Page 5 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

brYCE

From the moment I met Courtney, I knew.

I’d seen her last week when she moved into the other side of the duplex. At a distance, she’d just been my sad, pathetic neighbor. Now, actually meeting her, I learned who she was on the inside, where it mattered most.

I’d come to the big-box store to buy a towel holder after my old one broke. One hundred and four people died of mold every day . Proper towel management was crucial.

That was when I noticed Courtney, sitting wedged between a vending machine and a trash can. Her green uniform vest was the only clue she was an employee; she certainly wasn’t working .

She was undeniably attractive, and I watched, transfixed, as she sliced open a red KitKat wrapper with a long, equally red fingernail.

Warm sunlight danced off her pale skin. Her indigo-blue hair gleamed as she tossed her head back and raised the chocolate to her mouth.

As her full lips closed around it, she moaned softly.

And I knew. As she bit into the whole damn KitKat bar without breaking it apart first , I knew. Courtney was the fucking worst.

And, okay. Maybe it wasn’t the act of eating a KitKat incorrectly that made me want to keep my distance. She was an enigma. She viewed the world like it was one big joke, and I wanted in on it. That scared the shit out of me.

I was too curious about her. Curiosity famously killed cats and, less famously, killed my crush-prone heart. I was pretty sure I was reaching my emotional ninth life, so I was done with risks.

My exes always accused me of self-sabotaging—that I was always looking for something to go wrong in relationships. If that was true and my heartache was my own fault, I’d just sabotage my self-sabotaging ways and simply never allow a relationship to form in the first place. Heartbreak: cured.

I needed this woman far, far away from me, so I did what anyone in my position would do. I insulted her mom.

Instead of never talking to me again, she fought back. And now she was—

Oh god. She had her hand out, introducing herself , while I stood here, internally monologuing like some kind of Joe Goldberg weirdo.

“Courtney,” she said. “Terrible meeting you.”

I shied away from her hand. Why we, as a society, still participated in such an archaic tradition was beyond me. Studies had shown it was more sanitary to greet each other with a kiss than—

Great. Now I was looking at her mouth. She was going to get the wrong idea.

The only solution was to continue acting like an egotistical douche nozzle. I was familiar with egotistical douche nozzles from my years of being bullied on playgrounds. All I had to do was channel some of that energy.

Unsolicited advice should do the trick. Hooding my eyes in a look of arrogance, I said, in a patronizing sort of way, “Those things will kill you, you know.” I tilted my chin in her direction.

“Candy?” Courtney looked at me like I was a toddler and not a Very Intimidating Man.

“Vending machines,” I said, in a dark tone that I hoped conveyed I was the type of good-for-nothing rogue who carried danger with him wherever he went.

I was also familiar with good-for-nothing rogues, thanks to having found my grandmother’s secret stash of explicit historical romance novels when I was thirteen.

Courtney regarded me with the detached manner of someone examining sidewalk gum—mild distaste, but mostly indifference.

“Anyway, you’d best stay away from me,” I said, practically swooping a black cape in front of my face as I began slinking backward into the—well, not shadows exactly, since the store was brightly lit with fluorescents, but metaphorical shadows. “I’m trouble. A maker of trouble, if you would.”

“A troublemaker?” she supplied.

“And a rake,” I said, because I’d always wanted to be a rake.

“The rakes are over there.” She pointed across the garden section.

I drew up short, dropping my mysterious act. “No, I’m the rake. A rake is like… a bad boy.”

“I’ve never heard of a bad boy who’s scared of vending machines.”

“I am a bad boy. The baddest of boys.”

“Please, I invite you to call yourself a boy again.”

Flustered, I raised my voice. “Roughly thirteen people a year die from vending machines, making them statistically more dangerous than spiders, sharks, and even mountain lions, which is why I’m a bad man that you should definitely avoid.”

“You’re a bad man because you’ve warned me about the dangers of vending machines?”

This was going poorly. She was a tough nut to crack. I’d been distant and aloof. I’d hinted at danger. I’d even insulted her mother. What was left?

I lifted my chin at a regal angle and gave her a parting, disdainful look, and then I whisked away scornfully.

Which is to say: I ran away like a total baby. But babies can’t run , one might say. And one would be correct. I ran exactly like a baby who wasn’t very good at running.

