Sometimes, you have to slap a bitch to have a little peace. I believe Gandhi said that, or something. I guess. The point I'm trying to make is that, sometimes, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Of peace. A peace omelet. Unless you flip it too early and you get the scrambled eggs of shame and cowardice.
You know what? Lemme try it again. I'm mixing my metaphors here and having a little too many scramble eggs of shame here.
I want nothing more than peace. I want to be left alone, to my own devices, and finish this everlasting Sisyphean horrorshow I call high school to go back in my room, tap Amazon Prime Foods directly into my veins, and work 24/7 as a customer support rep. That's my dream. But I can't have my cake and eat it too. Which, hell, it's my cake, goddammit! I'll eat it if I want to.
The point is, to have peace, I have to go to war. And if I have to jump into the arms of fate to defy it, then gobble gobble, bitch, cuz I'm gonna latch on Fate's ample bosom and suck it dry.
You get the point. Save Hayden and Brayden so that I don't have to explain why there are two handsome corpses sucked drier than a Capri Sun, and having to move to a different school. Easy enough, right?
Well, now I have to hammer that to Goofy McDracula over there, who, having finished his meal, is walking towards the door, menacingly.
I try to block him from exiting, but just like Brayden did a few chapters ago, I bounce out of his springy black chest hair. It feels bad, man...but surprisingly soft. I settle with putting my hand against his chest and at least offer some friction between him and the door.
"Yo, where are you going?" I ask.
He looks down at me with his piercing azure-aquamarine-sapphire orbs, sending a primal fear down my DNA telling me that this puppy is about to eat me if I don't move. "This place is tainted,
Compromised by that beast girl,
I will hide for now."
"Look, Okayden, buddy, friend," I say, giving him my best Brayden impression, "I admit, I might've fucked up by letting your PCL into the school. My bad. But still, you gotta help me get those two backs."
Okayden, like a mountain against a typhoon, refuses to budge a centimeter, or an inch, for those of us whose unit of measurement was crafted by a drunk alchemist rolling a die, and drags me ever closer to the exit.
"Trying to help would be,
Like a lion chasing a mouse,
Pointless, and no meat."
Okay...then. He doesn't want to put his skin on the line. That's fair. Except, that's b.s! I mean, it's not his fault to be what he is. Neither that the crazy vampire/werewolf lady is all up in his business. But he definitely is somewhat responsible. Damn his ten abs and perfect posture!
Maybe there's a way I can negotiate with him? He's a bad boy werewolf/vampire that doesn't wanna be, you know, a bad boy werewolf/vampire. Maybe he has a dream like us! If I can appeal to his dream, maybe I can make him help us. Maybe. I tend to say maybe a lot when I'm nervous.
"Look, Okayden," I say, gently scratching his pecs, which, as my theory suggested, made him drum his happy little foot like a puppy discovering that humans give the best belly-rubs, enough to at least keep him from barreling forward. "I have a dream. That dream is to graduate high school without a sudden pregnant wife, or part of a cult, or having to save the world from a wizard because I'm the chosen one or something. I just wanna buckle down, serve as a customer service rep for some random company that will dehumanize me and use me as a disposable commodity, and die happy and alone. I'm sure you have a dream too, right?"
He continues to stare deep into my soul, all while moving his cute, if huge, dog drumstick up and down.
"No," he says in one fell swoop. No haiku, no nothing. Just a dry and curt word.
This is gonna take a little more effort than I thought.
I move my hand to scratch the back of his ear, which makes him hunch over and his whole body goes into a fit of shivers. He whimpers even once in a while, which means he must like it.
"C'mon, you must have something you like," I say. "How about reading? I've seen you read shit all the time. Do you like reading? You can read more at peace here than into the woods, where vampires and werewolves live, or something."
Again, even though he is enjoying the petting of his life from my gentle and supple hands, he is stalwart in his determination to be the biggest nuisance he can.
"No," he says again.
