25. LET ME CLARIFY: It didn't stop there, but I wish it did (it made me SO scared...)

When the devil (I mean like a REALLY bad guy) let's himself out, LOCK the door.....

Wow, I just met Ashley and Phillip, and they were already super ready to take me on a huge adventure that would probably be like so cleansing and life changing for me? My closest friends, who were all in this room right now, they had also done that sort of thing for me before, but like, not quite as big of a deal as this. I was going to go on a REAL road trip, one that no one would ever forget, let alone me.

It was a really crazy thought!

"Oh my god," said Dharmit looking at the TV, "Isn't that that coffee shop that you always meet new girls at Phillip? Luigianna Ninaz Cupz? That one on the TV with the big crime at it right now?"

Phillip looked a little annoyed at Dharmit but he looked at the TV and we all had the lived experience of understanding which coffee shop that today's hate crime started at. I wasn't ready to tell these new cool friends that it was actually me who worked at the coffee shop and that yeah it was basically my fault.

I got up from the couch and said "be right back" and I gave Tiny this smile that was  not super nice. Who was she to warn me how far a drive was? I know every state capitol in the country, I can figure out on my own that it's a 12 hour drive, and no, I'm not scared. Tiny got up and started following me past all the people on the ground, and also past Dave, fast asleep in the reclining chair again.

"Pretty cool that you got Dave pretty much living here the last few days. What an important mind he has!" I yelled at Tiny over the news still blaring in the background.

Tiny put her hand on my shoulder and I turned to face her. We were in the kitchen, right where she had cooked me so many hot pockets/pop tarts, and also different types of homemade coffee. It was a place that I had good memories of but would also miss.

She said, "Leia, are we even dating? I can't believe you’re just going to ditch me to go out with Phillip and Ashley. Like, this is so hard for me, and right when Mort is just coming back into our lives? Like, I need your help caring for him slash figuring out how to get him with like, a real support system. The hospital keeps calling me and it doesn't look like I can get out of it..."

"I don't know Tiny, like, you love him so much, like, maybe just you and him and Shortcake are dating, and not me? Honestly, Shortcake made me so mad today that I am honestly mad at myself for dating someone who is also dating them..."

Tiny shook her head and looked down, she said: "Look... like I get that?? But I thought you were like super into poly. You are the one talking about it all the time!" 

Um, no I wasn't? I thought to myself? Or at least right now I wasn't into it which is also like my right? But like it's cool and works sometimes?

Tiny was quiet for a second and said, "You know Ashley and Phillip are poly too, right? Like, but not with me? Well like just them two are dating, but they are like always talking about their poly? And you're actually poly and like mad at me.... um, I can you just like understand me and not make me spell it out?"

Don Lemon was back on the TV saying over and over "Whiteface isn't a thing!!!!!", and the scrolling banner at the bottom of the screen had confirmed that Gumdrop had posted bail, and LaQuan was back in the hospital.

I said, "I'm not going to let your jealousy stop me from literally having the time of my life risking my life in Oregon and having a great time listening to music in a car. If you love me as much as you say you do, you would come with me! You all have unlimited PTO! Just come on the trip!"

Tiny looked so pissed suddenly, she said "You don't get it. Unlimited PTO really means it's like illegal to take any time off. You would know that if you had a job." And then she recoiled because, yeah that was a little fricking rude and her spidy senses knew it.

"I had a job. But you all-" and I pointed at each person in the whole room individually, casting a vile curse with my finger as the wand, as they were staring at the TV, I even pointed at Phillip, Dharmit and Ashley, even though they didn't have nothing to do with it, because that's how mad I was, "You all took that from me." And I was too tired to cry. WAY too tired.

I just had to keep going, it was so easy right now to be this mad, which is so mentally dangerous, but I couldn't help it. "I don't even think any person in that room is trans! And I don't think it's really that GOOD of a thing that we're all hanging out with homeless guys all the time! Like, am I the only one that feels like completely crazy after these last few days?? And THEY -- " I casted an especially dangerous and possibly illegal spell with the next finger point, doing essentially a double-up on the curse that I casted early, but this time only upon Sun, Bingo, Jilly, and Shortcake, "Don't care about me at all. I am positive." It was the worst thing I ever said about anyone, and I immediately regretted it.

Tiny just looked down, like, yeah, deal with it. Then she looked up at me and I realized that 1. maybe she actually understood me, and 2., maybe I don't know Tiny or anything about Tiny at all.

I felt so awkward and twisted up from screaming at Tiny that the only thing I could think to do was put my arms our and said "Big hug?" in a baby voice, but Tiny just kind of patted me on the head. I was just trying to be nice, I thought.

Tiny went to the fridge to get one of those new 9 percent triple hazy double hop peach haze triple IPA and went back in the other room and sat on Mort's lap. He screamed louder than god saying, "TINY!! THE DOCTOR SAID THAT I WAS IN THE MOST PAIN OUT OF ANYONE HE EVER SAW 2 HOURS AGO AND NOW YOUR TREATING ME LIKE YOUR FURNITURE???"

