I’m about to offer my turn to someone else when Genevieve stands up, a little wobbly. She raises one arm above her head and trails one leg up the other until she kind of resembles a flamingo—a wasted flamingo. “I wanted to be a ballerina badly. Owned tights and everything.” She stumbles and Baby Freddy catches her. “I was never good enough so I mock the girls who are.” She sits down next to me and nudges my shoulder with hers. “I guess you forgot.”

Skinny-Dave and Fat-Dave hiss like something is sizzling, and Me-Crazy chimes in with, “You got burned!”

I glance at everyone clockwise . . .

Brendan unties his shoelaces so he can tie them again.

Thomas pulls out his phone and I bet anything he’s typing nonsense to no one.

And everyone else is just drinking or looking like they feel very fucking sorry for me. Maybe they feel sorry for her.

“It’s only a game,” Genevieve says, shrugging. “Thomas, you should totally open up Aaron’s present.”

Holy shit, my girlfriend has the biggest balls ever.

“Present time!” Thomas shouts, killing zero tension.

Crystal’s drunk friend tosses Thomas the gift-wrapped present.

“It’s nothing big,” I say.

Thomas unwraps it and rocks forward laughing. “This is awesome!”

“It’s a toy,” Genevieve says.

“It’s Buzz Lightyear!” Thomas breaks Buzz free from the box and presses a button on his wrist; red lights blink.

Fat-Dave asks, “From Toy Story?”

Me-Crazy says, “Me-Crazy likes the talking piggy bank.”

Thomas goes into the whole story about how his asshole father said he would give him Buzz Lightyear for his ninth birthday and just drove away. “I’ve been waiting for this guy for so long. Thanks, Stretch.” He reaches over and we fist-bump. “Nope. Not good enough. Get up.”

I stand and he full on hugs me, none of this one-arm hug with a pat-on-the-back nonsense.

Reasons Why I’m Feeling Warm Right Now:

    I downed my drink pretty quickly on a fairly empty stomach.

 Everyone on the roof is staring at us.

 My unspeakable truth.

“No homo.”

“No homo,” I say back.

Everyone resumes drinking but Thomas sticks around. “Stretch, seriously: best birthday since I celebrated my sixth birthday at Disney World. Getting me Buzz Lightyear just made you beat Mickey Mouse.”

“I mean, Mickey Mouse never stood a chance, did he?”

“I have an idea on how I could top this night on your birthday.”

“It’s not a competition, dude.”

“Game on,” Thomas says with a smile. He leaves to grab another drink.

Maybe an hour or so later, the bottles are all empty and everyone clears out. I stop helping Thomas clean up because Genevieve is pretty damn drunk and needs to get home, so we bounce.

I’ve been trying to hail her a cab for a couple minutes now without much luck.

If the tension between us were a person, I would snap its neck and kick the corpse for good measure.

“I’m losing you again,” Genevieve cries.

“No you’re not, Gen—”

“Yes I am! Yes the fuck I am!” She’s crying harder and I don’t know what to say. A cab pulls up and she opens the door.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“You shouldn’t have to fucking ask if you should fucking take me home, Aaron!” I try to follow her into the cab but she pushes me back. “Not tonight. I’m going home alone to go punch a pillow or something. We can figure this out tomorrow.” She closes the door and the cab takes off.

I should chase after the cab. But the impulse isn’t there. In my head, I play a round of One Truth and a Lie.

I need Thomas to be happy. I need Genevieve to be happy.

I can’t keep lying to myself about the truth.

2

THE WAR INSIDE ME

   It’s been nonstop raining the past couple of days, which sucks for a lot of reasons. Genevieve has been using it as an excuse for why she can’t hang with me, even if I know it’s because she wants more time away from me. I can’t play any card games with Thomas on his rooftop, or go on any job-hunting adventures with him. And I can’t stay outside and lose myself in a game of manhunt or Skelzies or anything without risking pneumonia. If there’s anything worse than being stuck in the smallest home ever with thoughts I shouldn’t be left alone with, it’s being stuck while coughing all over my brother’s stuff, who will in turn get sick, and then cough all over my stuff . . . and will get me sick again in a cruel, cruel cycle of screwing each other over until we’re both so immune we could eat candy off the floor of Washington Hospital’s ER.

But Mom has tasked me with post office duty today.

My little cousin’s birthday is tomorrow, and she needs me to overnight a gift to Albany. The umbrella I leave with gets its ass kicked by the wind within two minutes, and while paying twenty dollars for an umbrella has always seemed excessive to me, having to buy a new five-dollar umbrella every single time it rains just seems like shitty math on my behalf.

I walk the block to the post office, my bad mood growing heavier like a backpack of big-ass bricks I’m calling “THE WAR INSIDE ME.” The heaviest bricks are “GENEVIEVE HATES ME” and “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THOMAS” and “I STILL MISS DAD.”

The last brick weighs the most right now. This is the first time I’ve come near his old workplace since we lost him. When I was a kid I’d pretend I was a security guard outside the bedroom door, and only Mom would entertain my high-five fee if she wanted to enter, whereas Eric would storm past me.

The package is getting wet, and I’m risking pneumonia, so I rush inside before I can change my mind and walk the twelve blocks to the second-nearest post office. The line isn’t too bad. No one here recognizes me as the kid of the security guard who killed himself, so that’s a plus. The clerk hands me my receipt and on my way out, I spot Evangeline sitting down on the wooden bench by the envelopes and stationery, writing a postcard.

“Evangeline, hey,” I say.

She looks up. “Hey, kiddo. What brings you here?”

“Mailing some plush giraffe to my little cousin for her birthday. Who you writing to?”

“I broke some hearts back in London and promised to keep in touch. Didn’t give them my email either. It’s better this way.” Evangeline shows me all of the ten postcards she’s sending out. She signs her name and writes today’s date on a Yankee Stadium postcard. “Phillip was a sweet one, but his brother was falling for me too. I couldn’t come between family.”