re the girl next door!”

“I am not the girl next door. This is my door and you are the boy next door.” That doesn’t really make sense to me even as I say it. I pull myself into a standing position against the trunk and glare up at him. He’s hovering over me, stretched out on the limb at my eye-level. “Don’t get comfortable. The tree is mine.”

“The tree belongs to everyone,” he says grandly, clutching himself against it in a hug. I study him and allow myself to be amused. This is not drunkenness.

“Legally, no.” I nudge him gently, enough to set him off balance but not enough to send him plummeting to the ground. He still glares.

“You always look so angry with me,” Tex says randomly. “Or are you just always angry.”

My jaw drops. Me, angry? I’m the happiest, most relaxed person in the world!

“I…”

Then again, I have loathed him for what seems like forever. I plunge ahead anyway.

“I don’t get angry. You’re imagining things.”

“Oh, when it comes to you, I’m definitely imagining some things,” he says with a lazy wink. I grimace.

“Just get off the tree, Texas.”

“You know that’s not my name, right Hawaii?”

I scowl. “Fine, Tex—”

“Great, Hetty.”

His friends by the pool hail my enemy and shout something about beer pong. He waves them on and then focuses back on me with a half-smile.

“You know I’m not really concerned with knowing anything about you, right?” I demand.

“See, you are hostile.”

“You said angry.”

“Where’s the line between them?” he asks in exasperation.

“Hostility,” I declare, relaxing back on his branch and rubbing my hands together against the cold, “Involves keeping someone away. Anger is a less purposeful emotion. It just is.” I sweep my arms out to emphasize this. I realize he’s laughing and I’m not sure how to take his response to my meaningful reply.

“You are so high,” he says. I narrow my eyes.

“I am not. You are!”

“Maybe the answer is C) both of the above,” he suggests cockily. I cross my arms.

“You know, if we had an epic battle up here, I would win. It’s how it’s supposed to go. This is my tower.”

“Are you crazy?” He asks it curiously, not in a horrified tone. He also pokes his head inside my personal bubble, so I back away toward the trunk again.

“No. Just stubborn. I’m not getting down until you get down,” I say resolutely.

He just shrugs. “Well, you’ll be up here awhile because I’m going to stay up here until the amusement I gain from your annoyance has all been used up.”

“This is why I’m always angry at you,” I say.

“So you admit it!” he declares triumphantly.

“Of course you were right. It’s fairly obvious. I’ve never tried being nice to you, have I?”

“Why is that? What did I ever do to you?”

It’s my turn to shrug. “Just…you annoy me…sometimes.”

“You haven’t met me till now.”

“But I experience all the loudness constantly exploding from your side of the fence, and I know what kind of guy you are.”

Now he seems all serious, leaning in and trying to meet my eyes, although it’s dark and I can’t really tell if I’m meeting his eyes anyway. But when he opens his mouth to what I think is going to be an attempt to vindicate himself, what I hear instead is, “Hetty Rose, what are you doing climbing a tree in the dark? You know how dangerous that is!”

Tex freezes up like he’s been caught, which really he has been, like the criminal he is.

“Who is that?” my dad asks, crossing the yard to stare into the branches.

“It’s just the kid next—“

“Oh, Tex, right?” he asks. Tex nods, looking surprised and a little nervous. My dad’s pretty big and intimidating, so I don’t blame him. I’d be nervous too if I didn’t know what a teddy-bear he is. He used to be a boxer and now he works in D.C., doing something pretty secretive involving security. All I have to do is bat my green eyes at him and he caves like an anthill. But when he says someone’s name, he says it like he recognizes it from one of the giant files in his file cabinet full of the full life-history of every person in the world. He says it like he knows that they stole chocolate from the local convenience store when they were 9.

“I know all about you,” Dad says in his deadly voice. I guess the way he says that is pretty scary as well. I have to choke a giggle, looking instead to see Tex’s reaction.

The arrogant boy next door is more than a little nervous.

“Daddy, he’s just climbing the tree. You know how awesome this tree is.”

My dad gives me a dubious glance. “I know how much it’s cost us in hospital bills.” He fastens a glare on both of us in turn. “Get down soon.” And then he heads inside.

Tex lets out a low whistle. “Your dad’s a big’un.”

I laugh. “He didn’t give me any of his height. More’s the pity.”

“I see where the intense personality comes from.”

“What?”

