“Ah, ah!” Jude held up a finger and Al shut his mouth, pouting. “I can handle the language stuff, but when you talk about calendars you start talking about math and stuff, and I just don’t need that kind of negativity in my life. Got it?”
Al said nothing.
“Al.”
“I have got it,” he grumped.
Jude reached over and playfully pinched Al’s cheek. “Chin up, babe, I’m sure you’ll find a new human thing to talk shit about soon, and when you do, I promise I will be all ears. Unless it involves math.”
The corner of Al’s lip tugged up slightly. “Okay,” he agreed, trying to still sound grumpy, but failing.
“Anyway, in answer to your question…” Jude patted around the bed for his phone. “Todayisin fact Sunday, and Idohave a schedule full of ‘fuck all’ planned. Maybe I’ll paint. I haven’t painted just for fun in ages. It’s always for schoolwork.”
“I feel interest in observing you paint,” Al said, sounding so genuine that Jude melted a little.
“Maybe you can be my subject, then,” he suggested. He was about to elaborate about what being a subject would entail, knowing Al would ask if he didn’t, but at that moment he located his phone and saw he had a missed call and two texts from his mom. He read the text messages, then slid back down onto the bed with a low, elongated, “fuuuuuuck.” He threw an elbow over his eyes and made incomprehensible noises of discontent, fully aware that it was going to startle Al, but unable to stop himself.
“Jude, what is wrong?” Al asked, sounding predictably worried. “Did something on your cellular phone make you feel unhappiness?”
Jude moved his arm enough to see that Al was looking at the phone in his hand like it was a bomb about to go off. Continuing to grumble incoherently, he held the phone out to Al. Frowning, Al took it, and Jude watched his color-shifting eyes scan the texts still displayed on the screen.
“I do not feel understanding, who sent these messages to you?” Al asked.
“My mom,” Jude said, his words muffled by his arm, which he had draped back over his face.
“The contact information does not say it is your mother. All that is here is three tiny human skulls.”
“Skulls are how you spell mom in emoji language,” Jude said.
“Oh. I thought you did not speak more than English?”
Jude groaned and then rolled over onto his belly, smashing his face into the pillow, sort of hoping he could smother himself to death.
“This is a fucking nightmare,” he said. It came out sounding like, “Mrph mrph mrphmrph mrphmrph.”
“The message says that you are going to go out to consume a meal tonight with your mother, your father, and your brother. Are you feeling unhappiness because this interferes with your plans to do ‘fuck all’ and paint?”
Finally, Jude sat up again, facing Al with what was surely a look of pure misery.
“I am feeling unhappiness because my fucking family is coming into town tonight for dinner, and there is no way I’ll be able to get out of it. I’ve bailed on them too many times, that’s probably why she gave me no warning. And did you see what she said about you?” He gestured at his phone still in Al’s hand, feeling a little hysterical. “‘I heard you have a new special friend. We are excited to meet him tonight.’ It’s not even a question! It’s basically a demand! I’m gonna kill Corbin. He probably told his sister about you. She still lives in our hometown, and she’s such a fucking gossip. It was only a matter of time before it got back to my parents.”
“You do not want me to meet your family?” Al asked, sounding hurt.
Jude sighed. “It’s not that,” he said, calming down his tone. “It’s more that I don’t want tosubject youto my parents. Or my brother. They’re… they’re a lot. And they’ll be really annoying and rude to you for your accent and, you know,youness. Not that there’s anything wrong with you,” Jude added before Al even had a chance to overthink it. “But they’re judgmental people, and with you still trying to fit into Earth culture, I’m sure they will findplentyof petty, unimportant shit to judge you about.”
“My feelings of desire at knowing more about you are bigger than my feelings of worry about judgment from them,” Al said, brow furrowed, as if this was an obvious fact. “Besides, I am doing much better at being a human being. The other day at the library the human woman at the front desk asked me how I was doing and I said, ‘I am feeling fine,’ like I am supposed to, even though I was actually feeling annoyance because the library blows too much cold air and my human clothes were not enough to keep me warm.”
Jude decided not to mention that yesterday, when he’d taken Al to McDonald’s, he had watched him squeeze thirty-seven ketchup packets onto his tray and then eat it with a spoon like it was yogurt. That was perhaps the only time in recent memory that Jude was decidedlynothorny for him at all.
“It doesn’t matter either way,” Jude said. He felt heavy with defeat. “If I don’t meet them at the restaurant, they’ll just show up here, and I don’t want to have to do a drug and sex toy sweep of the house. I have no choice but to go. I won’t make you come, though. You can stay here and keep trying to engage Buttons in conversation.”
“I have told you many times that Buttonsdoesengage me in conversation. Just because you only speak English and emoji does not mean that—”
“Yeah, yeah, fine. You speak cat. Mypointis that I’m not getting out of this, but you can, and probably should, for your own sake.”
“No,” Al said simply. “I will go with you to eat human food with your parents and brother. It is obvious they make you feel unhappiness for some reason. I will not let you feel unhappiness alone.”
It was a monumentally stupid idea to bring Al to a family dinner, but maybe, Jude thought, he’d be a weird enough distraction that his family would forget to berate him for every life choice he had made since the day he was born.
