Page 42 of The Friend Scheme
Jason puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Whatever you need, I’m here.”
He leaves his hand there, resting against me.
We sit there for a few seconds, watching the city, with his arm on me.
I’ve never had anyone do this to me before. It’s so nice. He doesn’t need to say anything more. Just him putting his hand on my shoulder tells me that he cares about me and he’s sorry that this really awful thing has happened to me.
He’s got my back.
“You don’t need to do anything,” I say. My voice sounds croaky. “You being here is more than enough. I don’t want you to think I’m a burden or anything.”
“Dude, what? I’d never. I’m here because we’re friends now, right? This is what friends do. They support each other.”
My eyes widen.
We’re friends now. It’s official.
“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “I’ve never really had any friends. Good ones, anyway.”
“Really? Come on, you’ve got to be messing with me.”
I shake my head. “No good ones. I just don’t click with people. I don’t know why.”
“Well, everyone else is missing out,” he says. “I can tell you’re a great friend.”
I feel like crying, but I smile. He squeezes one last time, and his hand slides off my shoulder.
I miss the contact.
“So,” says Jason. “I take it you’ve had a really shitty day?”
“The shittiest.”
“Then it’s my duty, as your friend, to cheer you up. That’s how it works, by the way. If something shitty happens to me, you need to be there for me. Deal?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Well, to take your mind off it, I want you to tell me about something you really love.”
“What?”
“It’s a game I like. All you have to do is talk about something you love a lot. I’ve found it’s a really good way to get to know someone, in a deeper way.”
“Um,” I say. I stare up at the night sky and think. “Okay. So, I really love the movieDonnie Darko.”
“Oh, nice. Jake Gyllenhaal is in that, right?”
“Yeah. Have you seen it?”
He shakes his head. “What’s it about?”
“It’s weird. There’s this guy, Donnie, and he, like, sees this dude in a bunny costume who tells him the world is going to end in twenty-eight days, six hours, forty-two minutes, and twelve seconds. And it goes from there. When I first found it I watched it literally once every day for a week.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I got kind of obsessed. I just wanted to pick it apart and learn the craft of it. I knew it worked; I wanted to figure out why.”