“I mean, come one, you’re so tense.”

“I am not,” I protest, appalled. I am laid-back! I’m a stoner, for Pete’s sake. There’s a long pause, and I shift my eyes over to him and he smiles slow and wide. He makes the universal sign for smoking another bowl, and I shake my head even as I dig into my pockets and toss my pouch at him. He nearly falls off the branch trying to catch it..

“Wait, your dad?” he asks.

“He doesn’t care. Aw, does he scare you?”

“Yes,” he says with complete serious. “Yes, he does. He’s always scared me. You want to know the reason I never trick-or-treated at your house?”

“Not rea—“

“Well,” he continues as if I haven’t just tried to shut him down. “I think I was about five, and I came outside, full of happiness and hope for the night and all the candy I might collect while dressed oh-so adorably in my bumble-bee costume, and then I see your dad.” He pauses significantly. “He was dressed…as the Grim Reaper. And I took one look, screamed really, really loudly, and ran back inside.”

“And you haven’t been trick-or-treating since,” I say gravely. He gives me a look.

“Are you crazy? Not get free candy because of some creepy next-door neighbor? No.” He shakes his head and leans back on the trunk as he packs the bowl in his lap. “No, after that, I dressed up as whatever BAMF I was into. Like Superman and Gene Simmons. That way if I ever ran into Death I could fight him off.”

“You were going to challenge him to a duel of face paint?” I ask.

Tex rolls his eyes. “You wouldn’t understand. You’re a girl.”

I decide to let that slide. He passes me the bowl and I dig for a lighter.

“I’ve never talked to you,” he muses. I snort.

“I know. I was there, too.” I light and pull in, waiting until the admittedly harsh strain hits the back of my throat. I blow the smoke in his face.

“I didn’t know you smoked, is where I was going with that,” he says, accepting the bowl back from me. I pass him the lighter and settle back to watch him.

“What I know about you consists of your trash.”

“What?” he asks, coughing violently as he exhales. I nod pointedly at the beer cans sitting by the pool where his friends left them. Tex actually winces. “Sorry about that.” His voice is still weak from the hit but he doesn’t sound very sorry anyway. “It’s all about convenience.”

“You party a lot.” And I realize I sound like a complete ninny, and take a hit to banish the ninniness.

He shrugs. Then he lets out a long breath. “I don’t even know why I want to tell you this.” He shakes his head and continues, a lot more serious than he has been in our conversation. “My parents are always gone. Like, always. Every weekend and most of the week. It’s just me. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and I hate being adopted into other families. That’s how I went through pretty much all of my childhood, and—“

He breaks off. I don’t think he’s going to continue, but I’d guess he doesn’t like to depend on people. The bowl gets passed a few more times.

“What about you? Why aren’t you hanging out with people on this fine Friday night?”

“I don’t have any friends,” I say with a straight face. “I have my dolls. They love me just the way I am.”

He looks distinctly freaked out, and I burst into laughter. It doesn’t take long to realize I’m not going to be able to stop.

“Well, I definitely didn’t know you were crazy,” he mutters.

I finally regain control of myself in time to take my turn, and then I answer truthfully. “A lot of them are still away at college. I tend to hang out with older people.”

“Ah, beer connections.”

“Yes, that’s why,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “No, I do have friends from school. A few close ones, who for some reason are all dating each other.”

“Kinky.”

“Shut up,” I groan, hitting his dangling ankle half-heartedly.

“We could make them jealous,” he says, intentionally deepening his voice.

“How?” I ask to humor him.

“Well, I’m hot, you’re hot. Let’s do a superhot rumba that will shame everyday dancers in the recital of love.”

I stare at him, slack-jawed by his fabulous metaphor.

And then we’re both completely geeking out. “I never..knew…you were…insane,” I gasp out, clutching my stomach and waving the bowl away when he tries to give it to me.

“It’s done,” he’s able to say. He sets his hand on my head as we both calm down, and I let him leave it there while I knock the ash out of the bowl and put it away. He’s right. He is hot. And while I may be a virgin, I’m a frustrated one who appreciates drop-dead sexiness in the opposite gender.

“You know,” I say after awhile of just sitting there silently. “We should hang out.”

“I do have homework sometimes, you know,” is all he says in response to me putting myself out there. I gently knock his hand off my head.

“I don’t smoke all the time,” I say, a little offended, but not really. “We could have…homework parties. Those would be less damaging to my backyard.”

