A Really Awesome Mess (23 page)

We’d been at a full-out sprint the whole time. Since I started restricting and purging, I’d become an expert at running slow and long but sprinting was next to impossible. So I guessed that
was another good thing, along with fewer headaches and more energy, I could say about starting to eat again: I could run away from the cops and after pigs faster. Normally that wouldn’t have seemed very useful, but like everything else at Assland, this situation wasn’t normal.

“Me … either,” Justin said, gulping for air before falling in a heap on the ground.

I plunked myself down next to him and stared up at the sky. “It kinda felt good though.”

“Burning all those calories?” Justin guessed.

“Nahhh,” I said. “Well, okay, yeah, that too. I … just … whatever.” It was hard to explain, so I stopped trying for the moment.

Justin pointed up at the sky. “That cloud looks like the bearded guy Tina picked up at the fair, doesn’t it?”

I spotted it and laughed. “It does, kind of.”

Justin’s hand found a way into mine and I didn’t pull away. “I hate to admit it,” he said. “But you’re right.”

“About burning calories and whatever?”

“I guess that, and also this: I really do need to get my shit together,” he said with a little laugh. “What kind of a mess thinks being in a therapy school is better than actually living?”

“A really awesome mess,” I told him, and I meant it. The truth was, I really did like Justin. Like that. Even though I swore after Mason I’d never like another guy again for a really long time.

“Sorry I said all that shit back there.”

“No worries,” was what I said. But what I was thinking was
What the hell
.

I rolled over so I was facing Justin and before I could chicken out, I kissed him. He looked shocked for a second but then started kissing me back. We both closed our eyes and just kept on going.

It felt nice. Right. Like we fit together, instead of me always trying to twist myself into someone Mason would want to admit was his girlfriend.

We still had a super-fast escapee pig to find—and then save—and needed to get back to school before we got in any deeper shit than we may have been in already.

But all that was just going to have to wait.

WHEN WE CAME UP FOR AIR, I COOKED INTO EMMY’S EYES, AND I
got it. I finally got what they were talking about in SR group. Like, when I was with Caitl-/Krist-in back at my dad’s place in the summer, my body felt good, but the rest of me felt kind of numb.

That was not the way I felt now. It was safe to say there was not a single part of me that felt numb. Hungry was more like it. Ravenous, in fact. Like I liked Emmy so much I wanted to consume her. Maybe that was weird. Was that a thought that noncrazy people have?

“We should find Willy,” Emmy said, and I started to laugh. “What? What’s funny?” she said.

“Two things. One: Willy has definitely made an appearance”—
I pointed down at the tentpole in my crotch—“And two, I was just lying here wanting to talk about my feelings, and you’re just ready to move on. It’s like, I thought girls were supposed to want to talk about stuff and guys were supposed to be like, whatever.”

“First of all, I’m not like, whatever,” Emmy said. “I like you, you like me, we’re ready to go on
Barney and Friends
. Second of all, this particular encounter is not going any further than this because I’m not ready for that—don’t say anything, I know I said I wasn’t ready for this much either, but I was wrong, but I’m not wrong about the rest of it. But also because even if I were ready for that, which I’m not and I’m not going to be today so don’t ask, neither of us is exactly equipped for this to happen, and since I’ve been eating like a pig lately, I’m sure I’m going to start getting periods again soon, which means I’m not doing anything without at least two forms of protection on board. Got it?”

“If mentioning your cycle is supposed to kill my arousal, I can tell you it’s not working.”

“You are disgusting.”

“But you like me anyway,” I said, smiling.

“I do,” she said. She gave me a quick kiss and hopped to her feet. “Now come on. Let’s find that pig.” She started walking away, and I got to my feet as quickly as I could, which was not very quickly because there wasn’t a whole lot of freedom of motion in my pants right now.

“Um, can we take it slow for a minute?” I said as I tried out
different limps in an attempt to find a comfortable way to walk.

Emmy looked back at me and laughed. “You know, if that’s the ‘poor me, I have a boner’ trick, it’s not working. It does look funny as hell, though. And also, don’t complain about blue balls. Every girl knows that’s not a real thing.”

“Uh. Okay.” It was a real thing. I knew this because I had a dull but persistent ache in my groin like you’d get in the aftermath of a particularly vicious shot to the nuts. Seriously. I thought I might puke.

But I sucked it up because we had to find this pig, or our whole breakout was going to be for nothing. Well, not for nothing. Because it had already gone way better than I had any right to hope it would. Actually it had gone better than most days I could remember.

Even with a terrible ache in my groin. “Will you hurry the hell up?” Emmy said. I did my best.

“How do we even know where we’re going?” I asked.

“We’ll just head for the farm asylum and hope for the best,” Emmy said. “Maybe Willy has some kind of pig homing device.”

“Maybe you’re nuts.”

“Remember how Jenny’s
Pigs Rule
list said pigs have a great sense of direction?”

I smiled. “Right. So how far to the asylum? The one with the pigs, I mean, not the one where we live.”

“I think it’s a few minutes up this way,” Emmy said as we
emerged onto a dirt road. She reached out and took my hand, and we walked down the road in silence. I didn’t know why Emmy was being quiet, but I knew for my part it was because all I wanted to do was scream, “Jesus
Christ
my balls hurt!” But I wanted to be a man about the pain, and I also didn’t want Emmy to think I was trying to manipulate her into more intimate activity. I was a horndog, but I did have my limits: I didn’t want a girl to do stuff with me because she felt guilty. I’d rather have her do it because she couldn’t resist my incredible hotness.

