Page 63 of My Roommate from Hell
But something miraculous is happening. The burn marks are slowly receding. Eventually, they totally vanish. The room smells faintly of smoke.
Zarmenus looks up at me and his mouth drops slightly open.
“Is something wrong?” I ask.
“No, you just look amazing.”
I chew my lip. “Could you really have fixed that at any time?”
“Sorry, I was meaning to get to it,” he says. “I’ve just been busy.”
It’s just what I need: a reminder that none of this is real. Zarmenus still is who he is, and I don’t have to be nervous because it’s all fake. There is no chance Zarmenus and I would ever be real boyfriends. We’re simply too different.
“Ready?” he asks.
Here we go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
This was not part of the plan.
The whole point of this “hangout” is so people can see Zarmenus and me spending time together, and this is by far the emptiest I have ever seen Northside Diner. Normally it’s so crowded it’s hard to get a table, but tonight is a completely different story. There’s no line, and it’s only about a quarter full. Something else must be on campus that’s drawing the focus, and now I think we should find out what it is and go there instead.
TVs hanging from the ceiling are playing a football game, and the big windows look out at the pitch-black campus. Zarmenus is frowning at the dismal showing.
“Is it just me,” he says. “Or is it weirdly empty tonight?”
“I was just thinking that. Should we go?”
“Why?”
“Isn’t the point that people see us?”
“Good thing I get people talking wherever I go.”
He winks. It’s a little obnoxious, yes, but he’s correct. A few people have already noticed us, watching with no shame at all.
“Do you want to go?” he asks. “We can if you want.”
“No, I just thought you did. You looked disappointed.”
“What, no!” he says. “I was thinking about how much I love it here.”
His earnestness surprises me, even though I feel the same way. There’s something special about this diner and, to be honest, the entire Point campus. I wonder if everyone feels similarly for their college, or if Point truly is magical.
We reach the register, and I use some hand sanitizer. To the side is a glass cabinet filled with prepared meals of greasy food on paper plates. There are chicken tenders, fries, jalapeño poppers, mac and cheese balls, as well as slices of pizza that seem to be about as dry as pizza can be.
Even though all the food is the same shade of golden brown, and has been sitting out for who knows how long, it looks delicious. The smell alone is enough to make my mouth water. I buy a plate of tenders and Zarmenus buys a pepperoni pizza. When we get our food, we walk over to the table where the sauces are kept in huge containers. I pump some ketchup and some ranch onto my plate and watch in horror as Zarmenus pours what can only be described as way too much hot sauce onto his pizza.
“What?” he asks as he pours even more. And it’s not, like, buffalo sauce, either. The neon-red bottle has flames and skulls on it.
“That’s really spicy,” I say.
“Human food is pretty bland to me,” he says. “Spice helps.”
I guess that tracks. We go over to a table by the window and sit down. I try one of my chicken tenders, dipping it into the ranch before taking a bite. I feel like chicken tenders are one of the foods, like pizza, that can never be bad. Even the worst chicken tender is always pretty good.
What Zarmenus said was clearly correct; he is having no trouble eating his hot-sauce-drenched pizza.
