Free The Danger of Being Me by Anthony J Fuchs

absurd.  Phil tried to recite his first line, but a laugh came out instead, and it took him a few seconds to collect himself.  I saw Amber smiling from my right, and focused on the words in my book.
    "Oh!" Phil said finally, slipping into his character.  "Win that kiss for me."
    I scowled.  "No!"
    "Sooner or later," he pleaded.
    "Sooner or later," I conceded.  "But sooner than later, I fear, your lips and hers are destined to speak in a common tongue, because she is young and you are easy on the eyes, and even the stars on high have resolved that it must be."  I sighed, muttering aloud as if to myself, "And so better that what must be should be only because I make it be."
    Amber stepped in closer toward my right, and I gave Phil a shove that pushed him against the blackboard.  That earned a small laugh from the class, and set me at ease as Amber stage-whispered, "Are you still there?"
    "I am," I said, throwing a finger in front of my mouth to mime a shushing gesture at Phil.
    "We spoke of..." Amber started, then paused.
    "A kiss," I said.  I looked into Amber's caramel eyes then, and grinned broadly.  "How very sweet a word."
     
     
    2.
     
    Four minutes into lunch, I pushed through the heavy door into the newsroom.
    The Creek Reader headquarters was all but abandoned.  The counters, tables and desks lay bare now that our latest effort had gone to the printer.  The assignment board that hung on the wall opposite the door had been wiped clean.  With the March issue in the can, there would be nothing to do here today.  And that, of course, was why we came.
    Because it was something else entirely that drew us here in the silent days after the work was done.  I found Helen, Phil, Winnie and Ethan assembled around the pair of worktables at the center of the room, their lunches laid out on in front of them.  James Hetfield's somber baritone crooned over Kirk Hammett's sweetly aching guitar riffs from the boombox on the teacher's desk in the corner.
    "That's so true," Winnie said to Phil, laughing over the music.  I cut around the room to the bay of lockers, pulled my locker door open and heaved my backpack inside.
    "Rough day at the office?" Helen said behind me.
    I turned and forced a smile.  "Just fucking tired."
    I grabbed the brown paper bag off the upper shelf and slapped my locker door shut.   Then I rounded the pair of upright easels, spun one of the blue plastic chairs around backward, and sidled up to the table next to Helen.  She looked to me, her left cheek on her palm with her elbow perched on the table, and asked sweetly, "When did you finally get out of this godforsaken shithole last night?"
    I shrugged, and turned to Ethan.  A cheesesteak from the Creekside Diner lay on the table in front of him next to a can of Irn-Bru.  "What time did the movie let out?"
    "Ten-thirty-five?" he ventured.  "Thereabouts."
    I looked back to Helen, my right cheek on my palm with my elbow perched on the table.  My face was a foot from hers as I told her, "Half-an-hour after that."
    She shook her head.  "You thoroughly mystify me."
    I twitched a grin at her. "Thanks."  I emptied my bag lunch onto the table.  Ethan craned his neck to get a look at my meal.  "What's on the menu?"
    I sorted through the items, all shelf-stable junk food that I'd bought at the gas-station down the street from the school, and announced the inventory.  "Deep-fried cheese curls, hyperbolic paraboloids in a cardboard tube, a meal replacement protein bar."  I upended the bag, and a can of Jolt Cola rolled out.  "And the nectar of the gods."
    "You know all that processed cacadh is going to kill you, right?" Ethan said.  "And sooner rather than later."
    "Yeah?" I asked, cracking the tab on the black can.
    "From what I hear," he answered, grinning.
    I drained a mouthful of the supercaffeinated soda, and cringed as the carbonation burned a trail down my throat.  "Good," I said, and tore the wrapper off the protein bar.
    Ethan laughed,