“What else do you want to know about me? So I’m less of a creepy stranger. If that’s... you know... possible.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to know about him. Maybe I just wanted to know he was a real person, to hear a voice. But he had opened the door, so I started asking questions. One after the next. And this is what I learned:
Daniel was an only child like me. His dad was Mexican American and his mom was white. He grew up speaking two languages, but he mostly hung out with white kids in his suburban high school and he didn’t have much of an opportunity to use his Spanish.
What else?
He was eighteen years old.
What else?
His parents were still together, but they seemed to get along only when he was around as a buffer. He hardly ever saw them talking alone.
What else?
He wasn’t sure what color his eyes were; his driver’s license said hazel. His mom thought they were brown.
What else?
His first job was working the drive-through window at Dairy Queen. Most people spoke too loud into the microphone making his ears ring. And the bags of soft serve mix looked like digestive fluids.
What else?
The first person to die in his life was his cousin who drowned while swimming in a river with a strong current.
What else?
He was bullied in high school for being dorky and really into computer games.
What else?
His favorite place was the Natural History Museum in Chicago.
What else?
His favorite holiday was the Fourth of July because he used to be a bit of a pyro.
What else?
He didn’t know his favorite color because, okay, he was color blind.
What else?
He really did play video games too much.
What else?
He didn’t know why he couldn’t break up with me as Jonah, or why he had kept doing what he did. He was still confused about it all and maybe that was why it was kind of hard to talk to me.
“Okay, sure,” I said, breaking off our game of twenty questions, “But I want to know what your endgame was. Did you ever once think of that when you were lying to me for half a year?”
I could feel my face getting hot. I was holding my breath tight in my chest.
“I don’t know.”
He was tentative suddenly.
“Yes, you do!” I said. “Even if you didn’t think about it consciously, you had to have some kind of idea in the back of your mind. Some sort of fantasy about what would happen.”
