ABOMINATIONS

MAX

Max clicked away on his keyboard, almost done with his blog post. This time it was a review for a mod for his favorite open-world fantasy game, and it was just as wonderful as he hoped it would be. His Skye chirped incessantly in the background, a group chat constantly sending messages, probably. He opened the window briefly to mute the chat responsible, and got back to his post. Even though it was late, he posted it, and after a few minutes he refreshed the page and already had multiple comments. Instead of reading them he returned to Skype, and his blowing up group chat, trying to speed-read and keep up with the onslaught of memes that were being sent by the friends he had never actually met before.

When he heard murmuring of voices outside his room he stopped typing. Previously all he could hear was the humming of the TV Skye was watching, but the low voice on the other side of the door was definitely Kyle's, then followed by Skye's. It was four in the morning, Max realized with a start when he looked at his desktop computer. Why were the other two still awake?

Half of his mind wanted to listen on his side of the door to what they were saying, because he knew that if the two of them were talking it was serious, but he decided against it. He turned back to his computer, typing away at his keyboard once again to respond to his quick-moving Skype group chat.

~ ~ ~

SKYE

Skye wasn't sure what to do with himself once Kyle retreated back to his room. His stomach growled at him, probably irritated because the only thing he had put into it recently was ice cream and a packet of gushers. After his upsetting conversation with Kyle he was barely able to keep up with New Girl, and eventually went back to the Netflix menu and just stared at the screen for a while trying to process how weird the encounter had been. The older man was hardly a friend, despite being roommates. Skye did care for Kyle and liked to think of him, as well as Max, as almost like his brothers, but he knew that Kyle didn't feel the same about him and as a result he wasn't sure which actions of his were encroaching on Kyle's boundaries. Whenever Skye could tell he was having issues with Andi still being missing, or anything else, he wanted to help but was unsure if he was, or ever would be, in a position to do so. He sighed and turned the TV off, not exactly tired but not focused enough to pay attention to the TV either. He knew Max was probably awake, hell the kid was basically nocturnal, but he didn't want to bother him. He ended up staring at the ceiling for a while, scrolling through Reddit on his phone, then going back to staring at the ceiling.

Before he knew it the sun was coming up and sleep had still managed to evade him. Giving up, Skye threw off the blanket and put his robe on, heading to the bathroom to take a shower. The digital clock on the counter read 6:47. The rest of the house was quiet and Skye guessed that Max had finally gone to sleep, but he wasn't sure what had happened with Kyle.

Closing the door behind him, Skye untied the robe and hung it on the doorknob, staring at himself in the mirror and striking a few poses, flexing his arms in an attempt to make himself look more muscular than he was. When he had his fill he turned on the shower and got a clean towel out of the cabinet. When it was warm enough for him to stand he stepped inside and closed the curtain, settling into a comfortable stance and just letting the water wash over him. He took down his braid and let the water soak through his thick hair and continue to flow down his back and legs. One of Skye's favorite things to do was shower. To him, it was worth it to take a two hour shower and run the hot water out before promptly getting his ass beat by Kyle, who got stuck with ice cold water. It wasn't his fault that the water felt so good.

Light was beginning to filter into the small window above the shower when Skye finally put shampoo in his hair. Not too long later the doorknob jiggled and then there was a loud knock.

"Skye, I know you've been in there for like an hour. I have to take a shit," came Max's voice.

"Wait your turn," Skye yelled back, massaging his scalp. "I have to get ready for work,"

Max groaned in an over-dramatic manner and stomped back to his room like the cave gremlin that he was. Skye smiled to himself and rinsed out the shampoo before opening the conditioner bottle and squirting an unnecessarily large blob into his palm. He worked the goop into his long hair for about five minutes. If his two roommates knew how much he cared for his hair they would never let him hear the end of it. When the conditioner was worked in he stood still for a few minutes again, thinking about how boring work was going to be. He made a mental note to stop by the coffee shop next to the video game store so he wouldn't fall asleep behind the counter.

Finally Skye rinsed his conditioner and stepped out of the shower, drying off and staring blankly at the mirror that was fogged up completely with condensation. When he walked out of the bathroom Max was leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. "About time," he grumbled, shouldering around Skye to get into the bathroom and shutting the door loudly behind him. Skye just rolled his eyes.

He made his way to the hall closet that served as his and pulled on underwear, slim sweatpants, and the T-shirt for his job. He hung his towel on the closet door and turned to head back towards the couch where his Smartwatch was charging, unhooking it and strapping it onto his wrist, checking the weather as he did so. It was warm, so he decided against his usual black jacket he usually wore over his work T-shirt.

"I'm heading out," Skye called in a random direction, hoping his housemates would hear him.

"Hold on," Kyle shouted from his bedroom. "Don't leave yet."

"What? I'm going to be late for work."

"We have other work now," Kyle stated, opening his door. He was shirtless and his skin was shiny with sweat. Skye figured he must still be shaken from whatever nightmare he had had earlier in the night.

"Really? What is it?" Skye asked.

"Not sure yet," replied Kyle, glancing at his phone again. "Max!"

"WHAT?" Came the reply from the bathroom.

"Hurry up!"

"Fuck off!"

Kyle sighed. "I'm waiting on his response. It shows that he keeps typing and then stopping. "

"Must have a lot of details," Skye guessed.

Kyle's phone pinged. "Ah," he said. "Yeah, it's a whole paragraph. Hold on." He skimmed with his eyes, his irises flitting back and forth quickly, and he let out a huff of air when he was done. "It's not for today. False alarm."

"When's it for?"

"This weekend. Big party at some important dude's house in Sacramento. We'll have to head out Friday night, probably."

"But I work this weekend," Skye complained.

"You'll have to call out, sorry."