She got up and said "I'm SORRY! I can't do ANYTHING right today!!!" And she basically just ran into her room. Drama much?

The slam from the door was loud enough to jar Dave awake again, and he was doing that stupid looking recoiling position against the chair and the wall, looking around the room like he was SO terrified of everyone.

I just went back over to Phillip, Dharmit and Ashley and got super comfortable, bringing over 4 of those IPAs for us new best friends.

Ashley said, "Thank you for the beer!" She put the beer down without opening it, but Phillip and Dharmit opened theirs, did a cheers clink, and kept staring at the TV. "Are you okay? You look sooo sad!" 

I didn't really want to blow it with them, because I know they are like trying to get Tiny to work at google because she is basically a genius and already works at amazon. So that’s all to say I couldn't tell them about my huge fight i just had with Tiny two short rooms away from here.

I just said, "Oh I'm not sad, I just sneezed is all haha. I can totally drive us to Oregon. My car is sick, it is also like so comfortable."

At the sound of the drive to Oregon, Dave perked up, looking super interested, maybe even kind of deviously interested. He was looking at us nodding and tenting his fingers.

"Wow that's so nice. Do you go on many trips? Bend is so awesome, you will LOVE climbing there." Said Ashley.

Dave almost looked like he wanted to interject, he had his mouth open like he was so excited, and he was wringing his hands together leaning forward listening to us.

"Bend, is that like some weird climbing thing?" I said.

"No haha, Bend Oregon! It's like a super famous climbing spot. Well like we have never been, but we hear it is so cool."

Dharmit was still staring at the TV, but he said "Yah I have been like working on climbing at the gym and I really think it could be like the number one place to climb within the 12 hours drive." The news kept flashing that picture of the broken Luigianna Ninaz Cupz sign glass laying on the sidewalk. 

Now Dave was like squinting his eyes and looking at the four of us with like total incredulousness. He started shaking his head in disbelief, like he just realized some dark truth that only he knew, and like it would destroy our minds to learn.

Suddenly Dave stood up and started slowly walking to the kitchen, kicking anything that was on the ground as he went. He kicked one set of Tiny's Bose  noise canceling over the ear headphones into the wall, and he kicked Bingo's backpack super hard. It was especially pathetic because he was still wearing those filthy white socks.

Jilly started laughing, not nervously at all, saying "Yo Dave what the heck ya'll!" 

Dave stopped in his tracks and started shaking his head with this doofy look on his face. He said, "I guess I'm just the old guy that doesn't get to go on cool road trips."

Ashley, Dharmit, and Phillip all turned their heads to Dave almost in unison and were making this same face, like they were watching a dumb youtube video of a dumb guy. Like, when you are laughing because you know someone's acting out and it's gonna get them in trouble, but you won't get in trouble, so you can enjoy their tantrum for yourself. It was a face that said so much, their deep and genius facial expressions had to have been a result of also their ability to work at google and understand coding (but I only understand stuff like electrical engineering and like how cars work just from my hobbies).

And he started walking forward again, into the kitchen. He started by opening and slamming shut a cupboard door, shaking all the plates inside of it. He said, kind of louder this time: "I GUESS I'M JUST AN ANGRY OLD GUY THAT DOESN'T GET TO DO ANYTHING COOL OR GO ON ANY COOL ROAD TRIPS!" Then he kind of mumbled, "No yeah I get it, it's fine, I get it." 

Then he opened up the door of the fridge, looked around it for a second, then slammed it SUPER hard, like I didn't even know Dave was even that strong - like strong as a horse. The fridge shook super hard clinking and clinlinlinking because Tiny has a 7000$ refrigerator with giant full steel doors that were super heavy.

I said, kind of urgently and worried, "Jilly mute the TV! Dave is like freaking out!" 

Jilly kept laughing, and Bingo and Shortcake too, and they turned the TV up like ALL the way. Tiny had a Bose surround sound 3D sound castle system that made the living room sound like a professional concert hall, like the Ashley Madison gardens in NYC, so yeah, we were basically shaking in our boots (besides Dave) because of the stupid volume level that those three floor people just picked. The news was talking about all the RVs in downtown and there was some lady saying that they just needed a hand and they'd be back on their feet, they just needed a commercial fishing license and they'd be back on their feet. She was like 300 pounds, 40 years old, and wearing low top converse and jean capris, and they were interviewing her in her house next to all of her porcelain precious moments cabinets of sad looking babies. I mean, activism is supposed to be cool, I don't know what the heck this lady was for.

Dave screamed above the whole thing, smashing a plate from the cupboard onto the ground: "I GUESS I'M JUST THE ANGRY GUY WHO GETS DRAGGED AROUND TOWN BY A BUNCH OF WANNABES AND GETS HIS BOOTS STOLEN AND DOESN'T GET TO GO ON COOL ROAD TRIPS ANYMORE!" 

