Lone (BxB)

Chapter 2

"Hey, Danielle," said my nard friend, Ryan.

"I told you not to call me that..."

"You said I could."

"I regret that..."

Ryan had invited me over to his house. He's a scrawny, super tall guy with brown hair and high-prescription glasses. He and I were on and off constantly. It was the same pattern: He irritates me somehow, I get mad at him, we pretend to hate each other, and then he starts talking to me again knowing that I'll respond because... I don't know...

Currently, we were playing on his PS4 some sort of brawling game that he was crazy good at... And I thought I was the Brawl King.

"Maybe when it comes to Smash Bros, you're number one, but when it comes to these games, you don't stand a chance."

"Had I known the basic controls and figured out earlier that your character is custom made with DLC power-ups, I would have decided that this is not a fair game to play," I said as I threw the controller on the table. "Make this any other game, particularly Nintendo, and I would have wiped the floor with ya."

"Some talk for a lonely loser who doesn't see the light of day."

"Looks who's talking."

I'd like to think that this was just playful bickering.

"Whatever," I said as I opened my laptop to my email.

He peeped over my shoulder as always to see if I have anything juicy in my inbox.

"Is that Andy?" he asks, pointing to an email address that reminds me of a demon ready to swallow.

"What about him-her?"

"Gah, tell me their gender!"

"Why should I?"

"I just want to know! It's been killing me!"

"Why do you care about the gender of my ex-who-isn't-even-my-ex? At this point I really don't."

"I'm just really curious! You like never tell me anything and expect me to just be there whenever when you don't have to do anything for me!"

He did not just say that to me... Who helped him ace his math midterm? Who helped him study for all his science tests? Who wrote basically more than half of his essays that he scored an A on? Who sacrificed track so that he could be in a sport that's not even challenging? Who was it that took such a big hit that ended up getting a mom to think her son needs therapy? Who was it that forgave him for every single time he hid something important from me, talked trash about me behind my back, low-key dissed me in almost every conversation, and for calling me a tool that everyone uses when he's the definition of the handy man?!

Yeah, no, I don't EVER do anything for him, of course. He's obviously there for me much more than anyone else.

Like that time I went online to find myself being lured in by predators and he just said that I'll probably find someone online. Or that time I was really nervous about entering gymnastics for the first time and he openly called me a Holocaust survivor. Or that time I was crying so hard from a fight with my family and he straight-out said that he doesn't want to hear about my life and that I probably aggravated my so-called family. Or that time he got me into so much trouble and ignored every word about how I was suffering from my mom's disappointment just because he thinks he was the only one who had it bad (just a note, I was told that I'm not getting enough love, that I'm probably a depressed weirdo, and that I need serious therapy).