Back to Blake. He walks toward the front door. Even though he has to know there’s a strong possibility that I’m going to let out a battle cry and charge at him, he’s not moving like somebody who expects to be attacked. I’ll have to be cautious. He may have a can of mace.
“You suck,” I tell him.
“May I explain myself?”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to be successful.”
“To answer the question that’s on your mind, yes, I’m the reason Audrey broke up with you.”
I attack.
If a college scout saw this tackle, they’d immediately offer me a football scholarship, and I would begin an exciting new era of my life. Sadly, there are no scouts to witness this amazing feat. We both hit the ground hard, and I hope that Blake landed on a spot of grass that’s laden with fire ants, millions of enraged fire ants going sting, sting, sting until his back swells up like a water balloon.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything too violent. I’m still fully in control of my temper. I’m going to rough him up a little, maybe generate a few small bruises, but he won’t end up in the hospital or anything like that.
Okay, yeah, I do throw a punch at his face. He blocks it though and rolls on top of me.
Suddenly, I am the one whose back is vulnerable to fire ants. Wait. Blake is winning this fight?
Yep. He sure is.
He’s got me pinned to the ground, and my best efforts to break free are an embarrassing failure. If the football scout walks by now, I won’t even get an offer to be the towel boy. (“Sorry, Mr. Conklin. Better luck next year.”)
I am really, really, really surprised to be losing, but I suppose it makes sense. If you’re as unlikable as Blake, you’d learn to defend yourself.
“Let me go!” I snarl.
“Stop snarling first.”
“Let me go, or I’ll scream!”
You now know that my account of these events is one hundred percent accurate because I would’ve otherwise left out the part where I said to let me go or I’d scream.
“Are you ready to discuss this calmly?” Blake asks.
“No!”
Blake slaps me across the face. Not hard enough to expose skull, but hard enough to remind me that I should be ashamed of how I’m faring in this fight.
“Are you ready now?” he asks.
“Getting closer.”
Blake slaps me again. This one is an extremely light slap, clearly designed to send the message that I’m losing so badly that he doesn’t need to make any further efforts to subdue me.
I land a punch to his jaw. Then I immediately apologize. Not for hurting him, but because it was such a weak, inept punch that it’s an insult for me to have even thrown it. I can’t even pretend that I did it that way on purpose. That was one shameful punch.
Blake does that trick where he mimics plucking my nose off my face and then pretends that his thumb is my nose, though he stops short of saying, “Got your nose!”
I throw another punch that completely misses, even though Blake is right on top of me and I shouldn’t have been able to miss even if I had Tyrannosaurus rex arms.
“Are you going to make me honk your nose?” asks Blake.
“Maybe!”
“I don’t want to do it.”
I struggle to regain the upper hand in this war. I fail.
“Please don’t make me honk your nose,” says Blake. “You don’t deserve that.”
I continue to struggle. Surely, this time I’ll successfully… Nope.
I have to surrender. I could survive the nose-steal fake-out, but if word gets out that my cousin honked my nose during combat, I’ll have no friends left.
Or I could pretend to surrender, wait for him to lower his defenses, and then strike!
Nah, that’s tacky.
“I give up,” I say.
“You sure?”
“Yes.” Especially because Audrey might change her mind and ride back to my house to un–break up with me, in which case, she’d see Blake giving me a fierce whupping and then leave again, feeling most disappointed in me.
“Good.” Blake stands. I hope he doesn’t extend a hand to help me up because that will increase my level of humiliation by two or three degrees, but of course, he does. I let him help me up in a show of comradery.
We take a moment to catch our breath, by which I mean I take a moment to catch my breath while Blake waits patiently.
“What were we talking about again?” he asks.
“You drove Audrey away from me.”
“Right. That.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“Would you believe me if I said I was trying to help you?”
“Probably not.”
“Well, I was.”
“So if I were sinking in quicksand, you’d help by driving over me with a Humvee?”
“Did you—”
“Hold on,” I say. I brush some ants and grass off my back. I pull up my shirt and turn around. “Are there any more?”
“A few. Want me to take care of them?”
“Yeah.”
Blake brushes my back.
“I think there’s one in my armpit,” I say.
“I’m not touching that one.”
I remove the pit ant myself and lower my shirt. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
“You were saying?”
“Did you see the way the ladies were looking at you during the show?”
“No,” I say. “I was focused on the music like a professional.”
“Well, I saw them.”
“How? You were standing in the back.”
“I walked around the club a little.”
“I didn’t see you move.”
“Do you want me to prove it?” Blake asks. “Do you want to send the bottom of my shoes to forensics? I assure you that there are substances on those soles that you won’t find anywhere else in the world.”
“Fine. You saw girls looking at
