The Worst Angst Yet!

All around was pure chaos. Havoc. Mayhem as dozens upon dozens of people tried to flee Waxing Bay, the most curved beach in the world, all at once — because they all knew that in just moments, it would all go up in flames at the hands of Matchstick.

The most curved beach in the world, huh?

No, I thought. Maybe that was wrong. Maybe it wasn't Snowball who had misread. Maybe the beach staff or the ad agency or the unpaid intern who probably made that stupid post had been the one who was wrong.

Maybe this was the most cursed beach in the world. That's what it felt like — what I felt like — standing there in the water, still as a stump, shallow waves sucking the sand out from under my feet and filling it back in before I had the chance to come tumbling down. Maybe I wanted to come tumbling down. But I wasn't even granted that.

Strangely, I felt totally calm about all of this. My pet chupacabra was about to light the place up like it was a centenarian's birthday cake, and it was all my fault, but even still, I didn't make to move my behind off the beach at all. I just stood there, letting it all wash over me. All the failures. All the mistakes. What did I care if everything went up in smoke? My world with Matchstick, and what it could have been if only I wasn't the worst pet owner in all of human history, was already burned up.

"That's right! Run! Run like chickens with your heads cut off!" Matchstick was cackling maniacally. "Cause I'm gonna do it! I really am! Don't test me! And when I do, I'll dive right in, make a big splash, and rain so much hellfire down on all of you you'll need flame-retardant umbrellas for a week!"

So that was it. That was the rain the weather had been reporting this morning. The flood conditions so bad a warning was going to go into effect this afternoon. It was going to be a flood of fire. A flaming wave, a tsunami of hellfire washing everyone away and burning everything in its path to ash all at once. Nobody would escape.

Matchstick dangled the billion-gallon bottle of crude oil precariously by its neck over the water. In the other hand was pinched the lit match. He wasn't playing around. He was really going to do it. He was really going to burn down the whole beach. No, the whole world, maybe, with that much fuel.

Suddenly, my friends were by my side. Snowball, Fence, Harry the lifeguard and Fats McSlim the bigfoot, Sandy the witch and Aphy the jumbo venus flytrap, Six-Eyed Samson and P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤, and even Snowcube, showing her face for the first time since she dropped us off this morning.

"What are you doing just standing there?" Snowball grabbed the unresponsive husk that I had become by its shoulders and shook. I put up no resistance. "You have to go to him! You're our only hope!"

A self-deprecating smile swished across my face, but I was so defeated I couldn't even manage that for more than half a second before it disappeared.

"Me? You guys' hope? Ha. As if."

"Yes! You are! You are our hope!" Snowball zoomed in close, her face and her stupidly thick glasses just centimeters away. Stupid Snowball. She didn't get it. Her glasses were as thick as her skull. I was no one's savior. It was the opposite. This was all my fault. But she insisted anyway: "And you're his hope!"

His? Did she mean…?

My gaze flitted to Matchstick. But I only let it land there for a split second before I looked away again.

"And, dude?" Fence's turn to step in close, invade my personal space one last time before we all bit the flaming dust. "I think… you know what I think? I think Matchstick… he's your hope too."

"Ha." I spat a monosyllabic laugh, like it was a bitter taste I was trying to get off my tongue. "Yeah. Right. And Fats McSlim here is the goddam tooth fairy. You guys think I can just waltz over there and say sorry? Just make it all right with a few words? Sorry. Not happening. We're all in deep toothpaste thanks to me and there's sure as hell no putting it back in the tube."

Heh. That did the trick. Snowball and Fence both stepped back and sunk, deflating like forgotten balloon animals. But I figured I'd drive home how hopeless it was even more, just in case they didn't get it. "Anyway, at least there's a silver lining. No matter how bad it's gonna feel getting incinerated alive, the one hurting most here is Matchstick. Since I ruined his life and everything."

I kicked myself mentally. Even here, at the end, everything laid out and coming to a close, I almost couldn't believe what an idiot I'd been. Almost.

I found myself gripping the photo in my pocket again, involuntarily, so I let go and waded out further, deeper into the water, almost halfway up my thighs.

I knew one of them would come up to me, try to get me to get Matchstick to get off whatever he was on and put the environmental disaster waiting to happen down gently. And I was right. What surprised me, though, was which one of them it ended up being.

"Samson?" I said in a dead voice. "What do you want?"

"Just for you to listen."

"Didn't bring P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 over with you? Guess you're not much of an owner either, huh? Welcome to the club."

"He's not waterproof, genius."

"And you were having him surf? I was right. You're almost lousier than me."

"Cause I trust him, man. Boy, you really have a screw loose. Get with the program, maybe? Your pals are right." He was just looking at me, standing there with an open expression radiating off his face and body and even his stupidly long hair, which, for once, he seemed to have forgotten all about. "You're the only one who can save Waxing Bay. Who can save us."

"..."

"So what are you waiting for? You already decided before, didn't you? I know you did. I saw it. In your face. In your eyes. Don't tell me I didn't see it. I did. Your mind's already made up."

Now that left a bitter taste in my mouth. Just hearing him. Whatever. I turned away from him, looked out over the water, which would soon be a disaster zone thanks to Matchstick and, vicariously, me.

