Like You Like Me ✔

16

"Hold up, what?" I said, feeling smoke coming out my ears.

"See what had happened was, Rachel and me came up with a plan to get you and Celia back together. Except there was another plan between Celia and Rachel to mess with you."

"And you went along with that? Bruh! You're lucky I can't deck you right now."

"Pump the brakes, Rachel only texted me about that second plan after they drove off. I legit just found out; cross my heart and hope my entire sneaker collection gets hella creases. And I'm low-key seeing her because her dad is high-key particular about who she dates."

"Is that all, Smeagol? Or are you gonna go feed me to a giant spider next?"

"And..." Connor began.

"Oh, for the love of Kobe—what else?"

"That was me in the washroom that night at Liam's."

"So that was you lurking in the bushes too then? Like when I was out back with Nicole?"

He wrinkled his forehead. "Bro, no. Also, why am I just hearing about that now?"

"Don't try to change the subject," I quipped. "We're talking 'bout the secrets you've been keeping."

"You're right, you're right. But that's all I got. And, I'm sorry about all of this. I promise if I'd known things were gonna go down like they did, I wouldn't have let you do any of this," he sighed. "So are we still bros?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "Still bros. And I didn't tell you about the bushes thing because I didn't wanna freak you out; I know you don't like spooky stuff."

"Alright," he sighed. "That's fair."

We fist-bumped and just sat there in silence for a minute. Then I spoke up.

"I really thought it would work," I rubbed the back of my head. "But I think Celia hates me even more now."

Connor's phone made a ding.

"Either way," I continued, "I'm cool with her being mad at me, but I can't deal with her hating me. I need to make that part right."

"Yoooo!" Connor blurted out, staring at his phone with a look of shock on his face.

"What?" I leaned over to get a better look as Connor turned the phone towards me.

I was rattled. Someone had uploaded pictures of a couple of my letters to Celia on Instagram along with carefully cut video clips from our fallout that afternoon. The profile was called: rejected_romeo_diaries. I took the phone out of Connor's hand and watched the videos more closely; each one looked like it was shot from inside the cottage, meaning somebody else was there the whole time.

And I had a pretty good guess about who it might have been, especially after Connor and me compared notes on when the "spooky" stuff started going down. The embarrassment I was feeling melted into flagrant foul-level rage as my DMs began blowing up.

***

The following day, I went to Mass, knelt down and asked the Lord to help me not lay hands on Musty Mike, even though I really wanted to remix his face. After church, I was still furious, but less willing to act on that impulse. But did low-key wonder how Mike's CD collection would look at the bottom of a lake.

Pics of sinking discs would be pretty fire on Instagram.

In the end, I decided to take the high road—hashtag God's plan. I went over to Mike's place and brought his CDs and Discman. Mike seemed pretty shocked to see me standing outside his front door, but I cut straight to the chase.

"Look, man," I began. "We've had a lot of beef over the years, and I just wanna put that all to rest. Here's your stuff," I handed him the two reusable bags that were camped out in my closet.

"Thanks," Mike took the bags, looking like he was waiting for me to throw hands.

"No worries," I slipped my hands into my hoodie. "I double-checked to make sure they were all there."

"Okay," Mike set the bags down behind him.

"So are we cool?"

"Maybe," he shrugged.

"Well, can you at least take the Instagram profile down?"

Mike twisted his mouth. "I don't know what you're walking about."

"Come on, man; I know it was you."

"That's bold," he scoffed. "Did you see me take videos from behind that window? Or that profile, were you there when I created it and uploaded those pictures?"

"Stop playin', Mike," I shook my head.

"Well, did you see me?"

"We both know you did it."

"If by did it you mean laughed," he grinned. "Then, yeah, I laughed; your simp side is pretty hilarious. And so is your nerd side, to be honest."

I exhaled and curled my right hand into a fist. "You had your fun, now just please take it down."

"Can't take something down that I didn't put up," he shrugged.

"Fine," my jaw got tight. "I wanted to bury the hatchet, but guess that's not gonna happen."

"See, you can be smart," Mike smirked.

Let it go. He's not worth it.

I turned around, went back to my car and peaced. I still wanted to deck Mike, but I was glad I didn't. After getting home, I turned off all the notifications for my socials, threw myself in bed and tried to mentally prepare for what Monday would bring.

Making things right with Celia also dug out a space in mind. I didn't think I deserved to get her back, but I wanted to tell her I was sorry and to hopefully end things on a neutral note.