why would you even bother telling someone your secrets before killing them

[self_composed]

By the end of Bio, the halls are full of people eager to inform Bella and everyone else within earshot that her friend is a murderer. They have entirely the wrong attitude to have formed the impression because he just now murdered someone, and also her father hasn't come looking for her yet, so this is probably nonsense.

Bella goes to gym.

Comments

[self_composed]

"Have you historically been friends even with people who didn't? Your mom left me with the impression that you've been altogether a loner, historically."

[edgeofyourseat]

"I've never been, like, hey-come-back-to-my-house friends," he says. "Well, not since I was a little kid. I've hung out with people. Sometimes even the same people for a while. But, y'know, even people who don't wanna avoid me sometimes wanna hang out with people who wanna avoid me."

Which is apparently also the pattern he expected their nascent friendship to follow.

[self_composed]

"I don't understand the idea that one's friends all have to get along with each other," Bella says. "I can go to Angela's to paint our toenails and yours to invent - we never actually named that sport. Hm. Anyway, even if Angela wanted to avoid you that wouldn't mean I'd have to interact with only one of the pair of you."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Are you sure you're a high school student?" he teases. "Because you make way too much sense."

[self_composed]

"Here I am, enrolled in high school," Bella says. "Taking classes. Actually showing up to them, in fact. Teenagers being idiots is optional, but most people will be idiots if you give them an excuse and wedge them into low-stakes environments."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Oh, uh, I'm not allowed to take you into the basement anymore," he adds. "So hanging out at my place might not be the greatest idea."

[self_composed]

"Okay," says Bella quietly.

And, "You're allowed to come to mine if I invite you, right?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Yep!"

[self_composed]

"Let me guess. The basement is off-limits because we might fornicate in it, but it didn't occur to anyone that my dad works until late in the evening and I spend many of my waking hours at home completely unsupervised."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Pretty much. Well, actually I think Mom is hoping we'll fornicate at your place."

[self_composed]

"That did seem to be on her wishlist. She was very wistful about the whole thing. What exactly does she imagine you having a girlfriend would do that having a mere friend could not? Even a fraudulent green-card marriage with someone from the Philippines or something could occur with a mere friend. Not me, since I was born here, but you know what I mean."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Get me the fuck out of her life?" he suggests. "Without pissing Dad off too bad? He'd flip his lid if I started seeing somebody he didn't think was 'respectable' enough. But I kinda see Mom's point, actually, I bet he'd be just fine with a shotgun wedding to a girl I met at school."

[self_composed]

"Am I even that respectable?" Bella asks. "Lower-middle-class background, divorced parents, willing to associate with you?" She sticks out her tongue at him.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Police chief's daughter," he counters. "Can't shun you without looking like he has something to hide."

[self_composed]

Bella laughs out loud.

"If you knocked someone up and hastily married her, what would you do then - what do your parents imagine you'd do? You still don't have a job, most high school girls you could inseminate don't either. Where would you live? What would you live on? How would that solve the basic problem, which is that you live in that house with those people? Plus Hilary, goddess of cake, who I apologize for tarring by association."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Maybe they'd kick me out of the house and drop a trust fund on my head," he suggests with a shrug. "Or maybe Mom thinks he would. And I'm telling Hilary you called her a goddess."

[self_composed]

"Please do," Bella invites. It's the sort of thing that might invite cake. "Do you think you'd get a trust fund? Because getting kicked out and funded thusly sounds like a pretty okay solution to several of your problems, although not the living-alone one unless you promptly alienate your shotgun wife and then she aborts. Or you like her and wish to spawn. I bet there's someone you could seduce in this school if you wanted to do that."

[edgeofyourseat]

"...Okay, back up," he says, laughing. "Are you suggesting I go screw some girl, knock her up, marry her, and then piss her off until she runs away, all so I can get out of Dodge on my dad's money? Man, you are cold."

[self_composed]

"Well, I don't think you should do this to anyone I like. I'm not particularly suggesting it at all. I'm just wondering why you don't do it. 'Without screwing up anyone else's life' wasn't a qualifier on your three wishes. Your first idea for how to go to jail was to kill somebody."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Well, one, getting this mythical chick pregnant wouldn't help anything," he says. "Except the odds that she'll marry me, I guess, but that kinda depends on her. Two, I know I'm kind of a slut, but the people I want to fuck and the people I want to fuck over are not the same people, y'know?"

[self_composed]

Bella shrugs. "Fair enough."

[edgeofyourseat]

"But if you find anybody who might wanna have a big fake relationship to go fishing in my dad's wallet, hook me up," he adds.

[self_composed]

"I'll let you know," Bella laughs.

[edgeofyourseat]

"No guarantees he'll bite, but it's worth a shot."

[self_composed]

Bella decides to write this down. (She does it in a way that would not be obvious to a typical snooper; the note reads Pinball wizard may benefit financially/residentially from romantic subterfuge.)