I mean, anyone who thinks you need depth to wrap presents for a pet’s birthday is a fucking depthless idiot.
“Fuck it all, Stretch,” Thomas says now. He throws his remaining résumés in the trash, spitting on them all, which hardly seems called for, but I’m going to let him have his moment.
“You didn’t actually want any of those jobs,” I say.
“Yeah, but what if something amazing opened up for me by trying out something I would never go for?”
“There are plenty other jobs to apply to.” I wish Mohad were hiring at Good Food’s.
“Maybe I can be a pool boy.”
“Or a lifeguard,” I say. “Or a swimming coach. I’ll be your first student.”
“You don’t know how to swim?”
“Nope. Never really had to know how to, though it would’ve been nice considering how I almost drowned last summer.”
“How the hell did that happen?”
“The water was really cold and I thought I would throw myself into the deep end instead of slowly torturing myself by starting at the shallow end,” I say, the panic of that day carrying me away, like an undertow, before I laugh a little. “It was stupid to think I was tall enough to stand up in seven feet of water.”
“Pretty stupid, Stretch. What were you thinking when it was happening?”
“I was thinking about how I’d like to draw a comic where the hero is powerful but can’t swim and finds himself drowning.”
“You weren’t thinking about your family and friends? The afterlife? Maybe how you should’ve taken swimming lessons as a kid?”
“Nope.”
“You’re heartless,” Thomas says. “Is this big drowning scene for the comic you lied about letting me read?”
“I didn’t lie! I just keep putting it off because—you know what, follow me.” I don’t want to be marked as a liar, so we head back to my apartment. I search for my Sun Warden comic as Thomas waits out in the hallway, and I decide I don’t want to read this with him on his rooftop. I leave the comic on my bed and open the door. “Get in here,” I say.
“I thought you don’t like letting friends come over.”
“I’m changing my mind in five, four, three, two . . .” I hold off on the last second because Thomas isn’t calling my bluff. “Come on, don’t make me look like an ass.”
Thomas steps inside.
I watch his eyes as he takes in the apartment. I’m immediately self-conscious about the apartment smelling like wet laundry like Me-Crazy once said it did. I can’t tell anymore. The first time Baby Freddy came over, he immediately searched for the bedroom—not a big challenge—to see if he could catch a glimpse of the bed we all slept in. The concept was just so weird to someone who had his own bedroom. Brendan never judged, thankfully. And Thomas isn’t judging now either. He moves past Eric’s video games and over to my collection of comics before turning back to me. “I want your Batcave.”
“Shut up, you have your own room.”
“I’ll trade you.”
“If you don’t mind rooming with Eric, it’s a done deal.”
We shake on it.
Thomas picks up the Sun Warden comic, and we sit down on my bed, reading it together. It’s crazy rewarding seeing someone laugh at jokes I doubted anyone else would find funny. He’s also really impressed with this panel where Sun Warden launches a series of fireballs into the ruby eye of a cyclops, who’s dual-wielding mountainous swords. I worked so damn hard on getting that right. He reaches the last panel where Sun Warden must decide on saving his girlfriend or best friend and then looks up. “Spoiler?”
“I don’t know what he’s going to do.” I shrug. “I stopped there.”
Thomas thinks for a moment, looking back down at the panel. “Maybe SW could somehow split himself in two, like he taps into a new power because of his exposure to the celestial kingdom. He could save Amelia and Caldwell in one go and then split himself more times. You know, to destroy the dragon with everyone blasting their sun-shots at once . . .”
Thomas continues the story for what seems like another ten minutes, and I pull out a notebook and draw a rough sketch of the diamond-tailed basilisk he wants me to include. When he talks about giving the basilisk the ability to shape-shift into an old man with Alzheimer’s who can’t recall his villainy, I cut him off and ask him to remind me about that idea for Issue #2.
I’m still writing when he goes to the bathroom to piss, but when he comes back, he’s different. I’m mortified that he saw something embarrassing, like my mom’s bras, or maybe our hamper just fucking smells. Whatever it is, he isn’t going to say anything. He would never do anything to make me uncomfortable, but he doesn’t realize I can’t sit here and ignore it so I just ask him what changed.