“Homework parties,” he says with a complete lack of enthusiasm. I smile widely. He’s actually a pretty cool guy.

“Wanna play Mario Kart?”

“Do I ever!”

“Oh, man, the pain!” he cries an hour later, throwing down the controller.

I smirk at him. “I’m guessing you’re talking about your ass since that’s where I just raped you.”

Tex’s jaw drops an instant before he bursts into laughter. He pulls me with him as he leans back into the sofa. My eyes feel a little puffy and the exhaustion has returned. It’s only midnight.

“Are your friends destroying your house right now?”

“Probably. They’re not really my friends, so they don’t try to behave.” I can feel the rumble of his voice against my side and I snuggle closer as he wraps an arm around my waist. The warmth and sleepiness I’m feeling hit me fully, then, and I fall asleep to the feel of his chest falling and rising.

I wake up when he moves away from me, and I automatically look to the clock. It’s about 2 AM, so I’d guess he fell asleep, too. Tex turns slightly once he’s perched on the edge of the sofa, and I rest my head against the cushions to mumble a goodbye.

My vision is muzzy and the room is dark, so when his mouth bumps against mine, it’s completely unexpected.

But I respond anyway. Of course.

I sink back further as he kisses me slowly and silently, one of his hands resting on my hip and the other supporting himself against me. When his hand moves so that his thumb traces my jaw-line and his fingers warm the back of my neck, I think that maybe he’s not just making drunken, high advances. Maybe Tex is a nice guy that my stubbornness has kept me from getting to know.

“Homework parties, then?” he hums against my lips. My hands are flattened against his back, and I shift one to run it lightly over his hair, mussing it slightly. I brush his lips lightly with mine. He pulls me over so that I sprawl on top of him.

I glare.

We’re lucky the couch is so big, or we would have long before now found ourselves in an ungainly heap on the dirty carpet. The sounds from next door are still loud and hopping. Has he just spent the peak hours of his party here with me? Asleep on a couch? In front of Mario Kart!?

Tex twists a little to reach into his pocket while I hold onto his shoulders and wiggle so I’m in more of a sitting position on his lap, and he gives me back my lighter. This is the most surprising and wonderful thing he could have done; it’s my favorite lighter. The black one. Does the color of my lighter say anything about me as a person? I’ve never thought that, but I know people who do.

“Thank you,” I say with way too much emphasis on those words. He tucks his fingers just inside the waistline of my jeans, tickling the very low part of my back. My legs tighten reflexively. I feel like I’m towering above him.

“Yeah, you owe me, now.”

“Why, because you didn’t steal it?” I gasp in mock outrage.

“Well, for that, and for giving you the most outrageously awesome make-out session of your short life-span.”

I raise an eyebrow, not sure whether I should push away from him. “I think I already repaid that in kind?”

My pride depends on his answer, as does the state of the butterflies bombarding around my stomach, and my skyrocketing pulse.

Tex smiles slow and fully, his brown eyes half-closed. “Yeah, I think…maybe you did.”

Then he narrows his eyes at me. “I really do have to get homework done, though, so I’m not sure how much these ‘homework parties’ will allow for that.”

“Well, maybe I just won’t feel or smoke you up during daylight hours, from 7 to 7, morning to night, so I don’t distract you.”

He sits up as well so that I have to lean back, and he catches my hips again to keep me against him. “Aw, screw homework.”

I shake a finger at him and he just tries to lick it.

“You seriously want to hang out?” he asks me almost disbelievingly.

“Well, what about you?” I ask defensively.

“I do,” he says.

There’s a long pause between us.

I clear my throat. “Well, I guess we’re married now.”

The laughter starts in his chest and doesn’t stop.

-

A/N: I think maybe this story advances a little too quickly and is not very realistic, but I thought I’d post it anyway because it’s what I’ve been doing instead of studying for final exams.

P.S. can you tell me if the tense ever changes to past tense? I’m not used to writing in present.

A selection of what I was listening to when writing this:

Magic Carpet Ride Steppenwolf

Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood & Burial) Coheed & Cambria

Carpal Tunnel of Love Fall Out Boy

Pass the Buck Stereophonics

Thanks to Overheardinnewyork dot com for its funny quotes, one of which I’ve incorporated in this chapter and you’ll have to discover for yourself.

And the lyrics at the beginning have nothing to do with the story, I just like them.