NO FIGHTING PLEASE

Chapter 6

“How do you know Elliot Roy?”

I gave Emma a death glare the second she opened her mouth to say this. She had insisted on the fact that the best time to interrogate Vinc would be during lunch time—he would be happy because he was eating and we could offer food as payment, or something along those lines. Either way I wasn’t agreeing with it.

Yes I wanted to know more—everything—about sexy CD guy, aka Elliot Roy, but there were limits. Like asking Vincent any information about him, that was a limit, Vinc was a limit.

I didn’t want him knowing I liked a guy. I had a hard time having Emma knowing it. And if he knew he might just open his trap at one point.

Emma and him had a hard time keeping secrets and yes, I might like the guy but the last thing I needed was to have one of them go up to him and go all “hey my friend over there is stalking you cause she thinks you’re hot and she’s responding favourably to you, on a chemical level and all, so you interested?” That was too close to the little “will you date me, check yes or no” fourth grade note passing.

Vinc, who had his mouth full of lasagna, or well I think it was lasagna, answered, “define know?”

I frowned at him. I was not expecting that answer, that’s for sure. And of course in my confusion I had to open my stupid mouth. “What do you mean?”

Vinc scooped a big piece of lasagne with his fork, shoved it in his mouth, chew a little and answered me. The process was overly long considering I wanted the answer now. “I mean no one really knows that guys.”

It was Emma’s turn to ask. “Again, confusing boy, what might you mean by this?”

Indeed, what had he meant by this… boys were so confusing… go figure…

“That he doesn’t really speak with anyone so no one really knows him.” He shrugged and took a long loud sip of his juice box. Seeing him with a juice box was funny. Especially since it was a pink one, with Oasis juice in it. The Oasis juice wasn’t funny, it was the pinkness that was, and the fact that his hand was almost bigger than the tiny thing.

Again, I had to ask for clarification. “Why?”

“His family’s crazy.”

Both Emma and I said “Huh?” at the exact same time, and confusion must have been as apparent in my face as it was in Emma’s.

Was this how it felt when Emma was trying to make me spill things? Because it was annoying, having someone not just give you all the information in one shot and be done with it.

I kept moving my leg under the table, looking around. The cafeteria was crowded, as always. Some kids seemed to not have realized that tables were kind of set at the beginning of the year—unwritten rule—and they had been hovering around ours, but Vinc had scared them away, and by scare I mean looked at them with creepy eyes. He might have pushed one in the stairs earlier too so that probably helped in the balance.

There wasn’t just Emma Vinc and I sitting together. Ben was here too, and other of our friends, but they were talking together and we had our own conversation going on here.

“They come from Ontario.” Vincent finally answered. He ripped half of one of the four slices of bread he had taken, covering it with butter, rolled it in his hand into a little ball and shoved it in his mouth. I liked to eat, but I had limits, this was one of them. “His dad’s in the army, he’s like super strict and they’re like very very Bible thumping. As in he goes to church every Sunday morning. As in he wouldn’t come to hockey practice or any game that morning if there was something, I mean that religious.”

Phoquedy-phoqued.

Of course! He had to be! Catholic, encouraging the army and from Ontario. That was like everything my father didn’t want in one guy. Phoque, phoque, phoque!

Emma, who probably hadn’t really grasped what Vinc had just said—and by just said I mean completely crushed my dreams of ever having a relationship with the guy that didn’t really know I existed—snorted. “I don’t see why he can’t speak with anyone.”

Evil-Vinc smiled at that, and evil smile, took a handful of vegetables from my plate while I glared at him and continued speaking, with his mouth full, of course. “Because last year he was going out with this girl, she went to his church and they did it,” he wiggled his eyebrows. I felt very sad all of a sudden, “and their parents found out and they freaking the crap out. The girl’s family moved away from the bad influence and his parents all but murdered him. He’s been very quiet ever since.”