I thought it before and now I was thinking it again: maybe this beach really was cursed.

Maybe I was.

Maybe it was me and Matchstick who were both cursed together.

"Both forced together…" I mumbled to myself. "... by forces outside our control."

"What?" Samson said.

I ignored him. Continued to think. Continued to let the gears inside my head turn, even if all they were doing was spinning around in circles.

I was right.

Matchstick and I hadn't chosen each other.

I didn't choose him.

He didn't choose me.

We were pet and owner, but the reality of the situation was that that relationship had been decided for us. Even if I said yes to raising him when Snowball asked. Even if he stuck around. Our meeting, everything that happened between us, this outcome — it wasn't on us. Not totally. Somehow or other, by complete chance, for no real reason, our paths had simply crossed.

Maybe that was the real curse.

I felt a meaty hand on my shoulder. It was Harry's. The lifeguard's. He had snuck up on me without me even realizing, and so had Fats McSlim, who was right next to him.

"Y'know," he said with a smile. "Me and McSlim met by total accident."

"What?"

"What?"

"That's random. Why are you telling me that?"

He just shrugged. He smelled like sunscreen. "Cause I want to? It's true, anyhow. He fell out of a 38th-floor window. I happened to be bench pressing three plates in the outdoor gym below. Well, it was more like an outdoor restaurant, and they really didn't appreciate me co-opting six of their best porcelain dishes to get my reps in with. But you know who did?"

"Your mom?"

"Yeah. But also" — he jabbed McSlim in the chest with a thumb and a lopsided smile. Then they put their arms — one hairy and the other hairless — around each other's shoulders, leaning on each other, each supporting the other's weight in the waves. "And yeah. We've been this close ever since."

"Same here." I felt another hand, on my other shoulder this time. This one belonged to Sandy the witch, and so did the voice. "Do you know what you usually do with weeds in a garden?"

Another incomprehensible question. It was so random that it tricked me into answering. "Whack 'em?"

"Exactly." Sandy nodded. I noticed that Aphy was too humongous to wade into the water after Sandy, but she was patiently waiting by the shore. "But there was one day I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Something inside was telling me not to. It was the first time I had ever spared a weed in my home garden. But I'm glad I did. That chance feeling grew into something so much more. Sprouted into the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Aphy seemed to agree. She growled happily from the shore. I didn't even think plants could growl, but what did I know? It sounded like a cross between a t-rex and a dial-up modem.

Now the rest of them were wading over here too. Snowball, Fence, and even Snowcube.

"It's the same here, man," Fence called to me. "Me and my goldfish. You know all about that already."

"Yeah," I told him as he approached. "They were just strays. And you never meant to adopt them…"

"Mhm." He nodded, taking my hands in his. "It's just, well" — he laughed, and it was a laugh I had heard a million times and would a million more, cause me and him were best friends — "that's kinda just how things happened."

Snowball was here now too. For maybe the first time in her life, she didn't say a word. Just smiled and nodded. That Snowball. No matter how much time we spent together, she never failed to surprise me.

"Yeah," Snowcube said with an expression halfway between a scowl and a wry smile. She hiked a thumb at her twin. "What she said."

I couldn't help but laugh at that, in spite of the situation. In spite of myself.

They were all here now. All my friends. And all their pets. Well, except P4-ND4 Mk. II 🖤 and Aphy, but they were waiting by the shoreline. And Fence's goldfish, but they were there in spirit.

I was there too. And as for my pet…

Somehow, I felt a sudden surge of decisiveness enter me, like it was filling my body, top of my head to tip of my toes. I looked out at Matchstick, still threatening to set the whole place flaming and smoking.

Then I looked at my friends, each of them, in turn.

Maybe… just maybe… maybe they were right.

I swallowed, hard, gulping down the big lump that had been in my throat this entire brooding session.

I thought.

I didn't choose Matchstick.

And he didn't choose me.

Somehow or other, by complete chance, our paths had ended up crossing in this crazy world.

Maybe that was the real curse.

Or maybe it wasn't.

Maybe what it was wasn't decided yet.

Maybe it could be something more. Or at least something different.

Maybe there was still a chance.

And maybe whether it ended up being a curse or a blessing?

Maybe that was up to us.

Me and Matchstick hadn't chosen each other. It was true.

But there was still plenty we could choose.

"Holy shit," I said aloud.

"What?" Snowball asked expectantly.

"Samson is right. Dammit, I can't believe I'm saying that but I am."

"Heh." Samson crossed his arms. "Of course I'm right. Know why? Cause I — wait for it — know what the heck I'm talking about."

I just ignored him and kept monologuing. Like pet, like owner I guess. "I had already decided. Well in advance, even. My mind was already made up from the get go! What the hell was I doing here brooding this whole time then? I have to get going!"

I faced my friends and said, "Thanks, guys. I couldn't have got here without you."

That was the truth. And I could see from the looks on their face that they knew it.

"Alright then!" A firm slap on my back. Harry. "Go do your thing!"

We all knew what he meant. It was time. I had to get out there, before it was too late.

Matchstick was waiting for me.

I would do it. I knew that I had to. That I was the only one who could.

I nodded decisively.

"Just one thing," I said.

They all looked at me expectantly.

"I can't swim."

To be continued!