The Haters by Jesse Andrews Page A

selfish impulsive destructive bullshit because you’re the dinosaur-headed goat foreskin that you are somehow always incapable of not being, so just shut the hell up
    The small part of me that was able to have some perspective and not just selfishly feel horrible about Corey and Ash was feeling horrible about what I was saying to Corey. Because this was different from the ambient low-level bickering that we often do. That stuff is just riffing and no one’s out to make anyone feel bad. This was clearly something else. This was not playfuldogs-romping-around behavior. This was shitty spiteful human behavior, but I couldn’t help it.
    COREY: just tell me this and i will shut up
    WES: tell you what, ass
    COREY: would you have hooked up with her?
    WES: what?
    COREY: just would you have hooked up with her if she was like, wes, let’s hook up
    WES:
    COREY: that’s all i’m asking
    WES: the answer is no
    COREY: what? bullshit
    WES: the answer is no so choke to death on sasquatch’s dick
    That was the point at which Ash returned. So we shut up about it and resumed our awkward wordless consumption of low-quality sausage.
    We tried doing Internet in the hotel’s business center, a dank, windowless, fluorescent-lit closet of ancient computers that kept asking us to update their versions of Windows. But when we tried updating one computer, it had a panic attack. So we ignored the other ones’ software update pleas, which was difficult, because they kept popping up every thirty seconds or so in front of everything you were trying to do, and also because you did feel pretty bad for these poor dinosaur computers.
    ASH,
reading email
: fuck
    WES: what
    ASH: we can’t use my car anymore
    WES,
alarmed
: what?!
    COREY: hey i’m getting the software update message again
    ASH: yeah we’re all getting it so just ignore it
    WES: ash what’s wrong with your car?
    ASH: my mom emailed me. she’s pissed off because the jazz camp people keep bothering her. she says the police are looking for my license plate and are going to pull us off the road
    WES: fuck
    ASH: so we should stop using my car
    COREY: how do you get this message to go away
    WES: click “cancel”
    COREY: it won’t let me
    ASH: uncheck the little box and click “cancel”
    COREY: it says don’t uncheck the box
    WES: uncheck it anyway
    COREY: ok
    WES: christ
    COREY: in my defense i didn’t know you could do that
    WES: so what are we going to do?
    ASH: we need another car
    WES: oh
    ASH: with its own plates
    WES: how much does a new car cost?
    ASH: we don’t want a new car. we want a used one that already has a plate
    COREY: the box came back
    WES: corey jesus christ
    ASH: get rid of the box every time, don’t update the software, and hurry up because we need to get moving
    WES: how much cash do we have?
    ASH: i’ll take some out today. it shouldn’t cost more than a couple thousand to get a car that works
    WES: whoa
    COREY: uh wes
    WES: what
    COREY,
typing
: uhhhhhh
    WES: corey what
    COREY: wes do you remember any of my passwords
    WES: oh my god of course not
    COREY: i don’t remember them either but i know they’re all super complicated
    ASH: wes what have you heard from your parents
    I had heard nothing. They hadn’t emailed me, or Facebooked me, or chatted me, or left me any voice messages. They had made no effort to get in touch with me at all.
    Honestly, it was just embarrassing. If they had sent me something about how angry they were, or worried, or disappointed, or whatever, that would have made me feel pretty terrible. But this made me feel worse. I was sitting there thinking,
Come on, guys. Even Ash’s delinquent mom is making you look bad right now
.
    WES: they seem very upset and worried
    ASH: what did they say specifically
    WES:
    ASH:
    WES: well i’m assuming they’re upset and worried
    ASH: oh
    WES: they haven’t contacted me in any way
    ASH: huh
    WES: