April 29, 2015

Jerome:

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate this bitch? If she was any more fake and plastic, she'd be a fucking mannequin. But if she was a Barbie, she'd shut the fuck up and she wouldn't be able to just show up on the doorstep for days at a time. If he'd get a blow-up doll to keep in the closet, at least it wouldn't moan all night just so everyone else could hear it. Yeah, I know he's good in bed. You don't need to remind me every other fucking night. I don't know if she knows I'm into him and she's trying to make me jealous, or if she just thinks if she takes twice as much dick she'll get twice as much gold. If Lachlan wasn't so wrapped up in his goddamn burritos, she'd probably be wrapped around him, too. They have words for girls like her where I come from and I'm wondering why the hell he's hangin' onto her.

When she walked out the door to get Mitch to drive her sparkly glitter ass to the airport just now, it was like someone lifted a brick wall off my shoulders. Watching her leave was better than watching porn. I'd buy her another fucking plane ticket just to watch her leave again. And I thought I was gonna be happy when Aussie Boy flew his whiny ass back across the Chipotle-Free Zone. Doesn't even compare.

But now that means I'm all alone with Mitch in our house. There's no one who can barge in on us with the car keys in one hand and a boner in the other, and there'll be no more supersonic shrieking when someone gets bored. Needy fuckers. Now we can relax and chill and play CoD eight hours a day if we want and order take-out every night if we want and spend all afternoon in the pool if we want and walk around all week in the same pair of underwear and nothing else if we want. No one gives a shit now, and it feels great.

It also gives me a chance to finally talk to him about what happened in Ireland and the ten years before that. It needs to be done sometime, and now's as good a time as any. I watch his car pull out of the driveway before I grab my old Macbook and plop down on my bed. I open a new message on my e-mail account and I just start writing. I write and I write and I write and I delete a whole bunch of crap a whole bunch of times before I even think about sending it. I coulda written a dissertation in the amount of time I spent on that e-mail. He's made it back home and recorded like three or four videos downstairs in his office before I finish writing and can't think of anything else to rewrite. It's not even that long but it took this long to do. It's done. I'm done. I'm gonna do it today. I just don't know when. Should I do it now? I might as well do it now. No reason not to. I grimace one last time at the cheesy ass thing and I hit the send button.

It's gone.

I sent it.

Now we wait.

---

April 29, 2015

Mitch:

"Hey, Mitch?!" I snap out of my concentration and I pause the video footage I was editing, waiting to see if he can figure out whatever it was on his own. A few seconds of peace pass and I start to think that he found whatever he was looking for, but then I hear footsteps padding down the stairs. I brace myself for some piece of horrifying news. "Mitch?" Jerome is standing in the doorway to my office with the door open just far enough for him to stick his head in. He is acting sneaky about something, and I'm not sure if I want to find out what he did yet.

"Yes, Biggums?"

"Did you get it?"

"Did I get what?"

"The message I sent you." He looks at me like he's waiting for me to lose my shit at him. Now I really don't want to check my phone. I have already had a long enough day with Mel's griping and being hunted down on the Nexus and having to re-record everything multiple times, and the last thing I need right now is for something else to go wrong.

"No, I've been pretty busy. What was it about?" He visibly shrinks against the doorway like a dog that just got caught pissing on the rug. I knew it has been too quiet today. I thought it was just because our favorite victim had gone home and because Mel wasn't hanging around all day, but apparently it was because Jerome has been up to no good. When there's no Lachlan for him to torment by switching his special lotion bottle with tanning lotion just to see if he'll have orange palms from repainting the morning wood, he has to get his nose stuck in something of mine.

"Nothin'. Just check it when you get a chance." He turns and leaves, carefully shutting the door behind him and scurrying away down the hall like a giant rat.

"Okay, I will." I sit there in silence for a minute or so before I shake my head and get back to work. Whatever it is, it can't be that bad if it can wait until later. I put my earbuds back in and I turn toward my computer monitors, taking my time listening through the audio and Photoshopping the thumbnails to put off the horrors of homeownership just a little bit longer. This is what I get for letting a Bacca move in with me.

