Chapter 3

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“Wait, wait, wait. Who’s Finn again?”

Lying upside down over the edge of my bed, I rolled my eyes, even though Isak couldn’t see me over the phone. I’d ended up dangling right in the view of the mirror, meaning I was now staring at my upturned reflection while the accented voice of my best friend sounded in my ear. Unfortunately, my lack of gravitational direction was not improving the out-of-control curl situation, and my hair currently looked as if it had been zapped with an electric current. Add this to the way my face was slowly coloring as the blood rushed to my head, and I wasn’t really sure why I’d chosen to lie like this in the first place.

“Seriously, Isak? Have you not been listening to anything I just said?”

In the background, I could hear a blaring TV; it sounded like a high speed car chase. Considering the way he kept trailing off every few seconds, occasionally pausing to swear in Swedish, I knew he was engrossed in his newest video game.

That was, after all, how Isak and I had come to be friends in the first place. I had turned into a partial video game nerd somewhere in middle school – probably around the time I stopped hanging out with Finn, because I had to do something with all my newfound spare time. Freshman year, I got into an argument with some foreign kid via the game headset over his cheating habit, which continued every time we got placed on opposite teams. I wasn’t entirely sure how it happened, but at some point the verbal insults had turned into a sort-of-brutal friendship, and we’d been close ever since. Well, as close as we could be when he lived five thousand miles away, and we had never met in person.

Isak topped anybody I’d ever met at high school. Even if our friendship did have to be long distance.

He swore again in Swedish, before switching to a language I could actually understand. “Goddamn police,” he shouted, way louder than necessary, and at nobody that could actually hear him. “Get off my ass!”

Isak.

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“You know, the game has a pause button,” I said, though I knew my best friend would sooner hang up on me than use it. When it came to anything involving virtual car chases, or any kind of zombie apocalypse, there were few things you could do to drag him away.

“No need, I’m multi-tasking.” Another round of sirens started up, but I could sense Isak’s attention had settled a little. “Who’s Finn? I’m sure you’ve never mentioned anybody called Finn before.”

“That’s because I haven’t had to think about Finn in six years.”

“So, hold on, let me get this straight.” Isak paused. “This guy used to be your best friend, then turned into a jerk and cheated off your test, and now he’s trying to be your friend again by inviting you to a party?”

“I don’t think he’s trying to be my friend,” I pointed out. “It’s his half-ass way of apologizing, I think. Maybe this kind of thing is just etiquette when you’re popular.”

“You know,” Isak said thoughtfully, “if you get popular now, I’m going to officially crown you as the world’s biggest hypocrite.”

“I’m not going to be popular.”

“Good, because I still need somebody to play video games with me, and a hectic schedule of partying might interfere with that. I’m thinking of getting you to sign a contract and everything. You know, just to make sure.”

“So what should I do? Do I go to this thing?” I pulled a face at my reflection, as if this would prove to somebody the extent of my dilemma, before swiftly realizing how tragic this was. There were certain side effects of having a best friend in a different country, and unfortunately, I had experienced all of them.

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