Winona was home by the time I came back from McDonald’s with Felicity and her friends. I’d never seen a woman guzzle down as many chicken nuggets in the space of ten minutes as Felicity did.

  It had started as a test on Aisha’s part. Once we’d finished collecting our orders in the drive-through, we were suddenly caught in a horrible spur of traffic trying to get out. Aisha and Kimberly had ordered a hundred chicken nuggets between them, but then all of a sudden they weren’t hungry anymore.

  They started to tease Felicity. Whispered between themselves and to me how much of a chicken nugget aficionado she was, and how she wouldn’t miss any opportunity to scoff some down.

  Felicity, sitting in the back alongside me, had reddened, but didn’t totally dismiss the whole rumours about it. Then Aisha, who’d paid for our luxurious meal during our night on the town, had said she would not ask anyone here to send her the money they owed her if Felicity could devour fifty chicken nuggets before the traffic broke up.

  I watched in a mixture of delight and horror as Felicity gobbled up every last morsel of chicken nuggets in that car. Her power was frightening when it came down to saving twenty dollars over chicken nuggets. She ate and she scoffed and she pushed aside any of my efforts to get her to drink the A&W Root Beer that McDonald’s had in spades. Like Winona, she was a card-carrying member of the dreaded Barq’s clan.

  Felicity won the wager, but I was left stroking her hand as I tried to make sure the most popular girl on campus didn’t recycle all her guts out in the backseat of Blondie’s car.

  Winona was in much better spirits. In fact, she looked a whole lot furrier since I’d last seen her. I had to do a double take to make sure it really was her underneath that brown, furry coat and not a wild bear who just so happened to have strolled its way into our house during these strange spring months.

  “Present from Benjamin?” I asked. Did I even have to ask? Of course it was from that spoiled auteur filmmaker.

  Winona didn’t nod or even smile at me as I moved through the adjoined living room. She was stuck on her phone. That stupid fucking phone Benjamin had bought her with his freshly minted Hollywood money. I moved past her, but not before tugging at her new bear beanie she’d gotten from Benjamin as well.

  “Hey!” Winona snapped.

  She looked adorable with it. So adorable in it that I wanted to rub off some of the adorableness on me as well. I put it on, then sauntered my way into the kitchen to fetch orange juice. Winona was not far behind, poking and prodding at me with her little fingertips.

  “Give it back to me!” She started clawing and hammering at my buzzcut, but she was far too short to even make a dent in me.

  “Nuh-uh,” I smirked, “not until you tell me what else Benjamin has been spoiling you with.”

  “Not swiping my things, for one,” she shouted. “Give it to me, Nathan!”

  She started to dig into my arms with those long nails of hers. Funny, she usually kept them short like a man’s. Now they were manicured beyond belief, polished in assorted colours of red, white and blue. Benjamin probably couldn’t decide which colour he liked best on her when he splashed on that and her pedicure as well.

  “Tell me,” I commanded.

  “Fuck off,” she screamed, pushing me against the kitchen counter. For such a petite Navajo, she was quite strong when she wanted to be.

  “Can’t you ever put down that fucking phone for once?” I snapped.

  “Well, I’m trying to get Irish Navajo off the ground, remember?” She speared her way into me again. “Something that isn’t going to happen with your idea of handing out flyers and pin badges.”

  She pushed and she straddled her way around my waist in some quasi-wrestling half nelson lock. She squeezed and I started to feel my breath be cut short.

  “Give it!”

  “No…” I wheezed.

  Then all of a sudden, Winona kneed me in the nuts. I groaned, and I flapped backwards like a fish out of water, my right palm striking the glass of orange juice I’d poured, falling to the ground and making a horrible noise as it smashed into a thousand different pieces.

  I fell on top of Winona, who straddled me away from the mess we’d made. She started to huff and to puff and suddenly she was in over her head in the mess we’d made together. With much care, she was able to straddle us over to the couch before she collapsed from the weight.

  “Get off of me,” Winona gargled out.

  “My nuts are painful, Winona,” I replied, “because of you.”

