Page 27 of sWitch

“I think that’s my noon pet adoption,” I explained.

Remy nodded. “Go take care of them. I’ll put Turnip down for a nap.”

With a small giggle, I agreed. Truly, there was nothing hotter than seeing Remy, in all their onyx, tattooed sexiness, reclined in my pink gaming chair while cradling my kitten. Oh no, I was crushing so bad.

Leaving Remy alone in my apartment didn’t feel weird like it maybe should have. It felt natural. We felt natural together, as opposite as we were. I was bubblegum and she was a stormcloud. But somehow, together…we were at ease, both outcasts in our own way— but together, we fit. At least, I felt so. I could never be sure what Remy felt. What we’d done—the betrayal of her brother, my boyfriend—was wrong. This was all really unethical, I guessed, but how could something so bad feel so good?

I went through the motions of bringing Waldo the beagle out to meet his new adoptive family. We went through the paperwork, and then I saddled the family up with a bag of dog food, Waldo’s favorite blanket, and care instructions. The entire time, my mind was on what Remy was up to in my loft. Snooping? Gaming? Mocking my Polly Pocket display?

A gurgled chime sounded from the old intake computer. An email popped up from Trevor. Oh, yeah, him.

Faun,

Dinner with my parents this weekend. It’s go time.

-T

Definitely didn’t want to go meet his parents, but I had to. I owed it to him. Would his twin be there? What would their parents think of me?

The front door beeped shut, and I raced upstairs, stopping to catch my breath before going inside and discovering…nothing.

An empty room.

A sleeping kitten at the foot of my bed.

Remy was gone.

LEVEL 10

PLAYER ONE: REMY

Rollo once described returningto his hometown for the holidays as a kid returning to their lego towers. Everything seemed smaller and clunkier after time away. My experience of returning to my childhood home, which was admittedly only a thirty minute drive to the fancier part of town, was the opposite experience.

My parents’ gated community seemed larger and shinier. Perhaps the opulence of my youth was overshadowed by my naïveté. When I road my skateboard down these prestine streets, I didn’t know I was passing by senators and vacant celebrity vacation pads. When Trevor and I went trick or treating, we couldn’t comprehend that the doors we knocked on were million dollar homes.

Now that I’d moved out and spent my days mopping tattoo shop floors for apprentice cheese and playing mall gigs for stale pizza, the lavish sparkle of my upbringing was a shock to my senses. I didn’t belong here then, as a skateboarding kid with a DIY-bathroom-scissor-mullet, and I sure as hell didn’t belong here now, covered in tattoos, carrying a bag of greasy fast food.

Dinner with my parents.

Dinner with my twin and his girlfriend.

I was not about to call in on the intercom of the front gate and announce myself. That was for the rookie black sheep of families…and people with functional vehicles. Instead, I did the sensible thing and snuck in around the back, dodging the pool, tennis court, and around the adjacent side to the kitchen entrance. That’s where our hideout was—where I’d literally hideout until the last possible moment before having to go inside the big, cold house.

Sneaking around was kind of my thing. Sometimes, it worked out for me—sometimes, it got me in trouble. Prowling around my brother’s girlfriend’s loft was a little of both. The details rolled around my mind like a pinball being bounced around with no logic or order. Pinball made me think of having my twin’s girlfriend spread out over the flashing lights like my own personal dessert buffet.

Trevor was bringing her to meet our parents.

She’s different, he’d said.

Part of me wanted to keep operating in secret. The other part wanted to tell him I was fucking her and risk getting punched just to get it all out in the open. Then again, what would confessing to my brother do? Fauna seemed content being myfriend. Telling him would likely only serve to piss him off and lose Fauna’s trust.

Then, there was what I’d found in her loft. What had I found? I couldn’t make sense of it. Overall, her bedroom was a shrine to nerdy femme fandom. There was so much pink, so much over-the-top girlhood, it was disgustingly sweet—ribbons and bows, ponies and kittens, all tied up in an intelligent, gentle, cat-headphone wearing girl. So why, when my elbow hit her gummy bear keyboard, did I see the vilest shit appear on her computer screen?

“Tick-tock, loser. Time’s running out!”

“God, I wonder how close everyone is to the end… How embarrassing for you!”

“Seriously, so cringe.”

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