The End of FUN by Sean McGinty Page B

lips, I sort of wrapped her in this awkward hug. And we just hugged for a moment, and she sort of patted my shoulder, and I patted hers, and smelled the flowery perfume of her hair, and then we drew back and looked at each other.
    Words! Use your words, dude!
    â€œArnold,” she said at last. “It’s just…right now my life is…”
    â€œComplicated,” I finished for her.
    And the next thing I knew I was standing at her door, saying good-bye, and a voice in my head was like,
Tell her, dude! Tell her who you are!
    And another voice was like,
No, you idiot! Don’t screw it up any more than you already have!
    And a third voice was like,
    > hi original boy_2!
    u seem agitated
    what’s on your mind?

So that was a failure, but my night wasn’t over yet. When I got home, Dad was in the living room, crouched in front of the record player, fiddling with something.
    â€œI could’ve
sworn
this thing had a needle….” He twisted his head around to look at the space where the needle used to be. “You know anything about this, or am I just going crazy?”
    â€œWho can say?”
    Dad looked up at me. His eyes were all narrow. “I have another question.”
    â€œCan we talk later? I’m in kind of a bad mood.”
    â€œNah,” he said. “I think we should talk now—don’t you think, Evie?”
    I hadn’t noticed her. She’d been standing all statuelike by the kitchen. I noticed her now. Arms folded, glaring at me.
    â€œEvie? What are you doing here?”
    â€œWhat do you think?” she said.
    â€œLook, if you guys are wondering why I didn’t go back to Sacramento, I just wanted to see the play and maybe—”
    â€œThat’s not what we’re wondering, Aaron. We’re wondering about this letter from your school.”
    Dad put his face in front of mine. “What we’re wondering is what you’ve been doing for the last five months.”
    And I was like,
Oh. Shit.
    And my dad and Evie were like,
This is going to be fun
.
    The time had come. The show was over. The curtain had to fall.
    What could I do but give them the truth?
    I told them about San Francisco, and how I’d reappropriated the tuition payments (with all intentions of not spending any of it), how I’d lived in a hivehouse, and how I’d started having FUN ® —and as I listened to myself talk I was actually kind of proud. But then I got to the part about all the money I’d spent on
Tickle, Tickle Boom!
(YAY!) and the part about FAIL , and I didn’t feel as good anymore, and Evie and Dad were right there with me. I mean, I figured they’d be pissed—and they were—but I hadn’t realized just
how
pissed.
    Dad did that thing he does where he stomps around the room, working himself into an anger monkey, and Evie screeched at me like a hen, the two of them kept roundhousing me with the same basic point, which was what a deceitful ass I’d been—and it
was
true, I had been a deceitful ass, and I was angry they’d found out, and also feeling guilty as hell, like I was gonna start crying or something, so I excused myself out the front door and took a walk in the snow to calm down. I called my buddy Oso, but he didn’t answer. Once again, straight to voice mail. I left him a long message about my situation, and then I headed back home.
    Dad and Evie were still there. They were still pissed, too.
    Dad was like, “We’re just so goddamn happy to have funded your vacation.”
    â€œWhat do you mean ‘we’?”
    â€œHalf that money came from your sister!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI chipped in after they cut Dad’s hours at work,” she said.
    â€œShe’s been working
extra
hours at the newspaper,” he said. “Working her
butt
off so you could lie around and play video games.”
    I stood there kind of stunned. Taking money from my dad, that was one