The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Reality Bites

Previously: "The Kiss-Off" 

It's a wonder you don't haul her out of the car by her hair and grind her face into the parking lot. Because that's exactly what you want to do.

But you keep your self control, even as you step inside the car door, and kneel to put your face close to Yumi's.

"Listen," you hiss at her. "I don't know what you think you're doing. Do you think you're dumping me before I can dump you? Is that it, is that—? Do you think that's all it was about, what we did, yesterday and this weekend, it was just about me looking to score, looking to score offa you? Is that what you think of me?"

You feel yourself start to tremble all over. "Are you trying to get in the last word first? Is that what you're trying to do, trying to tell me it was fun but I can fuck off now, before I can—? You trying to scrape me off before I can scrape you off? Are you tryin' to preserve your fucking pride?"

Yumi's eyes widen, and her mouth forms a perfect "o".

"'Cos if it's not that, then what was all that shit yesterday, out at the motel and out at the river? What was that shit about me walkin' and talkin' with you between classes, walkin' you out to your locker and out to your classes, and getting me to skip so's I can have lunch with you? The fuck did you think all that meant?"

You have to pause to draw a deep, ragged breath. Yumi says, "I just— I just—"

"'Cos I'll tell you what the fuck it meant to me, you— Yumi," you correct yourself before you can call her a cunt. "It meant I was fucking serious about you. Yeah!" Your voice cracks. "Fucking serious! Serious enough that I'd do that shit with you!"

You half-choke on the bile that's welling up in your throat.

"You wanted to hang out, so I hung out. Yeah, maybe I was also thinking, yeah, I got a chance to score here. But you wanted to hang out, and I hung out, and that was great. And we had fun, we rocked the Donna hard yesterday."

You punch yourself in the chest with a hard forefinger.

"But you fucked up, Yumi, you fucked up because you talked to me. You talked to me, and you told me about your shit and you made me fucking like you. Yeah! I got to thinking, I fucking like this girl, not just, I'd like to fuck her. I. Fucking. Like her!"

You straighten up with a glare. She's gone as white as a sheet.

"But now you wanna break it all off, like it never happened. You wanna go back to how it was last week, the week before. Okay, sure, we can do that, we can do whatever the fuck you want. 'Cos I'm not a psycho, I'm not like some obsessed stalker. Fuck, if we go back to the way it was, it just means I'm free to go off and score with some other girl, some other bint someplace. Which'll be fucking awesome."

You catch your breath, blink, and think, Yeah, right, as fucking if.

"But at least pay me the fucking common courtesy, you— Yumi. Of breaking up with me! Because you can say we weren't going together. But we were! And fuck you if you say otherwise!"

You grasp the top of the car door. "You all inside there? Fingers, skirt, feet all in? Good. 'Cos I don't wanna hurt you." You slam the car door on her.

And the blow of its closing almost jars tears from your eyes.

* * * * *

The fuck are you doing? The fuck do you think you're doing?

That was your challenge to Yumi. But it's also your challenge to yourself. You bruise your eyes with the heel of your hand, and brood as you rocket across town, to where you've got a couple of appointments to keep.

Yumi is going to break up with Chen. Of course she is. Chelsea would be crazy not to, now that her real boyfriend is on the market again. She probably told Eva and Jessica as much, which is why Mike and Carlos came out to jeer at you at lunch.

And it will be for the best. If she breaks up with Chen, then you won't have to play his part any more. You can take off the mask and go back to being Jenny, or you can find yourself another beta to replace Chen—maybe turn yourself into Gordon—and go on for there. And it would be good (as the others keep pointing out) for Yumi not to be mixed up with Chen.

So what the fuck were you doing by blowing up at her that way? What the fuck did you think you were accomplishing by more or less declaring Gary Chen's undying devotion to Yumi Saito?