I snickered at the thought, and Emmy turned to me. “What’s so funny?” she said.

“Long train of thought that’s not really worth following,” I said, and we walked for a few more minutes in silence.

“I just had another weird thought, though,” I said.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Just now, walking here with you, I wasn’t thinking anything bad or sad.”

“Me neither.”

“That never happens to me,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Emmy said. “I—hey! Look!” We’d just turned a corner, and up ahead we saw a big wooden sign with the words
Farm Asylum
painted on it. “Nice! That’s it! Let’s see if they have Willy!”

She took off running, and I followed her. The sign sat at the end of another long dirt road. We could see a big red barn at the
end of the driveway, but after a minute or two we got tired of running.

My excitement and contentment were wearing off, and now I was just getting tired and cranky. I smelled like garbage, my nuts hurt, my feet hurt, and we were probably gonna be in a shitload of trouble when we got back. And Willy might not even be here.

In front of the barn there was a big wooden fence, and there, behind the fence, cradling a piglet I really hoped was Willy, was the neck-bearded guy we found on the top of our van after the fair. He looked up at us. “You folks lose a pig?”

“Well, kind of,” Emmy said. “More like he lost us. How do you think he found this place?”

The neck-bearded hippie smiled. “Pigs have an amazing sense of smell. Even more keen than dogs, actually. I was just feeding some of our pigs when your pal here came—hey. I know you!”

“Yeah,” I said. “We met at the fair. You were—”

“Oh my God,” the guy said. “That was you. The Heartland Academy kids. With the pigs. We had the state police here questioning the whole staff, you know. They thought we did it. And now you’ve brought this guy. Oh crap. He’s from the fair, isn’t he? You are totally going to implicate us. We can’t have him here! What are we going to do?”

“You’re gonna take care of him! You’re gonna grant him asylum, like the sign says,” I said. “We’ve busted our asses to get our little purloined porcine pal here. We can’t take care of him, you
can, and we’re not letting him get made into bacon!”

Emmy looked at me. “Did you really say purloined porcine pal?”

“Awesome alliteration, dude,” Neckbeard said.

“So, yeah. You gonna take Willy or not?”

A young woman came walking up. She had her brown hair under a purple bandanna, and her faded purple tank top revealed a robust growth of armpit hair. She put her arm around Neckbeard’s waist.

“Of course we’ll take him. That’s what we’re here for, right, honey?” she said to Neckbeard. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and walked away. He looked at the girl and back at us, and we could see the panic in his eyes.

“Yeah, we’ll take him,” Neckbeard said. Since he’d been holding Willy and stroking Willy’s back through the whole conversation, I’d kind of figured he would.

“So, uh, listen, you know that truck stop by the interstate?” Emmy said.

“Yeah?”

“We just walked from there, and we’re kind of beat, I’ve got a killer blister on my foot, and we would really love a ride back there.”

“So you guys get me questioned by the cops, then make me take your stolen pig, and now I’m your taxi?”

“Well, you don’t have to drive us. We can go ask your girlfriend
there. And while we’re at it, we can mention the circumstances when we first met you. I’ll bet that would be an interesting conversation, don’t you think?” Emmy whispered fiercely with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

“Lemme fire up the truck,” Neckbeard said, looking nervously over his shoulder at the retreating figure of his hairy girlfriend. “You guys wanna say good-bye?” He held Willy out to us.

Emmy took Willy. “Bye, pal,” she said. “Be good.” She held him out to me.

“Um. Yeah. Well. See you. I mean, not really. But you know. Glad you’re not gonna be bacon or anything.”

Emmy yanked Willy back and set him on the ground. “You suck,” she said to me.

Neckbeard came back with keys in his hand and climbed into the Farm Asylum pickup truck. “Come on,” he said. “There’s only two seats in the cab, so somebody’s gonna have to—”

“I’ll ride in back,” I said.

“We’ll both ride in back,” Emmy said, climbing up into the bed. “No way was I riding alone with that dude,” she said to me.

We both sat with our backs to the cab, and once again she reached out a hand. Our fingers interlaced, and we rode down very bumpy and dusty roads for about fifteen minutes, until we saw flashing blue lights in the distance.

Neckbeard pulled the truck over. “I am really not letting the law see me with you, you know?” he called back to us.

“It’s cool,” Emmy said. “Thanks for the ride.”

We walked hand in hand toward the truck stop parking lot, where two state police cruisers were sitting with their lights flashing and our families—even Dad, who I frankly had not expected to see—milling around Emmy’s family’s van.

“We’re in some shit now,” I said.

“Yep,” Emmy said. “But at least we’re in it together.”

“WELL, THIS COULDN’T GET MORE AWKWARD,” I WHISPERED TO
Justin as we walked toward our parents, therapists, and two cops. “Unless your boner was still making you limp, that is.”

Everything about the situation was so absurd—how we broke out of Assland, stole my parents car, got chased by the police, did a 5K through a cornfield, and stopped to make out at the end, all to save a smelly little pig—that I started to giggle and couldn’t stop. Justin joined in with a more manly laugh, and pretty soon we were practically rolling around on the ground in hysterics.

It was clear from my mom’s glare and Joss’s furrowed brow and Justin’s dad’s crossed-across-his-chest arms and everyone else’s frowns that no one else found this quite as hilarious as we did.