  “That still isn’t any excuse to throw yourself onto a grown woman,” she mused.

  With much effort, I pressed my palms onto the couch and pulled myself away from her. She was exhausted — we both were — but somehow Winona was able to snatch her fuzzy bear beanie off me as I heaved and grunted on the ground, holding my hands tightly against my nuts.

  This was the worst feeling in existence. Being brought down to my knees by my best friend, with a move I’d taught her if she’d ever felt she was in trouble, all over some angry bullshit on my part.

  We stood there, silently, catching our breaths, wondering what the hell had just happened.

  Neither of us said anything to the other until Winona had gotten her bags packed and headed in the direction of Benjamin’s.

  I didn’t really want to speak to her, but she, I felt, had at least wanted to speak to me. She’d made a pass at cleaning up the mess of shattered glass and orange juice on the ground, but I’d pushed her gently aside without words and motioned that I would be the one to fix it up.

  It had been my fault. I knew that. I was the one who’d stolen her beanie, and suddenly Winona had been off on a madcap adventure to take me down by any means and get it back.

  I would’ve done the same if someone had unceremoniously snatched something that was incredibly important to me. Like Triple H, or my collection of first-print Osamu Tezuka comics from Viz Media.

  Or even, I felt, Winona herself, if some amateur filmmaker had snatched her from my grasp, quietly sending all of our friendship plans into disarray. When was the last time we’d truly spent time together, aside from video games? Even then, playing Overwatch 2 last night had not exactly been exciting for the pair of us.

  Her nutshot had been our most intimate bonding moment together ever since we’d started up this little pact of ours. I didn’t expect that we’d keep drifting further and further away from one another the more we went on with it.

  Sometimes I would catch glimpses of her moving up and down the stairs as I worked, carrying clothes and her suitcase and letting Triple H plant a few kisses on her face to cheer her up. Sometimes she would stop in the hallway, waiting to say something, but then unable to bring herself to do so.

  Once she’d finished packing, I met her at the front door. She was already unlatching all the keys and locks and had stepped through the doorway when I reached for her arm.

  But I didn’t even know what to say when she turned around to face me. So Winona grunted out a breath, then pursed her lips together.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered.

  Then she started walking, suddenly jolting across to Benjamin’s house opposite us. Triple H started barking his head off, wondering where on Earth Winona was going, and I was there, caught in a whirlpool of feelings, most of which I’d felt my entire life for Winona yet hadn’t had the right place or time for them to come out.

  I hoped this wasn’t the end. I desperately hoped this wasn’t the end. I didn’t want to win a stupid bet if it meant this was the end of our friendship. So I just stood there, hoping she would come back, change her mind instead of knocking on Benjamin’s door, and drift into his place after a worrisome amount of verbose pleasantries that nearly sent me to the floor from the cold shoulder I’d given her.

  I let out a breath, then I turned around, trying to spend the next few hours comforting myself plundering whatever dungeons I could find in the official video game of Delicious in Dungeon.

  It only took me about an hour to get fed up playing Delicious in Dungeon and suddenly feel that shift within myself again.

  I was exhausted. I didn’t like to feel exhausted. I had to find a fix. Maybe something more action-packed would keep me buzzing and exhilarated enough not to dwell and ruminate on Winona.

  I started flicking through the Switch cartridges I had on hand, but with every one I did, I realised just how much I would’ve enjoyed playing it alongside Winona. Stardew Valley. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. Overcooked. The Miney-Crafta. Even Overwatch 2, which had been our perennial favourite together on long, dark evenings like this when we hadn’t much to do and weren’t in any mood to sit through a horror movie together.

  I was horribly, horribly down in the dumps. All because of me and my stupid fucking actions. This horrible feeling of rumination was beginning to clench deeper into my skin, and not even Triple H’s sloppy kisses on my right temple could cheer me up.

  Then I heard a ping on my phone. It wasn’t a text message from Winona, sadly, but rather a notification that Irish Navajo had been tagged in someone’s Instagram post.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  My stomach dropped. I knew what it probably was, but I didn’t want to find out so quickly. I swiped away the header notification on my phone before I saw what it was from, then opened up the Irish Navajo Instagram page, flicking through it to pass the time.

