_Choice_

 “You alright, Bowey? You’ve seemed kind of out of it lately.” J asks me that with genuine concern. 

But, what should I tell him? ‘There’s a crazy girl who might try and get you in trouble?’ He’d call me crazy.

I looked past J, far behind him. There she is, staring at me. She even waves when she notices me looking back.

I’m not concerned about whether her threat was empty or not. I know she’ll do it. She got Lou taken away and he only broke a rule once. J and the others break them just about every day. If she was able to catch Lou, they’ll be easy. I can’t just do nothing and let that happen.

What are my options? I don’t think I have very many. I can only think of one, actually. It’s more of a last resort, though.

“Hello? Earth to Bowey!” J knocks on my forehead like he's checking if there's anything in there. “C’mon, what’s the problem? You can tell us.”

Not really.

“Hey, J,” says Helvetica. “Maybe he’s still bummed out about his missing friend. Oh, you forgot? The one you told him you were going to help him find. It was something along those lines, right?”

That’s not what I was worried about at all, but I’ll be happy if it convinces J to stop asking. It’s not making this any easier.

“Oh, yeah. I almost forgot about that, actually,” says J.

How reassuring.

Every time I’m moving through the hallways to or from my room, I know she’s following me. I wonder if she’s expecting me to turn around and talk to her. At this point I’m seriously considering it.

I am once again at the back of the lunch line. Up ahead, I see Helvetica step out and start walking in my direction. She stops behind me and doesn't say anything.

“What are you doing,” I ask.

“Oh, you saw me? You looked so lost in la-la land that I thought I might be able to sneak up on you,” she says.

“Liar,” says Coal.

He ended up in line behind us at some point. If anybody was sneaking it was him.

“What’s that,” Helvetica asks him.

“You want to probe him for information, right? You weren’t expecting me to fall for the fairy tale you told J, were you?”

“I was hoping you would, but I suppose that was wishful thinking.”

Those two are always in some kind of battle.

“So, what’s actually been on your mind,” Helvetica asks.

They’re both looking at me, clearly expecting an answer.

“I know it was one thing when J asked, but we’re friends your age. It shouldn’t be as awkward to talk to us,” she says.

“The only friend his age is me, Miss Video Games,” says Coal. “If that’s what you really think, you should probably step away.”

“You know what I meant, Mister Detective,” Helvetica replies. “I’m not freakishly tall or wearing any facial hair like J. I won’t intimidate him away from talking to me in that sense.”

“That has nothing to do with age,” said Coal. “It’s just because you're a girl, and you’re still taller than both of us. A two-year age gap isn’t any excuse for that. You’re still freakishly tall, just at the scale of a female.”

“Zip it, midget.”

“I’m not even short.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

If you ask me, I don’t think Coal is wildly short. I wouldn’t say that Helvetica is freakishly tall either. I mean, she is older than us. Coal is just a little shorter than me, and Helvetica is just a bit taller. It’s probably more notable between them, though.

Wait, it almost slipped by because of how smooth their arguing is, but something in what Coal said a second ago stuck out.

“Video games?”

As soon as I spoke out, they came to a silent, mutual cease-fire and turned their attention back to me.

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” Coal sounds sort of annoyed when he says that.

“How would he know about them, Coal?” Helvetica pauses. “When you turn thirteen, your TV gets some new features. A cabinet opens and provides you with a controller, and your TV gains access to video games related to your field. It’s more hands-on than shows and movies.”

I’m twelve already, so it’ll happen on my next birthday. Unless that’s just how it was for her. It could be on different birthdays for different kids, right?

“Is it thirteen for everybody,” I ask.

“For J and I it was, and there aren’t really any other similarities in our TVs, so we came to the conclusion that it probably is.”

I see. That makes sense.

“No more trying to change the subject, Bowey,” says Coal, even though I wasn’t the one who changed the subject. “Tell us what’s had you all messed up these past couple days.”

…

Maybe it would be good to at least tell them. This has felt unsolvable for me, so maybe they’d be able to help. Coal is a detective, and Helvetica is a girl, so I could see either of them coming up with a solution to the Embi problem.

“Well, there’s this girl-”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Coal interrupts. “You’ve been in this funk just because of some stupid crush?”

“It’s not really that simple-”

“‘It’s not that simple,’” Coal mockingly interrupts while making jazz hands. “What makes it so complicated then?”

“If you’d shut up and let him talk, maybe he would tell us.”

I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe it’s not such a good idea to tell them, after all.

“Actually, the girl is Helvetica,” I say. “I was thinking about her.”

They both look so confused. So am I. What was I thinking about her for?

“Uh…” I pause to figure out what to say. “Her and Coal both, actually. And J too. You all are such a tight-knit group, I feel out of place sometimes. How did you all meet? What other experiments did you do before I came along? I’m curious about things like that.”

I managed to come up with something before it got too weird. It might have all been for nothing, though. I actually doubt they’ll believe it.

“Would you like Cheese or Pepperoni?”

The grown-up with the pizzas in front of her cut this conversation short, probably bailing me in the process.

“Cheese, please,” I reply.

I was given my lunch and Helvetica was up next.

While walking away, I wonder. I came up with all that on the spot, but I didn’t just think of it. It wasn’t quite a lie. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I really was curious about those three all along. Sadly, that’ll probably have to be for another time.

Though, the thought of putting things off for later may have just given me an idea.

I’m walking back to my room, and I think the idea I have just might work. It won’t be a permanent solution, but it should do the job for now.

I turned around, and there she was.

“Oh, hi Bowey.”

Why is she acting surprised?

“Embi, I want to talk to you.” I pause, and she stays quiet. “About whether or not I love you back, can we put that aside for now?”

With a dissatisfied look, she asks, “Put it aside? What do you mean?”

If this doesn’t work, I might have to go with the last resort. I’d still choose lying, saying that I love her back, over losing my friends.

“I was thinking, you might know me very well, but I don’t know you at all. Definitely not well enough to say that I love you back.”

A partial lie. I know her well enough to confidently say that I don’t love her at all. What's true is that she apparently knows me very well.

“If I were to say that I loved you now, it would be shallow. So, we should take some time to get to know each other better. Or, for me to get to know you better, I guess.”

Here goes. If she turns this down, It’s over. I really will need to resort to saying it. I’ll need to speak the lie.

After considering it for a couple seconds, Embi finally had her answer.

“You’re right. Loving me just because I love you isn’t as romantic,” she says. “However, now that I’ve spoken to you, I don’t want to be apart any longer. During Recess 1, Lunch, and Recess 2, I want to be with you. I’ll join you and your other friends. I’ll be sitting between you and the girl, ‘kay?”

Now it’s my turn to think.

It’s not exactly a best-case-scenario, but if this is what she’s offering, I have to take it. I don’t have any other choice.

“Sure, I’ll introduce you.”