I have to roll A'roll out of the shuttle in a wheelchair.
He turns to me.
"How long has it been since the last time we were home?" A'roll asks.
"About a year," I say to him.
His smile turns into a frown quickly.
"Damn." He says.
"So it's 29,981?" He scratches his head — although his arm barely raises.
"Don't worry about that, friend."
A'roll sheds a tear when he hears me call him friend. Our taxi takes him to the Neurological Damage Hospital; they repair him, but they say he won't produce dopamine without medication or sexual activity again. They say that all of the Koudzl in his youth also fried his serotonin receptors; he seemingly will be in an endless depressive state forever.
Out of the hospital, he looks at me.
"I can be happy again, Co'ol. Watch me. Watch me get happy. The second I see my fiancé, I'll get happy." A'roll pats me on the shoulder, smiling.
Not a soul behind those eyes either.
Maybe he'll be better after the brain damage.
We arrive at his mother's house.
His sister and his mother look at me and point to my eyes.
"Why are they a different color, Co'ol?" They ask in unison. They begin to laugh, kind of.
"That's confidential. Say, is Wonder free sometime this week?" I say, walking up the stairs to go investigate what they did to A'roll's room.
His mother yells at him, and I can hear it from downstairs.
"Now I bet you wish you never did, Koudzl! You're nineteen with the brain of a hundred-year-old! That's not normal, A'roll!"
I can see from the staircase that she's physically assaulting him while he pleads and tries to explain to her.
"Mom, I told you I stopped—I tried—god knows I tried! And I did. I got my life together! Please quit hitting me, Mom!"
Her hand pounds against his shoulder while she yells, sounding like someone is banging on a door.
"They told me you were a miracle! You're not living here no more. I drew the line with you dating that boy, then you made me draw the line at Koudzl! And you keep going past it every single time! Get out of my house now!" She exclaims, pushing A'roll out of the door.
A'roll sits outside the house, confused, scratching his head, and points to me on the staircase.
I look at him and shrug my shoulders. A part of me wants to help him out, but I can't. We won't have anywhere to stay. I just watch anyway.
A'roll's sister jogs up the stairs.
"Mom prepared you guys a welcoming dinner, but I guess I'll have to eat A'roll's and my plate." She says, taking me down the stairs.
My head bumps the chandelier, and it swings back and forth.
A'roll's mother looks at me and code-switches; her frown and tears in her eyes become a big, wide smile.
"Let's eat!"
She presses her hands together.
I sit down at the table and look at what she prepared.
Some pancakes, very sad pancakes.
I pick at them with my fork.
"Sorry, Ms E'leon, I'm not hungry," I say, putting a plate over my plate and putting it into the fridge.
I walk outside, and A'roll is sitting on the porch.
"Co'ol. Don't listen to her." He looks distraught and looks at the air.
"Where's your lowrider?" I ask him.
"My girlfriend's house. Five miles Southwest from here. I have the route memorized." A'roll stands up and taps my chest.
"So. You know I'm not…you know." He walks around.
"A person with a place to stay?" I scratch my turban.
A'roll sighs.
"Good. Good." He wipes sweat off his forehead. "My mom made a huge fuss about it, like it changed anything. It's 29,981; nobody cares! Nobody! It's normal! Like! She dated an actual slug creature when I was five but draws the line at me being with a dude once." He makes a whole bunch of upset hand gestures.
"Right." I nod my head.
"Literally everything I did was for her, everything. And now she thinks she can kick me out of the house like I wasn't a criminal to help her do whatever she wanted at the house!" A'roll kicks rocks while we walk down the street. He waves at a dude parallel to us.
"He's my cousin." He whispers.
I look at him, then point back to her house.
"Dude, your house is massive," I say to him.
"That doesn't mean anything!" He yells. He's very upset.
"I don't even have a house. Everyone kicks out of the place they—" He punches me across the lip.
"This isn't about you, spindledick." He states.
"She chose to try to impress her friends that she's known less than she's known me! I came out of her, man! I'm half of her!
"She's meant to play that father role she complains about — she told me to join the military! "
"She must hate you if she told you to join the army."
"How is she going to kick me out?" A'roll reaches into his pocket and takes out his Civiclink; he calls his girlfriend and tells her he's on his way.
"A'roll, do you think I'd care if you were gay?" I ask him.
He pauses in his tracks.
"No, nobody does. But her. She thinks I should only be with Angmaus because 'she's a woman; you need to give me a grandbaby before you get too old!' And that's why my child won't be around her at all." A'roll looks at me.
"Thank you, man, for always being there for an OG." He extends his fist, and we fistbump.
I sit down on the sidewalk; my feet ache from these uncomfortable dress shoes they keep me in.
"You know, I was the only Jenti in my whole school until you and the guys came around." He looks around for Angmaus to come pick both of us up.
A'roll crushes some leaves that blow by and is about to put them in an imaginary bag.
"See! She was right! I am an addict!"
A'roll tosses the leaves across the street; they hit some kid on his bike. The kid falls over and scrapes his knee.
A'roll pouts and attempts to cry for a moment.
"Co'ol, do you know how it feels when you want to cry but you can't?" He asks me.
I stare at his eyes.
"Don't raise your eyebrows at me! Do you know what that's like?"
I point to the markings under my eyes.
"These stop me from crying," I tell him, and press my finger against them. They're molten hot. Every scar on my body feels brand new, exactly as it did when I got them.
A'roll stares at me.
"You always have to make it about you, don't you?"
Angmaus pulls up and rolls her window down.
"Co'ol, what's wrong with your eyes?!" She yells.
A'roll swings open the car door to the passenger seat.
"Janet's cloned him." He says, turning towards Angmaus.
Angmaus leans forward, and they share a kiss. I get in the backseat. Angmaus has a crate of miscellaneous drone parts.
She looks back at me.
"How was it?" She asks me.
"Ass." I nod my head; A'roll and she both laugh.