#GirlsShitToo

"People are shipping you"

Thursday, I invited Benny to come to lunch with me and Dylan, because I could tell he felt lonely since Alex and Justine were having a lunch date with just the two of them. So lunch turned into the three of us listening to Ride the Lightning and eating bagels while I complained about my failure and he complained about Alex and Justine.

"Adree won, again," I said. "I suck."

"He's hanging out with her so much," Benny said from the front seat next to me, ignoring me completely, his mind on Alex.

"It's alright," I held Benny's hand. "Breakups are hard, I know."

"Shut up," he tossed my hands aside.

"Justine is way cool. I don't know why you don't like her."

"I do like her."

"Maybe that's the problem," Dylan said from the backseat, leaning forward. "There's no end in sight for you. She's too cool and you know she'll last."

Benny nodded sadly, slathering the other half of his cinnamon sugar bagel with strawberry cream cheese.

"You're lucky the masculinity police aren't here," I told him. "That bagel is ridiculously girly."

"I will no longer deprive myself of things just because they're 'girly,'" he said. "I like nail polish and umbrellas and pink bagels, and that's just fine."

"Will you finally admit that it was you who decided to quit the football team, and that your mom didn't force you?"

Benny remained silent.

"Will you at least ask Sydney out?" I said, taking a fingerful of his cream cheese for tasting. "She keeps tweeting you!"

Benny looked from me to Dylan, knowing Dylan and Sydney were besties, and frowned at me.

"Dylan already knows you like her," I said.

"Don't worry," Dylan said. "I won't tell her. I don't understand why you're such a chicken that you won't even talk to her. It's not like you haven't talked to girls before."

"Okay, look. The reason I don't want to talk to Sydney is....whenever I try to talk to girls things get messy. It's like they like me less after I talk."

"Maybe it's because you always try to talk over them," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Look, don't get all defensive, it's just something I see you do sometimes. Girls will be trying to tell you something interesting, but you'll interrupt to tell them something you think is more interesting. Or they'll be telling you about something, but you'll interrupt them because you think you know more. Lots of guys do it—you aren't alone."

"You do it to me, too," Dylan said.

Benny got defensive, looking at me and saying. "I listen to you all the time!"

"Maybe because you view me as being more like a dude?"

After considering me for a moment, he said, "Well, you know what I think? I think you should go out with Adree."

Sitting up straighter, I wondered what to say, having not told him or Dylan or anyone else besides Eric and Valerie that I might've started crushing on Adree.

"Why do you think that?"

"Eric might have told me you have a crush on her," Benny admitted.

"That traitor!"

"That's kind of how it feels when you tell Dylan about my crushes," said Benny, gesturing to a blushing Dylan in the backseat.

Looking at Dylan, I said, "Point taken." Then I said, "But...I'm pretty sure Adree's straight."

But I wasn't pretty sure. I wasn't even kinda sure. The end of her vlog, where she had talked about how I conflicted her, had been really weird. I conflicted her, apparently, and that reminded me of how my crush on Valerie had also conflicted me, when I had had a crush on Valerie. But now all I could think about was Adree. How she'd come over to my house and sat close to me on my bed, then made us lay down next to each other in the grass, and how she'd even held my hand at one point...

"I saw her making out with Trish Regali once at a party," Benny said.

"Really?" I asked.

"Really really."

"Well how drunk was she?"

"Probably pretty drunk."

"Doesn't count then. Girls make out with each other when they're drunk because guys like girl-on-girl action, not always because they like it themselves. They like the attention."

"You weren't even there. But sometimes I think that all girls are lesbians. And that's fine with me. They're easier to talk to when they act that way."

"I wish that were true," I said.

Benny took both of my hands, and looked me in the eyes. "You conflict me, Dallas."

Now it was my turn to shove him off. "Shut up!"

"Well, I think Eric was holding out hope that you would start liking him," Dylan told me.

"Eric?" said Benny in disbelief. "Of course she won't. She's a lesbian, and he's a dude. She would never like me!"

"But he does have a vagina. And things aren't always so black and white, Benny."

"He still has a vagina?" Benny asked, like it was the first time he'd ever thought about it, like he'd assumed that just because Eric had had top surgery it must've meant he'd had bottom surgery, too.

Right then the worst thing that could happen happened: Eric got into the car, in the right-side backseat. "Sup dudes?"

Benny and I exchanged glances, and Dylan quickly said, "Nothing," the worst actor ever, totally unconvincing.

Eric looked at all of us, unbelieving. "I kind of get the feeling I just walked in on you guys talking about me."

"Benny was wondering if you've had bottom surgery." Dylan tried to act casual as he spread cream cheese on the other half of his bagel, and I watched him in the rearview mirror, feeling awkward and embarrassed.

Eric looked at Benny, who just sort of shrugged at him, and then at the rest of us. "Guys, I would appreciate it if you didn't discuss my private parts, especially without me. I wouldn't talk about your private parts with my friends. If you really want to know, just ask me. Haven't I told you all that before?"

We all nodded.

Then he said, "Truthfully, I don't know. I've thought a lot about it, but I'm conflicted. I mean, I'm still a guy, whether or not I do that. And you can lose sensation down there with those surgeries. Is that really worth it?"

"Maybe you should just be bold and decisive, since you're a man," Dylan said, clearly talking to me and not Eric.

"So you're conflicted about surgery, and Dallas is conflicted about Adree..." Benny said, trying to ease the tension.

"I don't know why you're conflicted, Dallas," Eric said. "It's more than obvious she likes you. And the Internet is shipping you, hard. People are calling you Dalladree."

"Dalladree!" Dylan and Benny said in unison, like a pair of songbirds.

I didn't mind: the name had a ring to it.