Chapter Text
“I do not like a boy. I do not like a boy. I do not like a boy!"
No matter how many times she said it and with varying degrees of emphasis, Louise couldn't convince even herself of her own words. Defeated, she flopped face-first onto her bed.
“I doooooooon't!" she groaned unconvincingly into her pillow, the 'o' all drawn out and a little whiney for her own liking. "Ugh!"
Then, grabbing the pillow with both hands, Louise smooshed it against the sides of her face, turning her low groan of self-disgust into a shrill, albeit muffled scream. She even felt her feet frantically kicking the bed in frustration, only stopping when her hands made contact with a rumpled magazine tucked under her pillow. She pulled it out, glaring at the face of Boo Boo on the wrinkled and well-worn cover.
”Somehow this is your fault,” she seethed, pointing at the Boyz 4 Now star menacingly, then jabbing his face a few times to really hammer it home.
Actually, the more Louise thought about it, the more insistent she became that it was, in fact, entirely Boo Boo’s fault. He was her first crush, after all. He’s the one who messed her up. He’s the one who made her capable of having a stupid crush in the first place!
Boo Boo smiled blankly back at her, unaware and unbothered by the torment of swirling emotions inside her, so she chucked the whole magazine across her room. She watched it smack the opposite wall and slide down to the floor, crumpling over itself in a crinkly heap, and it broke her heart a little.
That made her want to rage even more. How dare he make her feel bad! Besides, Boo Boo’s face looked all distorted and wonky with the magazine like that, and it should’ve made her like him less, but it didn’t!
“Gah!” Louise exclaimed.
Without thinking, she was suddenly bolting across her room to retrieve the magazine. Louise flattened out the front cover as best she could, patting Boo Boo’s face gently in apology. She briefly considered kissing his picture, then slapping it, but in the end she slid it facedown under her pillow, where it belongs. Almost as an afterthought, Louise punched the pillow as hard as she could.
“Stupid boys,” she muttered under her breath, sighing in exasperation.
She loved him, and she hated him for it. She even got to slap him for it, just like she did with Rudy.
Ugh, Rudy.
Louise still couldn't quite believe that she was wrong about Rudy's crush. Who else could he have been talking about with Zeke? Who else would he even want to give love weeds to? It was supposed to be her, wasn't it? Of course it was going to be Louise. They're best friends! Rudy was going to give her love weeds on stupid Valentine's Day—she was so sure of it, all morning.
But the thought of receiving them scared her, and she tried to prevent it as best she could. So when Rudy finally told her the love weeds were for Chloe, not Louise, shouldn't that have been a...relief? But it wasn't. Instead, Louise saw her own feelings etched onto the face of her best friend in the playground after school, when she finally got through to him that Chloe didn't like him—that she'd been using him.
Louise groaned, the memory of the recent playground incident playing back in her mind and making her blood boil.
She wasn't intending to slap Rudy, it just happened! But it didn't do anything to make her stupid feelings go away, just like slapping Boo Boo didn't make her stop having a stupid crush on a stupid boy band singer, even if he was the reason faces were invented. He deserved it, at least. All Rudy did was look all sad for not getting his stupid first kiss on stupid Valentine’s Day, making Louise suddenly care about wiping that stupid frown off his stupid face.
She wasn't exactly intending to kiss Rudy, either. It just…happened. And she didn’t hate it? But it all happened so fast! The kiss and the slap and everything that led up to it that day... Even in that moment, that split-second of stupidity that was nothing more than a kiss to shut him up—that's it!—even as it was happening, Louise didn't anticipate that she’d be slapping him any more than she anticipated having stupid feelings happening in her stomach! But it happened—the stupid feelings. During the kiss. And the slap. To get rid of said stupid feelings. Whatever the hell they were!
The closest sensation Louise could compare it to was the feeling of being on a really fast roller coaster, right after the first big drop—the higher, the better—when your stomach does somersaults and fills up with air. Your whole body seems to fill up with air, making you all lightheaded, and you only want to laugh or scream. Or both.
But chasing down some brat with smelly shampoo and breaking her best friend’s heart and immediately trying to mend it again (not even understanding why kissing him of all things was part of her approach but stumbling into it all the same)? None of that was anything like a good, rickety old ride at the Wonder Wharf—something that lacks the regular maintenance to make it just actually dangerous enough for the sense of thrill to be real.
Why did kissing Rudy make her feel like that? And why did she kiss him in the first place? Why did she feel so…disappointed that he like-liked Chloe enough to want her to be his first kiss? Why not Louise? Why, Rudy? Why Rudy?
Not that he isn't great, of course he's great! Louise thought to herself as she paced her tiny room in increasingly tighter and faster circles. It's why we get along so well! And why stupid Chloe could never deserve him! Stupid, lying, cheating, conniving Chloe! And not the cool kind of conniving! Because she isn’t! She’s so boring! But Rudy’s the greatest! He’s my best friend! He’s the reason friends were invented! And no, I’m not talking about that stupid sitcom from the 90s!
“I DON'T LIKE A BOY!” she screamed to drown out her frantic thoughts, forgetting that she no longer had her face in her pillow to muffle her voice.
Just then, her dad was passing by her bedroom door. It was ajar, and through the crack she saw the back of him on his way to the bathroom at the end of the hall, a folded newspaper under his arm.
Bob paused, seemed to gather himself, then stepped backwards a few paces. Without turning to face her, he tilted his head toward the open door, calling out softly, cautiously, “You…like a boy?”
“NO, Dad! I said I DON'T like a boy!” Louise shrieked, jumping up and charging toward her bedroom door.
“Right, sorry, got it,” Bob said as he scurried away, rushing off to the bathroom like he was late to a meeting.
Louise slammed her door shut as hard as she could, locked all of her locks, then bolted to her bed, throwing herself onto it and staying there until the next morning.