Chapter BB

Immediately regretting my decision, I gradually weaved my way over to Seth through the narrow, disjointed corridors left by the backs of cafeteria chairs.  As I approached, my benevolence was greeted with no so much as a look up from his computer.

Click click click click, he chattered away on his keyboard.

Jesus, my "benevolence"??? This guy has exactly zero less friends than I do in this school - in the world, frankly - and all of a sudden I'm benevolent for sitting by him?

Click click click click.

"Hey man, sorry about this morning," I started.

Click click click click click click.

"Alright, I guess I'll...."

"Oh, hey man!  What's up?"

He literally had been so absorbed in his game that he hadn't noticed me.  I guess I should be relieved?

"Hey."

"Did you hear about the lunch today?  It's chicken pot pies, and my buddies told that - if you ask - you can get two!  They don't even charge you extra!"

Holy christ, there's more of him?  And they gossip about the lunch menu?

"Cool," I say, trying to be a decent human being again.

All of sudden, Seth shoots up out of his chair faster than I would have believed was possible  and starts waving both of his arms over his head, as if he's flagging in an airplane.

"Here they come now.  You're gonna love'em."

Over come two guys, one impossibly skinny, the other impossibly pale.  It's like one was the ghost and the other was a skeleton of the same moppy-haired LARPer.

"Hey!"

"Hey."

"Hey."

"This is Matt!"

"Hey guys."

"Hey."

"Hey."

And with that, they both swiftly but gently whip open their laptops, like Mafioso thugs opening two briefcases full of cash to show the kingpin, and they were effectively gone.

"Seth," I say, "where did that thing you showed me this morning come from?"

"The Star Wars bootleg Star Wars teaser trailer that hasn't been released yet?  I'm pretty sure it's not legal for me to have it, but I got it off of..."

"No, the other thing.  The thing about being in a coma?"

"Oh, that!  I think it's on Tumblr or something.  I showed you this morning, didn't I?"

"Right, yeah, you did.  I mean, like, where did it come from?  How did you originally find out about it?"

"I think it was on Twitter.  Yeah, it was, because I remember being a bunch of tweets about how trippy it was.  Hey, did I show the thing about the dress?"

"Fuck me, no, you didn't, but I've seen it.  I think the whole world's seen it."

"Pretty trippy, right?"

"It was a white and gold dress.  I don't understand what was 'trippy' about it."

"Really??? You saw white and gold?  Everyone else I've talked to about it saw blue and black!"

Good god, we have completely derailed.  "But the Twitter thing, the coma thing, do you know where it came from?"

"I dunno.  The interwebs."

So went the first week of school.  It seems I managed to make a friend, so my parents were thrilled.  And Seth was growing on me, he really was.  It's like he reached in and released the inner nerd in me that had spent the past three years locked away in a dungeon.  Maybe I wanted to reinvent myself as a popular kid - no, I *definitely* did - but maybe getting back to my core nerdery was alright  Besides, now I had someone to play Magic with again!

So Friday of that first week comes, and I've brought my Permission Deck to finally try to shut down Seth's Burn Deck, and lunch got weird.  (Yes, weirder than playing Magic at lunch in high school.)

As we sit back down with our Salisbury steaks - Seth with two, of course - he pops the question: "Hey man!  What are you doing this weekend?"

"Um, I dunno, why?"  (Okay, so it was more of a series of questions.)

"Well, you seem pretty cool, and I was wondering you wanted to hang out on Sunday.  Do you have anything going on?"

You see what he did there?  I realized later that he was pinning me down to having no plans before springing it on me.  This fucker's brilliant, and I don't think he has any idea.  "I don't think so.  I mean, homework and stuff, but nothing major."

"My church youth group is having their annual 'Send off the Summer Through Christ' barbecue.  It's always a ton of fun, and there's really good food, and volleyball, and all kinds of stuff."
How he was desperately rattling off the list of pro's, I feel like he's done this before and was bracing himself for me to say no.  Fuck.

A) "Sure, that sounds fun," I say. "What time?"

B) "Umm, church isn't really my thing. We should definitely hang out some time, but I think I'm gonna pass on this one."

## **Author**

*This Chapter was originally authored by Matt Bruno on February 28, 2015.*

## **Choice History**

B)   Not wanting to move any farther into the room than he absolutely had to, he grabbed the seat second from the back on the right edge of the desks.

B) “Fuck it,” I say under my breath. Seth may be a dork, but so far he’s all of got.