Part of it (you will tell the others if they ask) is you just being in character. That explosion of rage and desire came straight from Chen himself. You know, because you can still feeling his boiling desire, and his fury at being rejected, roiling your guts. It's been very easy for you to act his part—maybe too easy, the others would say—and that scene in the parking lot, just as much as the scene at lunch—

And in the Donna and at the diner and at the river and at Kirkham's and at all the points in between—

All that was you letting Gary Chen take control and express himself. Like, would Will Prescott ever goad four basketball players into following him out to the portables so he could whip their asses?

But part of it, you brood, has to be yourself.

We never said we were going out together.

Maybe Chen would be pissed at Yumi for saying that to him. But would he have been stung quite so hard as you were? Didn't you enjoy that scene just a little more than he would have, because it gave you a chance to yell certain things at one girl—Yumi Saito—that you wish you could have yelled at another?

Except—

And here you can almost hear Gary sniggering at you.

Except that Gary had a lot more reason to think that Yumi was into him, than Will Prescott ever had to think that Lisa Yarborough was.

Fuck.

So you can only get laid as Gary Chen, and you can only have a satisfying break-up as him too. And you can only fight off the bullies by being him and you can only have good talks with friends (like Kirkham and Roth) as him. It's like the motherfucker's twice as real as you, and you had to steal everything from him so you could find out what it's like to actually be real.

So maybe that's how come you blew up at Yumi. Because giving up Yumi means giving up on being someone who makes you feel more alive and real than you've ever felt before.

* * * * *

"She told me it was because she was sick of Gordon's shit," Maria Vasquez tells you a little later, when you're meeting at the storage complex. "But," she adds, "she hasn't been talking to me as much as, uh, Chelsea usually does."

It's just the two of you, and you're talking about "Chelsea" because you don't want to talk about "Yumi." In fact, you don't want to talk at all, and concentrate on the takeout you picked up at your aunt's restaurant. You shovel it in, listening keenly to what Maria has to say, and prompting her between mouthfuls with questions of only three or four words.

"Frankly," Maria continues, "I think this is just Yumi's way of getting even with Chelsea because of what Chelsea is doing with, uh—" She bites her lip. "With you."

Makes sense. "When'd she do it?" you ask. "Break up wit'im, I mean."

"Yesterday afternoon, I guess. She didn't tell me until afterwards. I heard it from Kendra first, actually. She texted me with the news, asked what I knew about it, so I texted Chelsea. She just texted me back— Well, here." She takes out her cell phone.

"Ungh, I don't need'a see. Wha'd Gordon do?"

"I don't know what he said to her. It broke the lunch table up, though. It was interesting." She frowns thoughtfully. "Everyone got together today at lunch at first, as usual, except Gordon and Chelsea didn't sit together. She took the middle, her usual spot. He went down to the end. Everyone kind of spread out, guys down by him, girls up by Chelsea. It was pretty tense. You know."

"Can imagine."

"Gordon finally lost his temper, stormed off over to another table. Steve and the other guys followed him. Chelsea got called a couple of names. Interesting that he broke first."

"How come?"

"Because she got custody of the table. It's the alpha table, Will," she explains in a tired tone. "The one in the middle, you know. I guess it shows that the status game—at least for the cafeteria table—is more important to Chelsea than it is to Gordon."

You swallow a piece of pork, sniff, and fluff the rice. "Yeah, well, Gordon knows that if anyone gets lippy he can just pile drive them into the quad. Chelsea needs the table to prove she's the queen bee."

Maria studies you. Then she says, "Which reminds me, that fight you had yesterday? That was pretty impressive."

"Thanks."

"No, seriously, it was—"

You're spared further embarrassment by footsteps in the hallway. Jenny leaps in through the doorway.

"Guys!" she gasps. "Will!" she exclaims when she sees you. "You'll never guess! Chelsea asked you out on a date!"

You frown. Jenny jumps into the room and clutches at you. "Did you hear what I said?'

"Yeah, but what are you talking about? Chelsea didn't ask me nothing. Unless you're talking about Yumi, and then it was—"

"No, I'm talking about you! Will Prescott! The guy at school who everyone thinks is you!"

The dipshit? You've hardly spared a thought for him since—

"The head cheerleader," Jenny says. "She asked him out on a date!"

Next: "Unexpected Objects of Desire" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"