After returning home, I sat in my living room, typing away on my laptop.

Working from home as an accountant was as delightfully boring as it sounded.

Boring equaled safe. Boring also meant my mind was free to think about things it shouldn’t.

Like fatality statistics. Or what kind of illness I might have that I just didn’t know about yet.

Or how I’d stumbled over my own shoelaces running away earlier.

Or how my new neighbor had been desecrating a KitKat like she was laughing in the face of the universe.

She had no right to sit there chomping away at a candy bar like she was happy with a life in retail.

She had no right to make me feel like, if I got to know her better, maybe I could be happy with my miserable existence, too, by association.

That was unacceptable. Because if I was happy with my miserable existence, it left room for my existence to get more miserable.

Happiness was just the calm before the storm.

It made you think that maybe the world wasn’t so bad, right before it ripped the rug out from under you.

Like when you let yourself get excited about a new relationship, right before you wound up getting dumped out of nowhere and accused of “emotional unavailability.” Again.

Or it was like when you were a kid, and your mom gave you ice cream for breakfast and took you to your grandparents’ house.

Life couldn’t get any better, especially since there were a bunch of slugs on your grandparents’ driveway, and nothing made little boys happier than looking at slugs.

Everything was great. Until your grandparents brought you out of your ice-cream-and-slug-induced trance to tell you your mother had left you, and she wasn’t coming back.

But those were hypothetical examples and definitely not real events.

The point was happiness made me sadder than being sad, so I’d decided to just be sad.

I couldn’t be friendly to Courtney because then she might get the wrong idea.

She’d become one of those neighbors who’d say things like Good morning and Nice weather we’re having lately, isn’t it?

Those types of interactions ventured too close to pleasant for my liking.

Luckily, going full theater kid on her had probably weirded her out enough that she’d want nothing more to do with me.

I was pretty sure I’d seen the last of her.

Someone knocked on my front door.

Assuming it was the mail carrier or something, I snapped my laptop closed, went to the foyer, and looked through the peephole. Catching a glimpse of blue hair, I cursed under my breath.

Half-heartedly tugging on a flannel shirt, I answered the door.

“Hi,” Courtney said, her voice as dry and monotone as it had been at the store.

I crookedly buttoned my flannel and leaned against the doorframe. “Hi?”

“I shouldn’t have been honest about the fact you look like the mascot for Lucky Charms.” This was again said in that same emotionless but somehow snarky voice that made her sound like a zombie Valley girl.

“Is this you apologizing?” I asked.

“Yes. I should have been less vocal about your shortcomings. That was wrong of me.”

“Unbelievable.” I went to shut my door, mostly to hide the inexplicable laugh rising in my chest, but her combat boot stopped it.

“I’m sorry.” Now, at last, something cracked in her expression, and the vulnerability shining through made me pause. “I understand if you never want to talk to me again, but maybe—”

“You’re right. I don’t.” I couldn’t cave. Couldn’t indulge in exploring the intrigue she inspired in me.

Her face hardened once more, and she tossed her head. “Fine. No talking. We don’t need to be friends to be neighbors.”

“Sounds good to me.” With that final dickish sentiment, I shut the door, feeling both pleased and strangely disappointed with myself for having gotten rid of her for good.

I didn’t love the type of person I’d had to become in the name of self-preservation.

I never wanted to be someone’s asshole neighbor, at least not until I was eighty-five and being grumpy was endearing.

When I was a child, people described me as kind and sensitive.

Now, only half that description applied.

I never knew if being sensitive was good or bad.

Grandma said it meant I loved too hard. Grandpa said it was a nice way of saying I was weak.

It didn’t matter. I would never have to be strong because I didn’t plan on loving at all.

Courtney’s revenge was swift and sadistic.

Once she left my house, I heard her enter her side of the duplex and turn on the TV. She cranked it up to full volume, but I didn’t let it bother me. I’d been a jerk; let the girl blow off some steam.

Seven hours later, Riverdale season one was still going strong. I couldn’t believe this woman watched Riverdale on purpose. Still, I figured she’d fall asleep eventually, and her streaming service would time-out.

She apparently turned off the prompt feature of her streaming service, because her TV blared all night long.