  There was a lot of stuff already posted. Lots and lots of behind-the-scenes photos of the pair of us together, even during the dreaded fundraiser for Palestinian children performance that had left a sour taste in anyone who’d been there to watch us perform.

  Winona had written in the entry that we’d earn our doing it, though we’d gone down in a flame of smoke along the way as well. There was no irony in her words. She was deadly serious when it came to all things Irish Navajo — whereas I might’ve used humour to play off how embarrassed I was, Winona took everything in life with great care.

  That’s what I liked about her the most. She was so passionate about everything in life. Even when she’d made mistakes, she didn’t grovel for forgiveness from others. She just wanted to get back on stage and remain the activist-slash-singer she clearly was.

  I’m trying to get Irish Navajo off the ground, remember? Her words reverberated in my head again. She really was trying to do that — far more than me and my pitiful flyers. Maybe listening to Benjamin Renzetti was perhaps the right move in this world of ours, quickly morphing into a cyberpunk dystopia.

  I clenched my eyes, then took a long breath before I scrolled onto the tagged section. It was just as I thought: Winona tagged in a photo with Benjamin, his hands wrapped around her shoulders instead of that cringe hover-hand men do nowadays when nervously around women.

  Underneath, there was a movie camera, alongside an Irish flag and an American flag turned upside down, with an equals sign that translated all three together as being equivalent to lots of dollar emojis. I scrolled onto the second photo and saw that Benjamin had officially announced Irish Navajo was to do the soundtrack for his student film project at the end of the year.

  Reading down the comments, I also noticed that Benjamin had announced Irish Navajo was playing another concert soon in O’Brien’s grocery store. Three days from now. Pity he hadn’t the foresight to announce that in his Instagram post, but Winona wouldn’t mind so long as she felt he acknowledged her.

  There was a pause, then I realised Winona hadn’t even told me she’d booked Irish Navajo to play at O’Brien’s. I was fuming. She couldn’t even have the decency to tell me, but at the same time she found time to tell Benjamin all about it — even if he might’ve only listened half-heartedly to all her gushing about him.

  I kept scrolling through the comments. They weren’t dating. Yet. At least, this was what I could glean from the others in Benjamin’s revolving door of a harem who were posting feedback. Days before, they might’ve been ready to tear out Winona’s hair, but now they were suddenly long-time fans of Irish Navajo. The horrendous Palestinian fundraiser concert we’d done wasn’t mentioned or used to bang Winona over her head — maybe because Benjamin would be reading the comments anyhow.

  Winona. Benjamin. Suddenly I grew tired of it all and was about to throw the phone across the room when I got another ping — this time from someone sliding into my DMs.

  It was Felicity. This time with impeccable grammar, not texting me with broken vowels or an assortment of unfinished words that masqueraded demands underneath special pleading to help her.

  Felicity_Fencing: Still up?

  Nate-Con: Yeah…

  There was a pause. I wondered if I should ask how she was after gobbling down all those chicken nuggets, but I didn’t. That seemed too obvious to ask. Obviously she wouldn’t be in bad spirits if she was taking the time to text with me.

  Felicity_Fencing: I saw Benjamin’s new photo.

  This wasn’t the turn in the conversation that I expected. My eyebrows furrowed a bit and my hands started to sweat. I wasn’t quite sure what to type next, so I played it safe.

  Nate-Con: Yeah?

  Felicity_Fencing: I think Navajo girl has a crush on him, judging from the way she’s smiling there.

  There was that term again. Navajo girl. I waited for my heart to feel like it had been stepped on on Winona’s behalf… but it hadn’t. I didn’t feel any sort of anger on Winona’s behalf. Slowly, with much careful thought, and careful not to let her know about me and Winona’s strange pact with one another, I replied back.

  Nate-Con: …I think so. She usually gets a bit giddy around him. How you feeling after all those nuggets?

  That was better. Didn’t deflect and found a way to segue into our earlier evening together.

  Felicity_Fencing: A whole lot less green. Are you busy tomorrow?