---

April 29, 2015

Jerome:

Still no answer. It's been seven hours and three minutes since I sent it and he still hasn't answered. Did he read it and just not write back? Is he that pissed off at me? Is he taking forever to write something back? Did he even read it? Should I ask him again? Should I even go downstairs?

Maybe I should just stay up here and crawl under the layers of fuzzy Pikachus on my bed and just never go downstairs again. I can use the drop cords and my rolly suitcase to make a pulley outside my bedroom window I can use to get food from the delivery people with. And since I make videos for a living, I'd never hafta leave the house again. I'll wait until he leaves the house to do my laundry and I'll leave a check for rent on the kitchen counter and I'll never hafta face him again. That plan sounds better and better every passing minute. But I can't just hide up here forever. That'd last like two days, tops. I'd break something or he'd need something from me or I'd find the biggest goddamn cockroach this world's ever seen and I'd be outta here faster than Nooch in a jewelry store. No, I hafta go back downstairs sometime.

Maybe he just hasn't read it yet.

I slowly drag myself out of my computer chair and away from the playlist of videos that always make me feel better. Recreating Christmas in a Hole in my bedroom isn't gonna solve anything. I head over to my built-in bathroom that still smells a little like lemon-y zombie flesh and I wash all the oil off my face. I straighten my hat and brush the wrinkles out of my t-shirt before I turn the light off and start my own little March of Death. I silently open the door and listen to see if I can hear him bitching and ranting about something into his microphone downstairs. Nothing. I head down the stairs and wait on the landing halfway down to hear if he's in the kitchen eating his way through the fridge. Nothing. That means he could be anywhere, lurking around any corner with his phone shoved up his nose, reading my e-mail and stewing over it. Dammit. Why can't anything be easy with him?

I head downstairs and I start searching for him. He's not in the living room, but no one's ever in there. Most pointless fucking room in the whole house. He's surprisingly not in the kitchen even though it's dark out and he hasn't been in here for hours and hours now. I've been listening. That means he's in his office still. Is he planning a trip somewhere? The only time he spends this long recording is when he's trying to churn out vids for a trip. Is he leaving because of me? Fuck. I creep over to his office as quiet as I can and I see his door's open. I look in and I see he's not in there. Did he somehow get upstairs without me knowing? I thought I was supposed to be the Enderman of the house. I head back upstairs, checking through all the guest rooms to see if he's screwing around with something in there. That just leaves his room, if he's even still in the house. Maybe I already scared him off. The door's shut, so at least it's a sign he's still here. I take one last deep breath and slowly let it out before I knock on his door.

"Hey, Mitch?" No answer. Either he has headphones on or he's really, really pissed at me. I don't wanna barge in on him and piss him off even more, but this's kinda important. "Mitch? Mitch? Mitch? Mitch?! Mitch! MITCH! MEEETCH!"

"Oh my god, dood. What the fuck do you want?" He opens the door and he has pillow creases on the side of his face and his eyes are red. He glares at me and all I can do is stare at him.

"So you've been sleeping all this time?"

"I was, until you came up here and started being a mockingjay. What do you want?"

"Did you read my message?"

"What did you do, Jerome?" He squints at me and I have to keep myself from bursting out laughing. All this time I was freaking out and he hasn't even bothered to look at it yet. He pulled a George Bush and passed the fuck out when everything around him was going down in flames. Goddammit, Mitch.

"Nothin'. I did absolutely nothin'. But you need to read it. Please?"

"Not right now, dood. I was trying to sleep."

"But promise you will?" He rubs his eyes and nods, leaning his forehead against his hand on the door frame.

"Yeah. I'll get to it eventually. Just please, don't blow anything up tonight. I've had a really long day."

"Sure, bud. I'll make sure to tell the roaches." He looks at me blankly as I walk backwards away from his door. I feel lighter than air and heavier than a big rig all at once. He isn't pissed at me but he hasn't really had the chance to get pissed at me, either. I hear his door click shut at the other end of the hall and I head downstairs to turn all the lights off and grab something to eat. Might be my last meal, after all.

