Portrait of a McFly on Fire - A Back to the Future Inspired Short Story

Portrait of a McFly on Fire

1:35 PM, Thursday.

"Michael, wake up!" I sigh, nudging his limp shoulder and grabbing a napkin to dab away the drool from his lip.
His eyes open against the harsh lights, but remain half-hooded, not ready to commit to awakeness yet, "Sorry, sorry, how long was I out?"
"I let you get a solid 10."
"Oh man, that means I better get started on these pizza rolls then, huh?"
They had long since grown cold, their artificial sauce growing cracks as it solidified in a way that made my stomach turn.
"Yep, and did you get that paper done? The one on Jazz from…what was it?"
"Jazz from the 1980s? Uh, not yet."
"Not yet?" I sweep my strawberry blonde bangs off my forehead so I can nurse its ache with my palm, "Michael, 'not yet' is not an option, it's literally due in 20 minutes."
He tried to smile back at me in the carefree way he normally could, while I could see sweat making the lines in his oily, pale forehead into olympic swimming lanes, his loose brown hair sticking to his face, he looked like he was gonna hurl.
"You can't go to class like this, could you go to the guidance counselor or the nurse or something?"
"Guidance counselor?" His voice hushes, his eyes scrunching up, he was looking at me like I was insane, "Sabrina, they're gonna snitch to my mom and dad. Then they're gonna get all worried, like they love to do, and they probably won't let me leave the house or whatever and then I definitely can't save Diana. So no, no Sabrina." He said this as if it was totally obvious.
I sigh. Oh right, I remember, this is about "saving Diana", as if this isn't all I've heard about all day.
"Come on, Sabrina, this isn't funny. My sister is going to die tomorrow, can you imagine how terrifying that is for me? And she won't even talk to me!" He whines, poking at his pizza roll before popping it into his mouth with an all too granular crunch.
"Well you gotta stop saying stuff like that! You're scaring her, you're scaring me too."
"I know! Just- could you talk to her sometime today, please?"
"Michael-"
"Come on! Don't you believe me?" He grips my shoulders and looks into my eyes with unwavering determination.
I shudder, I want to believe, I want to. "Fine. Just not now, eat your pizza rolls."

11:15 PM, Last Monday.

 
The TV's soft white glow looked different from so close. Michael's shoulder was jammed into my ribcage, almost uncomfortably, but it was nice to be so close. Sunday bad movie nights were the best, but maybe this one wasn't the best choice.
"Oh man!" Michael sighs after what seems like five minutes of him laughing into my shirt, "That's the last time I let you pick the movie, this is a porno!"
"No it's not! No one ever talks about this movie having an aggressive amount of sex scenes!" I giggle, looking at the paused frame on the screen of a bare man's buttocks, "Okay, it does kinda look like a porn."
We both laugh until our bodies run out of steam and we both sink into the couch, collapsing together. I shuffled deeper into the couch's warmth, feeling the grit of the microscopic grains of popcorn, chips, fragments of dead pillbugs. Michael made me forget all that. He was soft, he always wore some smooth sweater and bothered to style his brown hair most of the time into a gently slicked back quiff. I buried my face in his shoulder as I laughed, laughed, laughed.
"So, you're sure your mom is okay with me staying over?"
"Of course, Mike. She loves you, she'd let you sleep in my bed if you wanted."
Michael chuckles, "Dude, what are we, five again? Want to take a bath together too while we're at it? My mom still parades those photos around."
My cheeks break out in a fervent blush, "I'm just saying! The option is there, this couch has cheerios in it and stuff."
"Midnight snack." Mike picked up some morsels of lint from between the cushions and mimed airplaning it into my mouth as I squirmed and cackled, "Ew! You're so gross."
His laugh was good natured and steady and I could feel its pulsations against my ribs as we lay there, "Yeah, I'm pretty gross."
I shut my eyes and lean into his shoulder, "Yeah, gross."
"Speaking of gross, I have some girl news for you."
I don't lift my head and reach to the deepest air deposits in my lungs to squeak out a faux-excited, "Oh yeah…historically my favorite kind of news. Whattaya got, Mike?"
"So, you're gonna love this, she's named Megan."
"You're dating my little sister?"
"No! Completely unrelated Megan. I just thought you'd…you know, you'd think it was funny. She's older than Megan, obviously. She's a college girl, on the rowing team and she's, like, crazy smart. You would love her, she's a lot like you."
That jabbed sharper into my heart than anything else. Mike had a habit of looking for girls who would never give him any attention, looking for a counterfeit of what's always been right in front of him. Yeah, he's turned me down once or twice but we also kissed that one New Years. So I tend to have a constant lamentation of what the hell is he thinking?
"Have you two been on a date yet?"
"Well… no, we've been talking on this dating app for about a month, but we have a meeting place arranged and everything for this Wednesday."
"That's great, Mike." I mutter, half listening as I bury my face in his shoulder, feigning sleepiness as I desperately try to suck my emerging tears back into their sockets, "Have fun."
I zone out the rest of his monologue as I try to will myself into a sleep I hoped he'd think was cute, only catching fractals, "her house…maybe we can…man, I hope that she…nice butt…she promised…her friends are…"
With my eyes still glued shut, I hoped I looked natural.
"Aw man, look who fell asleep."
I felt my weight shift as Michael lowered me onto a soft-but-kinda-scratchy decorative pillow and threw a couple more over my body in lieu of a blanket. I could feel his eyes on me and I wanted nothing more but to lurch forward and kiss him. But I took a melancholy breath and went further limp. I heard the TV switch off, felt the couch balloon upward as he stood and felt the small thud of one knee, two knees and a whole body lowering itself to the floor, warmed only by the carpet.
"Goodnight, Sabrina."
I wish I'd said it back.