"Bullshit," I say, getting my second hand in there. God, he's so soft. "I've seen it. Your eyes are glued to a book every moment of every day. Don't lie to me."
Suddenly, he jets upwards, knocking me behind a few feet. Instead of moving forwards, like I thought he would, he produces a small book from his back pocket. Well. Small in his hand. The book is a normal book size. Very much a book. He hands me said book for inspection.
Yep, this is a book.
"Open, you ignorant,
For the truth lies within it,
Of my true passion."
So he does like something! See? I knew it. All of us reluctant bad boys have something we need, whether we like it or not.
I open the book to see what lies inside, what is his true passion. The title reads "Lord Of The Flies," but what rests inside is something as far removed as you can think of.
Inside, taped to each page, are pictures of feet. And drawings of feet. Anatomical information about feet, feet pics from people around the school, and even short poems about feet.
This guy is a fetishist.
"So," I say, feeling my face beat red from embarrassment, "you like feet?"
He nods.
"Well, everyone has a fetish, and I respect it," I say.
Okayden, however, shakes his head from side to side.
"What? They don't get you off?" I ask.
He gently takes the book out of my hand and places it back where it came from, proceeding to then take his right boot off.
"Aren't we all drawn in,
To the things we don't possess,
In my case, is feet."
To punctuate the whole thing, he points at his own feet. Or, rather, his lack thereof. All he has in soft pads, or toe beans, as the people of the internet say.
To have a foot fetish because you don't have feet and are curious to see them is something a reptilian would say. Maybe that's why we have never seen Tilda Swinton's feet. Food for thought.
But I can work with that. I'll need a shower after, but I can work with that.
"Okay, then. This is what we're gonna do. If you help me get those two back, I'll let you tinker with my feet all you want. You help me, I help you. De-"
He doesn't even wait for me to finish before he jumps over me like an overexcited puppy when his master comes back from work, toppling me over, which only makes it that much easier for him to lick me all over the face with his surprisingly moist tongue. Moist. Moist. Weird word to say out loud.
I push him off me, which makes him go on all fours while spinning in place. "Okay, okay, Jesus. Right, then, how do we kill the girl?"
"It's impossible,
Cannot kill that who is dead,
We can trap it, though."
Ugh, I figured out as much. "How do we trap her."
"Easy, we push her away," he says, standing back up and moving to the kitchen where he grabs two soup ladles and twists them into a believable catholic cross. "Using a cross and water,
Of the holy type."
"Eh, if a cross works so well, why isn't it affecting you?" I ask.
He rummages through the fur of his chest and pulls up a teeny-tiny necklace with an even smaller star attached to it.
Of course, he's Jewish. A cross doesn't affect him.
"Great. How do we get holy water?" I ask.
He again rummages through his pockets and takes out a smartphone. "Fiverr has priests, see?
We can pay one to bless it,
We need clean water."
Man, you can get anything from the Internet these days. "Clean water, gotcha."
I move to the sink and turn out the water faucet, and...nothing. Not a damn thing.
"What the hell?" I say.
"The school doesn't possess it,
Pure water, that is, because,
Budget cuts, you see?"
Damn Reaganomics! Always screwing with the little people! But wait, maybe we can use the hotdog water!
Seems like Okayden has the same idea as me, but he shakes his head dismissively.
"It's no use, Ayden,
The hot-dog water pollutes,
Even a clean well."
These metrics are getting contrived, Jesus. But I get it. Then, where did he get the water for the hot dogs in the first place?
I turn around, only to see two huge tubs of water with labels. One says "Hot Dog Water — Used 15 Times" in Sharpie. Some questions are meant to be unanswered.
Where can I get pure, unaltered water in a school with no clean water? Besides peeing, of course.
Think, Ayden, think!
If only there was a source of water I can use.
Unfiltered, purified spring water. Maybe in a can.
Hmmm...you know, maybe we can knock two birds with one stone.