---

April 30, 2015

Mitch:

Now for the moment of truth: what did Jerome do to my poor house yesterday that he was too afraid to tell me about? It's pretty early and he won't be awake for a little while yet, so that should give me time do to some damage control. Something tells me that he might be the one behind the moldy hole in the ceiling downstairs and he just won't fess up to it. Hopefully I won't go downstairs and find another huge puddle of water on the wood floor of my brand new house. I grab my phone off of the nightstand and scroll past the series of caps locked messages from Mel; it's too early to put up with her moody bullshit this morning. I hope to Gaben I wasn't a tenth as obnoxious as that when I was a girl. I think it might just be something about her in particular, though. I have had more than enough of her for a while; I swore I wouldn't respond to her for a full twenty-four hours so she would have a chance to cool down, and I still have five precious hours left to enjoy my sanity. I plan to use them.

I open the Mail app and scroll down, side-swiping the spam and bank balance notices until I see his name in bold black letters. The e-mail is called "Banter," which can either be a warning about him doing something really fucking stupid, or it might be clickbait to try to get me to look at it. After the way he was acting yesterday, I'm not sure which one to expect. I close my eyes and click on the e-mail title, bracing myself for what I am about to see before slowly opening one eye to peer at the screen. There are no pictures of fire or water damage or roach infestations. There are no pictures of Mel getting it on with anyone else, which had been my second suspicion. There are no pictures of strange animals inside my house, my third biggest fear. All I see is text, and a lot of it. Jerome is never this wordy, so that in itself is scary. I rub the rest of the sleep out of my eyes and prop myself up on my elbow, preparing to read his newest best-selling novel and trying to keep the panic from rising in my chest.

I know you don't want to hear about it but you know we need to talk. You can't hide behind Lachlan or Melanie or videos anymore and we need to talk about this before it gets even more out of hand than it already has, whether you want to or not. Please read the whole thing even if you hate what it says and hate me even more. I just need to get it all off my chest before it kills me someday.

These are my confessions:

1. I love you. I always have. I used to think you knew that but I'm not sure anymore. I used to think you loved me too, but maybe that was just our parents putting words in our mouths. When I said I loved you and I'd be there for you forever and gave you that stupid ass pretend wedding ring, I seriously meant it. I never took it back. I mean it even more now than I did back then because now I know how fucking sucky life can be and how screwed up the world is for guys like you. I'm always in your corner and I'd do anything for you even if it means living in the Fallout 3 Florida hell pit with a billion supersized flying Radroaches in my bed every night. It isn't just that I love you. I'm in love with you. You, not Michelle. I only knew her for like four months before I found out she was never real to begin with. It took me a while to figure it out and I know it makes me look like a complete asshole because it took this long, but I finally understand it now. I don't give a single shit what our families or the guys or the fans or other Tubers think of us. You're the only one who matters here and I'll say it again: I love you.

2. I fucking hate your girlfriend and you need to break up with her before she fucks you over. Going off the fact that she's only getting bitchier over time, I'm guessing things aren't working out anyways. Have you told her yet? I totally get why you wouldn't want to come out at the very beginning but that's something you should really tell her about. Someday she's gonna find your prescription or your needles or your surgery paperwork or your doctor records or she's gonna want kids, and that's not something you want her to find out about years down the line when she's got you by the balls. If she knows and she's supportive, I can see you wanting to hold onto her and I'll back off. But if she doesn't know and she's already this much of a bitch, why would you think things are gonna get better with her? I would leave her now before she finds out and you have a court case on your hands after she outs you to everything in the known universe. Just my two cents but you know I have your back no matter what you choose. I just don't think the value of her dad's house is enough to cover the cost of everything you're gonna lose when she loses her shit at you on Twitter.

