Summertime

Chapter Fourteen-Shut Up and Kiss Me

The next morning I was in a foul mood. Apparently being happy the night before forced me to be short tempered and miserable in the morning. My hands were trembling as I forced down my breakfast of Power Pup. No one at the table spoke—not even Lace.

“I want to go out and kill Dracs,” Vine Spider suddenly said in a very small voice. I could tell by her bloodshot eyes that she had been up all night crying.

“We need to do more than just kill Dracs,” I muttered, “We need to bring down all of Better Living Industries. For them. And us.”

“How are we going to do that? There’s—what—seven of us? Not including Dr. D. and Show Pony. How are we supposed to bring down an entire corporation with just seven people?” Absolute Zero demanded.

“There are more Killjoys out there. Much, much more than just us,” I said quietly, “If we can get that old radio to work again…just maybe…we could get together a sort of group of Killjoys and—”

“Ghost, this isn’t some kind of fantasy story, okay? We’re not about to assemble an army and bring down the bad guys because good always wins,” Noise Flag snapped.

“Well, we could try! Imagine, if we got all of the Killjoys out in the desert together, we could be an unstoppable force! Killjoys are smarter than Dracs, anyways, so even if we are outnumbered—”

“It would never work,” Noise scoffed. I slammed down my can of Power Pup and stood up so fast I knocked over my chair.

“Well I’m sorry for fucking trying to help!” I screamed at her. I whirled around and stormed out of the diner, barely suppressing tears.

I went to my own little thinking spot not far from the diner. It was a small rocky overhang that I liked to sit under, where I had hung out when I wanted to be by myself. I threw myself down onto the sand and started chucking pebbles into the desert.

Not five minutes after I had sat down, I heard footsteps and Atomic Urgency appeared beside me. He sat down and I hastily wiped my eyes.

“You know, you don’t have to follow me everywhere!” I snarled at him.

“Last night we agreed that we were there for each other. I’m here for you now,” he said gently.

“I don’t need you to ‘be here for me’ or any romancey shit like that! Last night, I was half asleep and practically mad with grief. I didn’t mean anything I said!” I yelled at him.

“Okay,” he said simply.

 Furious, I turned and struck him across the face. He gasped and touched his hand to his cheek, but said nothing. I glared at him, waiting for him to yell or hit me back or something.

“Why don’t you get angry at me?!” I screamed. He looked up at me with a weak smile.

“You’re just not making me mad,” he said simply. I slapped him again, this time across the other cheek. For a minute he hesitated, and then he grabbed me.

I shrieked at first, only because I thought he was going to hit me. But instead of beating me to a pulp, he pulled me into a hug. I sat there with his arms around me, trembling, before I groaned and hugged him back.

“I hate you!” I snarled into his shoulder.

“I know,” he said. I laughed and pushed him away.

“You’re always…making me smile…or laugh…and you’re just too nice,” I growled in frustration. I grabbed a fistful of sand and let it sift through my fingers.

“So basically you hate me because you like me?” he asked.

“Pretty much,” I muttered.

He laughed, and I had to pinch myself before a smile crept onto my face. I continued playing with the sand, and there was a very long pause between us.