Everyone says that Mitch got really weird after he backed over his girlfriend, Carrie, with his 1994 Chevy Blazer. Personally, I noticed him getting weird before then, but I keep that to myself because people might think he did it on purpose. Half of us say he did it on purpose, and the other half says it was an accident, but I think most of us aren’t totally sure.

They’re still together and I’ve heard some of us say it’s just because Mitch can’t afford to rent his own place, or maybe it’s because Carrie now needs rides to doctor’s appointments all the time and we all know about her shit relationship with her shit family and a lot of us are busy with our jobs and our recreational dodgeball teams and the bands that we play in with each other, so she has to rely on him to drive her.

Some of us think he shouldn’t be allowed to drive anymore.

None of us think they should still be together, but all of us are afraid to say it to their faces.

When Mitch drives over to my place and asks if he can sleep on my couch for a night or two, I say sure, of course, come on in, man, and we drink beer and watch a pirated hockey playoffs game and talk shit about how bad they’re playing.

I don’t tell anybody Mitch is sleeping over, but Jimmy finds out the second day when he comes by because he has nothing better to do since he broke his leg longboarding down that one hill by the old video store where some of us used to work before it went out of business. I tell him not to tell the rest of us what’s going on and he promises he won’t but he lies all the damn time, we all know it, so I know it won’t stay secret.

Jimmy says he wants to help Mitch and Jimmy thinks taking acid helps everything. None of us think Jimmy on acid actually helps anything at all. 

But then the two of them are melty on my couch and Jimmy keeps laughing until he’s in tears and then Mitch starts doing the same thing after Jimmy keeps repeating this sentence from this stupid show we all watch on Netflix, so now they’re both hysterical on my couch. I’m thinking what the rest of us will say if they hear about this, so I’m all annoyed and it’s too hot in my apartment.

I leave Mitch and Jimmy to it and go outside but it’s too hot outside too. I smoke a cigarette. I try to think if there’s any of us I can call to come over and fix all of this. None of us is a good choice. I smoke another cigarette.

Back inside Jimmy’s lying on the floor and Mitch is still on the couch and they both have tears on their faces but this time Jimmy is laughing and Mitch seems to be crying and I think maybe I should go back outside. But then Mitch sees me and his face gets all squished and he starts crying harder.

Out of all of us, I’m the worst at this kind of thing. I don’t know what to do. I step over Jimmy so I can sit next to Mitch and then he puts his head on my lap and keeps crying and I think: okay, I guess this is happening. When I was a kid, my mom would softly scratch my head when I was sad so I figure that’s something I can do for Mitch too even if my nails are all stubby and bitten short and after a while he chills out and we watch cartoons and Jimmy rolls around on the floor with his leg brace clunking against the peeling linoleum in my kitchen.

Later on after their trips peak, Jimmy hobbles out to work his shift at Jimmy John’s, and Mitch and I sit on opposite ends of the couch eating chicken nuggets I shook out of a bag and put into the oven on a crusty baking tray. I’m out of beer so we drink Kool Aid. At some point he says, hey, bro, don’t tell them about all this, okay? And I don’t really know who he means but I say yeah, duh, of course. But then later I realize he meant us—the rest of us—and I wonder if that’s what this is now. If there is an us and a them and which one am I.

I don’t know.

I start feeling really weird.

I really don’t think Mitch meant to run Carrie over.