3. I'm not really dating Helen and I only started talking to her again to piss you off. I shouldn't've done that and I'm sorry but you never fucking listen. It's like that Beatles song: I say high, you say low. I say hello, you say goodbye. I say red, you say blue. You argue just for the sake of arguing because you don't want to hear what I'm saying. I messaged her this morning and the plan's off for me but I let her use our selfies and shit from my trips up to see her so she could go after the person she was trying to flirt with. A deal's a deal and we could use the extra anti-Merome coverage, anyways. I'm sorry I did this but I'm still glad I did it. Take that as you will.

4. I don't regret Ireland and I'd do it again in an instant. There's not really a whole for me to say except I really want you. You were still the best I've ever had even though we kept our clothes on.

5. I'm afraid of how you'll react to this. This was a lot harder to do than I thought it'd be. I wish we could've done it face to face but neither of us wanted to do that. Let's be honest. It's fine if you're mad but please don't kill me in my sleep.

6. I still love you even if you hate me right now. I know you hate all that romance-y shit but just give me a chance to show you it'll work. I just want you to think about it for a while.

I read through it a second time, still trying to figure out how I should respond to something like this. I stare at the period at the very end before I lock my phone and put it back on the nightstand and put my face back in my pillow. This is going to take a while to process, and Mel just might have to spend a few more hours on cooldown.

---

April 30, 2015

Jerome:

The house is awful quiet today. I look over at my alarm clock and it's eleven in the morning already. I slept for like twelve hours straight. I dunno if it was all the stress and waiting around from yesterday or if I just really didn't wanna wake up and face the music this morning, but I could go for a couple more hours of sleep. I lay there and listen for a little while but I still don't hear anything. I wonder if Mitch snuck out while I was asleep and disappeared into the hills or some shit. He isn't usually that melodramatic but these aren't normal circumstances, either. I drag myself up outta bed and head over to the closet to find some decent-looking clothes. I kinda wish I could just shove everything to the side and crawl into that little space between the bottom of the shirts and the floor and hang out there for a while. It seems nice and warm in there. But it's also probably full of roaches and roly polies and beetles and slugs and centipedes and Palmolive bugs or whatever they're called. I don't need a fucking menagerie crawling up my ass this early in the day. I take my time getting dressed and throw a Posh Life hat on for good luck. Hell knows I need it.

I creep out in the hallway and I see light coming from the window in his room. That means his door's open. He's awake and this's really happening. I take my sweet time going downstairs, one step at a time without a sound. I stop on the landing and listen and everything's perfectly silent, just like last night. I tiptoe down to the bottom floor and peer around the corner and he's frowning at something on his phone while he eats through a small tower of buttered toast. Well, there goes all the bread. He looks like he's about ready to facepalm right into the soggy, buttery side of the toast. Is it me he's scowling at, or-

"I think you're losing your touch. You used to be the biggest Creeper outside of Minecraft." He glances up at me and back down at his screen and I get the feeling that he just wants to get a good grip on that phone and slam it screen-down on the counter like fifty times. He stuffs the rest of the piece of toast in his mouth and watches me walk over to the kitchen to find something to eat. But I already know there's nothing good here and if there was, I wouldn't be able to eat it. My stomach's full of cold, heavy air.

"So you're not pissed at me?"

"I'm still pretty miffed about the green and black hole you put through my ceiling, yeah." I turn and look at the expectant look on his face and I shake my head and just shut the fridge behind me. I sit at the chair at the other end of the bar and he types something out on his phone before he puts it facedown and leaves it there. Now I've got him.

"You know that's not what I meant. And you know I didn't break the fucking ceiling. I was just the one who found it after I slipped and fell in a puddle of pond water inside the goddamn house. Not my fault the old bastard you bought the house from was a crook and a half." He munches his way through another piece of toast and I turn towards him just enough to count the pieces of bread on his paper plate. Two, four, six, eight... Plus I've seen him eat two already. He's literally sitting there eating half a loaf of bread. At least. But that's not why I came downstairs. Mitch's black hole stomach's a mystery but it's no big surprise. "So whaddaya think?"

"About what, Jerome?"

"About my goddamn e-mail. I know you read it. I could tell by the look on your face when I came down here that you'd read it." He sighs and folds the rest of the piece of nasty ass bread and shoves it in his mouth like a squirrel before he dusts his hands off on the bar and crosses his arms. Shit's getting real now.

