Enchilada Ed

36

Ed woke up on that Friday morning to the sound of his iPhone buzzing. He rubbed his eyes, rolled onto his stomach, and scooped his phone off his bedroom floor. He ignored the various unopened notifications from his Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat (though there seemed to be quite a bit more than on a normal #EnchiladaEd day). He opened his text messages. He had four from Emily. He scrolled down to read the first one she sent, the night before, not long after Ed had crashed:

I thought you said the video was going to be unlisted.

whatever, I emailed it anyway.

The next two were sent that morning, while Ed had still been asleep:

Welp, now everybody in the world (and first period) knows you're in love with Audra.

You're trending on Twitter AGAIN.

Ed quickly opened up YouTube. Topping the trending section was his video to Audra's dad. Oh great. Ed pressed his hand to his forehead. He opened back up his text messages and responded to Emily:

I had no idea it uploaded. I think I fell asleep. I must not have checked the unlisted option after it crashed the first couple times.

Emily quickly texted back:

Way to make prom day all about you.

Prom? Ed thought. He pulled up his calendar. May 27th , the last Friday of the month. Of course it was prom. Ed cringed so hard he thought he'd crack his teeth.

***

Ed sat downstairs on the living room couch, trying to ignore his notifications. He didn't turn on the television, in the off chance that it might be set to the local news station, and he might see a story about himself. The home phone rang a couple of times. The caller ID showed a local number, which Ed discovered was WBNZ's after a quick Google search. Ed didn't pick up.

Instead he attempted to draft a text message to Audra. Aside from a couple memes they had exchanged over Snapchat the past few days, they hadn't spoken since the Willie concert exactly a week earlier. This morning- and now into the afternoon- she had been unusually quiet. He wrote:

The video was supposed to be unlisted but I messed it up. That's probably not believable, but trust me, I didn't want to turn this into a spectacle. If you hate me now, I wouldn't blame you.

He deleted and retyped it. And then added:

I'm sorry, baby.

He didn't want to send it, but then he did.

Oh God, he thought, baby? Why the hell did I call her baby? Am I a middle-aged British man, or what?

Ed turned off his phone and tried to out-sleep the awkwardness.

***

"A MEME IN LOVE!" Noah hollered.

Ed stirred on the couch.

"Don't harass your brother," Yessica said.

"You're not the boss of me!" Noah ran into the living room. "I'm the uncle of your unborn child!"

"Your mom's on a date and Dad's at work, so she is the boss of you, uncle of our unborn child or not." Mike called from the hallway. "Don't harass your brother."

"I'm not," Noah lifted up Ed's legs and plopped on the couch cushion next to him. "I'm just reporting what I saw on the news. Buzzfeed has an article about him and the headline was 'A Meme in Love.' It was on the front page."