  Winona would usually want me and her to practise before a concert — even one in the most esteemed area of O’Brien’s grocery store — but I shook my head and typed a few words back.

  Nate-Con: No, not at all. I have CS classes in the morning. What about you?

  Felicity_Fencing: Same thing. I was hoping you could teach me a few things about variables afterwards.

  She wasn’t asking me to do her homework for once — she actually wanted to learn with me. I began to smile deliriously once more.

  Nate-Con: Sounds okay with me. How about the centre library afterwards?

  Felicity_Fencing: :D

  Felicity_Fencing: Perfect! I’ll see you there tomorrow… err, at Computer Science class first. Then I’ll see you afterwards in the library.

  Nate-Con: See you then.

  Pressing the phone to my chest and letting out a sigh of relief, it was only then that I felt the dark visage of Winona leaving my mind in peace.

  “So, the answer is three?”

  I shook my head, and I watched Felicity get all red in the face in embarrassment. She was not used to feeling like she was out of her comfort zone and out of control at all.

  “You’re mixing your integer and string variables up again,” I murmured.

  She grunted, flicking her head back in frustration. “All of this is too much to handle at once,” she said.

  She was partly right. One could be easily caught out when all these different terms were thrown at you while going through a C# programming book, but that wasn’t the whole picture. I gently moved the keyboard tray over to me and erased all the dull terms Professor Song had assigned to us.

  “The textbook is just a bit dry, that’s all,” I said. “We have to just, I don’t know, make it a little bit more exciting.”

  “How?” Felicity asked.

  I typed out the word string, watching as the text turned blue. It was never not satisfying to watch, but then I paused.

  “Well, what about we use fencing?” I said. “You’re a fencer, aren’t you, Felicity?”

  “News to me,” she shrugged. “I always thought I was a kendoka.”

  I smiled. Then I typed out weapon and an equals sign next to the string.

  string weapon = "sabre";

  “You know what this is?”

  “A string variable?”

  I nodded. “A variable is just a label, and the label stays, but…”

  “But?” Felicity asked.

  “…what it points to can change,” I explained. “You can always change it at any point after the string is declared.”

  I pointed at the screen. “Is this your blade of choice?”

  Felicity shook her head. “Not at all. Far too much slashing in that sabre stuff for me.”

  “Well, we can change it later on. For now, let’s write something out. You know how to use the Console.WriteLine command, right?”

  She nodded. I pushed the keyboard tray over to her again.

  “Go ahead, type something out with the weapon string using the string interpolation method.”

  I might as well have asked Felicity to magically conjure up rocket science from the reaction she gave me.

  “…The one with the dollar sign, remember?”

  A lightbulb went off in her head. She started typing, albeit with much in the way of nerves — not exactly the Felicity who thrived on the fencing piste. Once she’d finished, I pressed the green play button above the code to compile and run the program.

  “No, I’m not much of a sabre girl!” came printed out.

  “Good,” I said. “Now how about we change it?”

  “You can do that?”

  I nodded. “Variables are like a gym bag after all. You can take things out and put new things in instead.”

  I moved the cursor down a bit and motioned for her to type.

  “Write weapon = "epee";,” I said.

  “Don’t I have to write string with it as well?” Felicity asked, but I shook my head. There were so many rules and regulations that one easily got caught out, no matter how hard they tried.

  “No, the string part has already been declared. You don’t need to do that again — just assign it a new value.”

  “Like taking a sabre out of a gym bag and putting an epee in?”

  I snapped my fingers together. “Yes! That’s exactly it, Felicity!”

  It was a brilliant comparison, and one that made things click for her. There was a lot of truth to the old saying that a spoonful of sugar made the medicine go down. I’d done these same things when I was trying to make myself get through one dreary programming book or another.

  Instead of fencing, it had been professional wrestlers and their finishing moves once it was time for me to get stuck into arrays. I’d never written out HBK and Sweet Chin Music so many times before until I had to hand in assignments before the Christmas break came to an end.