"You already know how I feel about it. I think it's a bad idea to put all of your eggs in one basket, especially when the basket is full of holes."

"You aren't full of holes, Mitch."

"The therapists and surgeons would say otherwise. The point is, I don't think it would work out between us and I don't want to lose you." I see him look up at the ceiling like it's a sky full of stars and I know he's trying to keep himself from running away. He always pulls that shit but it's not gonna work today. I'd rather fight than flight. "You mean too much to me, dood. Everything would fall apart if you left."

"Who says I'd leave? And why wouldn't it work? I know like ninety-eight percent of your deal and it doesn't bother me. I'm fine with it. More than fine. I think it changed both of us for the better."

"You... That's half of the problem. Knowing my whole backstory is different from you knowing I'm trans. You knew her and she was the one you fell for. I'm not Michelle, Jerome."

"How fucking stupid do you think I am? I know you aren't Michelle. You were never Michelle. She wasn't real and she never will be. It took me a while but I get it now." There's nothing but silence and I guess that means he wants me to continue. "Look, you can say I'm not your type or you're 'not into that' as much as you want, but I know different. I know you, Mitch. We've never just been Mitch and Jerome – we've always been Mitch'n'Jerome. We can finish each other's sentences and we know each other's passwords to everything and we can order food for each other without having to ask what the other guy wants. And you can't deny we have chemistry. I don't care what anyone else thinks or whether or not they know the whole thing or if the ugly ass truth ever leaks out. You're a whole lot more to me than just a cash cow or a mouth or a dick or a couple surgeries. I love you, man." I see him lean forward and put his head down on his arms. Fuck. Did I just make him cry? And now I'm gonna cry. Goddammit.

"You are actually the worst thing that ever happened to me. I hope you know that," he mumbles and I can't tell if my laughter or the tears are stronger. I'm just tryin' not to start bawling.

"It's pronounced 'best.' And you say I'm the dumbass." He chuckles awkwardly but he keeps his head down. Watch, I'll be the only one with red eyes when we walk outta here. I need to get on those He-Man shots, too. We sit there in silence while we try to pull ourselves back together, or at least while I do. We made it this far. Might as well keep going. "So what's the plan, Boss?"

"There is no plan, Jerome. I'm dating Mel and you have your mess to work out with Helen."

"You still trust her, huh?"

"No, not really. Even then, I do care about her and we get along most of the time. She just really doesn't like you, dood," he laughs just a little too enthusiastically. Maybe I got to him, after all. Took fucking long enough.

"That might explain why she's such a total bitch all the time. I'm not gonna tell you what to do and I'm not gonna sabotage your relationship. We're not in fourth grade anymore. But if things don't work out with her, will you give me a chance?" Just silence. He curls his ankles around the legs of the barstool and he sits there and waits for me to continue. It's like I'm talking to a fucking wall most of the time. "If you're gonna say no, then say no." Silence. "So not no, then?" More silence. "Now we're getting somewhere." I reach over to his leaning tower of cold and soggy undercooked butter bread and grab the top piece, examining it for mold and other green shit before I take a bite. It's edible but just barely. I feel like a dog trying to eat peanut butter as my tongue tries to peel it off the roof of my mouth. Is this how he trains for the Death Cups?

"Are you having fun over there?" He's peeking out at me from the side of his arm pillow with a toothy grin and his face looks a little redder than usual. How the fuck is he so evil and adorable at the same time?

"How do you eat this shit?" I drop the limp, crumbly wheat toast on the bar and watch it flop pitifully butter-side down in a Darude sandstorm of dust and crumbs. I'm not that fucking hungry.

"I don't. I need to get some real food."

"Screw this. I'm goin' to O'Malley's. Their bar opens at noon. You're drivin'."

"Fuck you, dood. I'll cover lunch if you pay for an Uber – I forgot my phone at home and I won't remember I have a phone when I get back."

"Sounds like a plan, bud." I give it two weeks and her ass's out the back door in the Death Pool.

Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll be the one who pushes her.