I was starting to fill with adrenaline at the screaming sounds of Dave and the news, flashing back to the horrible scenes from earlier. I just automatically jumped up and grabbed the clicker our of Jilly's hand, who just kept laughing, and turned the news down just in time for it to flip back to the Gum drop and LaQuan arrest story. 

Dave smashed one more plate grumbling something to himself and then just came in to the room and stared at the TV. Then his jaw dropped to 6 feet under, to the border of where the devil himself lay, to where the bones of his father and his fathers father was buried, to the land of pure shock and also of zombie and ghoul thoughts (scary). Don Lemon on the TV was saying: "Now one of these people that was arrested is some one who is very vocal on social media, a trans woman of size, Gum drop. Some people are tweeting and wondering if this whole thing was part of some performance art piece! What a way to start national LGBTQIA+ month!" The other news caster immediately jumped in and started explaining that there was a new acroynm to describe the different types of trans people you can be now, which I probably should have actually paid closer attention to.

Dave said, in the most angry and trembling tone, "You were gonna set me up to get killed today. That's why you lured me to that shop pretending my boots was in there. You stole my boots and you put them in there yourself." He was pointing directly at me.

Mort was looking around at everything, and at the TV, looking like he was playing trivial pursuit 1950 and he was a Gen Z. He uttered out a nasally, "What is going on??"

Dave just stood there pointing at me, and I was the most scared that I'd been all day. I think he punched me on purpose back in the car, as of right now. He held that position, just shaking his finger slowly. Then he turn around, picked up this giant 5 wine bottle decanter that Tiny had as a centerpiece on her kitchen island that cost like 3000$ from the famous glass museum, and hurled it into the micro square tile backsplash on Tiny's kitchen wall, where it exploded into so many sharts of broken glass.

Everyone in the room, including my new friends, recoiled at the loud sound of that decanter exploding. My three new friends looked frozen and like they couldn't decide whether to laugh, cry, or maybe even sing.

Dave said, "I guess I'm just the angry old guy who gets set up by his friends to get his favorite stuff stolen and all his cool ideas taken and then they leave him in the dust now. I get it!" And he slowly headed out the door, leaving us all wondering what he really meant by that.

"Wow..." I said. Then I said, "That was so crazy."

Dharmit looked the most concerned, but only a little, he said: "Back in India my uncle was kind of like this guy, do you want me to like, call the cops on him?"

I mouthed to him, looking as serious as I have in my whole life, NO COPS, and I motioned at Pine, who was sitting on the floor, not reacting to anything, watching youtube in the corner and blocking everyone else out with her hand up near her eyes and her headphones in.

Jilly and Shortcake and Bingo were laughing HISTORICALLY on the ground. Mort was looking from person to person making these puffing exasperated question mark sounds. "Can someone please go lock the door????" said Mort, so worried. No one responded, Dharmit even muttered "no" under his breath. After sitting there all in silence for like a minute, Mort wandered over to the door and we heard him struggling to turn the lock with his destroyed arms.

Okay, well I just handed out those beers to Dharmit, Ashley, and Phillip and moved on with things, because like, he was gone, so there was nothing else to worry about. The three of them were cracking their beers and said, "Oh that's sick, thanks for offering to drive, we have done so many of these drives it would be great if you drove! Do you do many very long drives?" Said Ashley, looking at me like she liked me so much. "By the way it's so cool that you are just like super available. Don't you have to take off work? We're gonna be out there a week and we're leaving tomorrow!"

"Um, let's not talk about my work haha," I said, shaking my head. Then I gave Ashley huge eyes and looked towards each person in the room, then back to Ashley, trying so hard to just explain the simple fact that it was not safe for me to talk here. There was so much pot smoke coming from every corner of the room. It looked like that scene from lord of the rings when the camera is zooming over the sauron place where the orcs are built in the snot balls, like all those plumes of smoke. In one way it was cool I guess to think of my friends being like a bunch of volcanos, because let's face it volcanos are litty and nature is metal, but also I just didn't feel like smoking right now: I was making sick new friends.

I noticed Phillip looking at me with a look of confusion or concern, or something, and I just mouthed at him: "this is not your place to ask questions", which just made him look even more confused but also laugh a little. I was starting to wonder if he wanted me to be poly with them now.

"So Leia, do you have any climbing gear?" 

"Oh yeah," I said, "I have done like a million hikes and I have different stuff like that."

"She's going to be fine, I'll just bring extra shoes and my other harness," Ashley said directly to Phillip.

Whatever, I thought, it is just hiking, and I'm like already getting bored talking about it. "Well I am so excited to go. What time we leaving tomorrow?"

Phillip said, "Come pick us up at 9. We'll get to the campsite by midnight!"

We exchanged numbers and then Phillip, Dharmit, and Ashley got up to leave. Phillip and Ashley hugged me and Dharmit basically just ignored me. Whatever.