Emma was frowning beside me while I still tried to process what he had just said. “Okay that’s… weird.”

I wasn’t speaking. That was sad, in a way. I did not enjoy the whole sleeping-with-girlfriend bit, but the fact that he got crap because of it—I mean maybe he liked the girl, maybe he had his heart broken—and having his parents mad at him for it and all… I felt bad for him, even though I didn’t really know him.

With my family I could bring home a guy and with how left-prone my family was I could pretty much do whatever I wanted. Freedom was something my parents believed in and fought for. They would never go against their belief… unless it was to go with a guy that was well… an English Catholic Army-Loving boy.

Phoque.

Well… it had been fun while it lasted and I would probably dream about CD guy, Elliot, for the rest of my life and I would never go with another man and I would die with my cats, but hey, fun while it lasted.

Just thinking about him made my palms go sweaty and it took my appetite away.

“Tell me about it.” He snorted. I worried for about half a second that food would come out when he did, but luckily that didn’t happen. “And who knew young people still went to church.” He laughed at that. “I thought only the old diaper wearing types went and they were all being sold and turned into Jean Coutu’s.”

That’s what had happened to like two churches in our region. Churches turned into drug stores… some priests might have turned in their graves. I could understand why though. I liked the architecture of them, they were beautiful. I don’t know, I kinda liked the whole “they’re old and they kind of have a vibe to them” thing. But religion was dying in Québec. We had too much crap from it, had been controlled from it for too long. Now people fled from it.

I pushed those thoughts aside and went back to the whole Elliot deal even though I didn’t want to because there were obviously no way I would ever go out with him now. But I still wanted to clear things. “So you know him because of hockey?” He had mentioned hockey games.

Beat he was a Canadien fan. That would be the end of the stroll. Now that would have my father run after him with the gun he didn’t have. An axe, ya that we had. Dad would run after him with an axe.

“Yep, he’s in my team.” Vinc scratched the top of his head, making his hair stick out in the back in a funny way. If I had been in a better mood I could have laughed. “He used to play soccer with me too but I think he’s like in the cadet or something now. His dad’s pretty high up in the bang bang food chain.”

Bang bang food chain. Vinc had issues… “That’s a nice way to put it.”

”Thanks,” he grinned widely. He had food stuck between his teeth, I wasn’t going to tell him, that would be funnier “by the way, I advice not crushing for that guy Azé.” What the… Okay now I was definitely not telling him about the food stuck between his teeth. Assbutt. “Not exactly dating material. Either way your parents would probably kill you. And I think dating is out of it for him, as long as his parents are alive I mean.”

I tried very hard not to narrow my eyes at him. “Lovely thought, thank you” I gave him a nice fake grin and grabbed my milk chocolate, “very much and I’m not interested don’t worry, I was just curious.”

“Uh huh”

“Hey!” I pointed at him, making an offended face “Don’t you uh-huh me!”

He stuck his tongue out. “Turd”

I did too. “Jerkface”

Usually this would have gone on for longer but today Vinc just laughed, shook his head and shoved more lasagna in his mouth. “Anyway does this mean you’ll come to see my games more often?”

Yes, most definitely.

“No, not at all.”

“My grandma’s a better liar than you, and she goes to church with Elliot Roy and his booth camp father”

I fake-smiled again. “Funny.”

“A little disturbing though,” Em pitched in. “Have you ever seen his grandma?”

Vincent gasped, his mouth wide open. Luckily there was no food in there anymore. “Hey,” he poked her with one of the baby carrots he had stolen from me, right on the cheek, repeatedly and fast, “don’t go hating on my grandma!”

“You guys are weird.” I laughed a little. I should laugh. Sure, Elliot was now officially unattainable, but it wasn’t like I would see him again anyway. I should move on. I could move on.

Vinc threw the baby carrot straight on my forehead, “Your face his weird.”

I glared at him and threw one back.

Things would go back to normal.

I would move on.