  She didn’t even wait to hear me write out a new Console.WriteLine with the dollar sign thing, as she would put it. She started typing out a much longer comment than she’d previously written, reaching across for the mouse in my hand and hitting the green play button.

  “No, I’m not much of a sabre girl!”

  “But I am an epee girl! Thank you very much!”

  was displayed on the dark screen. Felicity was beaming. After all those long hours spent in the library computer room, I’d finally made the breakthrough I’d desperately hoped we could’ve made.

  Then my stomach started to rumble. I would’ve paid no heed to it if it meant I could spend more time in Felicity’s company, but her sharp eyes prickled.

  “Famished?” she asked.

  “As famished as my ancestors escaping the Great Famine,” I quipped, trying to sound funny. Trying to sound intellectual. Trying, once again, to keep up with her.

  “…Right,” Felicity side-eyed me. “Well, I’m hungry anyway, so maybe we should try—”

  “You see, the famine was this bad thing that happened, Felicity,” my words came crashing out in a panic, “and I was trying to be a bit fun—”

  She waved her hand in front of me. “Yes, I know what the famine was, Nathan,” she replied. “But I’m pretty hungry right now. Let’s get something in the cafeteria, shall we?”

  I wished the music room hadn’t been built along the way from the library to the centre cafeteria — but I suppose it made sense. They had to have the main food-eating place in the cafeteria, where everyone and their mother could grab something quick to eat and then head back to their studies or, in my case, part-time lecturing, with only a woman’s smile and company to keep me sated.

  I was talking Felicity’s ear off about how I couldn’t decide between today’s special of sloppy Joes or the ham and cheese pasta bake when I heard faint, giggling whispers about Mary Crow Dog coming from the music room.

  Nobody on the whole campus would talk about Mary Crow Dog — far too obscure a left-wing icon for any of the WASPs here to have heard of. I wouldn’t even have heard of her, or the stand she made at Wounded Knee, if it weren’t for the fact that I was roommates with someone who’d written nearly a whole playlist of songs about her in admiration.

  It was Winona… and she was speaking with someone in the music room. Soft, lively chatter that wasn’t all that far off from how she and I conversed when we were practising together.

  I panicked and felt my heart begin to race. It had never happened like this before — not even when I was with Felicity. I turned to her and mouthed a load of nonsense about how I was just going to check if anyone in the music room right now was using my bodhrán set and that I had to snatch it back from them, but that I would meet up with her in the cafeteria.

  I ran quickly. If I was going to see the worst thing possible — Benjamin with his arms fully wrapped around Winona’s waist, her on his lap, pretending to care about all the obscure Native American activists she’d written songs about — I wanted it to be over quickly. Just a glance that she was forever lost to me and fully on board the Benjamin Renzetti freight train, before I ran back to be with Felicity.

  I might be lost to Winona forever too. I would never pay her any more heed when it came time for her dating troubles and all the nightmarish headaches that came with trying to be the main side piece to the most popular guy on campus. Never. Ever. Again. She would sulk and cry about it and tell me much the same, about how she’d never listen to my troubles when it came to being Felicity’s lover, but I wouldn’t care. I’d be too enraptured holding Felicity’s fencing scoreboards to notice.

  I skidded to a halt once I’d reached the doorways, then slowly pried my way through. I hoped they didn’t notice me. Anyone with much common sense would notice me doing this if they weren’t wrapped up in the early, addicting nature of first loves. It couldn’t happen. This shouldn’t be happening. Winona and Benjamin shouldn’t even be a pair. Why was I so upset at the thought of them being together?

  I moved against the window, glanced in, and found my best friend on Benjamin’s lap, her hands wrapped around his shoulders in glee, smiling and giggling at whatever strange, sordid tale he’d told her about working the early rungs of Hollywood stardom, letting his hands trail up her thigh as he did so.

  Then Benjamin noticed me and said as much to Winona, but I was gone from the window by then, crashing into Felicity along the way. She hadn’t listened to me go on to the cafeteria without her, and then she took me by the hands and the pair of us started rushing away from this place, futilely hoping we hadn’t been on the minds of Winona and Benjamin for some time now.