Skye clenched his fists in anger but took a deep breath and unclenched them again. "Fine. Well, I'll be back tonight. Bye Max!"

Kyle grunted in response. Max yelled "bye!" from the bathroom.

It was definitely warm outside. Skye regretted not letting Max in the bathroom sooner, because if he had finished before Skye left he would have been able to braid his hair for him, but since he was still busy when Skye walked out the door his hair fell onto his shoulders in it's full wet glory, and he knew it was going to dry all frizzy and constantly get in his way while he was working. He would have to tie it up as soon as it dried.

The car sounded like it was dying when Skye turned the key, but the engine turned over and it started nonetheless. One of these days they were going to have to get a new car, and Skye was definitely going for a Lamborghini this time. Despite how old it was and how scary some of the sounds it made were, it got Skye to his destination, the small video game resale shop in a strip center that contained multiple larger name stores. He parked by the shop but when he got out of the car, he made his way towards the coffee shop next door, hoping he could get his cappuccino before he had to open up the store for the day without being late and getting in trouble.

There was a soft jingling sound from the bell on the door when he walked in, and the girl behind the counter looked up. "Hey, Skye, how have you been?"

"Good," Skye said, smiling at her as he walked up to the counter. She had a nametag on, this girl he ran into at the coffee shop all the time, but she had long learned his name and if he started squinting at her nametag or asked her what her name was at that point it would be beyond awkward. He cursed his bad memory, bad vision, and the small lettering on her nametag every time he saw her. "What about you?"

"Oh, you know. On that grind," she said, and they both chuckled. It was an inside joke of sorts, one each of them made occasionally. She, being the barista, made it first, of course, as a passing comment, and when Skye busted out laughing in the middle of the place, getting looks from the few people inside, the two became acquaintances almost immediately after. "You working late tonight?"

"No, just until 5. Open to close tomorrow," Skye said, sitting at the bar area as Coffee Shop Girl started on Skye's usual order without even asking.

She whistled. "They should just make you a manager instead of shift lead or whatever they call you," the blender whirred as it mixed Skye's sugary, barely-classified-as-coffee drink.

"Wouldn't that be something," he said, watching her skilled hands as they moved and created. Some days he liked to imagine her as his girlfriend, but his lifestyle kind of prevented him from having someone close who wasn't aware of his actual career. Plus, he still had no idea what her name was and it would be awkward if he asked her out and still had no clue. Unless...

"Hey, so, uh, you have a snapchat?" Skye asked as Coffee Shop Girl handed him his drink over the counter and he slid exact change plus three dollars over in return, as always.

"Why?" She asked, squinting and raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, because, to, add you, I--"

"I'm messing with you," she said with a scoff and an eye roll, pulling her phone out of her back pocket and tapping the screen a few times to open Snapchat. Her nails were painted maroon today, almost the same color as Skye's hair. "Here," she said, turning her phone around to reveal her snapcode, and her name.

Abbie Martin.

"Oh," Skye muttered, fumbling to get his phone out of his pocket with his free hand to scan her snapcode and add her. She added him back with one quick tap, turned her phone off, and put it back in her pocket, looking back up at Skye and flashing him a smile.

"Well, have a good day at work," Abbie said.

"Yeah, you too," Skye responded, turning and walking out the door, staring down at his phone screen where it read "Abbie added you back!" And displayed her avatar, which was adorned with the hearts-around-the-head filter that almost all of Skye's female Snapchat contacts used, however he couldn't make fun of them because he used it as well. The fact that she used it too made him smile.

"Well, uh," he said lamely, taking his coffee when she handed it to him and handing a ten dollar bill to her, as always, waving his hand dismissively when she tried to hand him the change, as always. "I guess I'll see you around. Have a good rest of your shift."

She smiled. "Thanks, you too."

Skye was at the game shop in only a few moments, and he rummaged in his pocket for the key to unlock the front door, the bell jingling at him as he entered, heading straight for the back so he could turn on the lights and then get the computer booted up and ready for the day. Once everything was ready and the sign was flipped to open, Skye set up the test screen with an old Animal Crossing game that he still loved, and set it to the startup screen before heading back over behind the desk where there was a chair for him to sit down and do... well, basically nothing. And, of course, Skye used his copious amounts of free time to do only the most important things, like filming TikTok videos.

Max and Kyle called his videos "cringey" and "not entertaining" but his fans said otherwise and Skye was way more concerned with their opinions anyways. Sometimes he even went live while he was working because they had that few customers come into the store every day. Good for business? No. Was he ever going to get a raise? Definitely not. Did he care? Not particularly.

He did a few tasks beforehand, though, like today he was marking down some of the older games they had in stock before re-shelving them in the used area of the store. The best part of his job was that he spent a lot of time by himself, and that's the way he liked it. He was just shelving the last couple of games when the doorbell rang.

"Hi, welcome to Game Place," Skye called, pulling on his lanyard that displayed his badge and picture as he made his way back up front. A girl had come into the shop. She was dark-skinned, with a thick head of black curls pulled into a loose ponytail. She looked around in awe, not even registering Skye until he was right in front of her. "Can I help you find something?" he asked.

"Oh," the girl said, her brown eyes moving to meet his. "Yeah. I'm looking for Minecraft for the PS3."

"You still have a PS3?" Skye blurted before he could help himself.

The girl rolled her eyes in response. "Uh, yeah, your point?"

"Nothing, nothing, just wondering why you haven't upgraded yet."

"I have a thing for older systems. It's the newest one I own, and the only one that can play Minecraft," she said.

Skye made an 'o' shape with his mouth, and without saying anything else motioned with his hand for her to follow him towards the wall of PS3 games. He thumbed through the M's for a second before handing her a blank case, the only indication of what was inside being the white sticker on the front and side that said "MINECRAFT" written in sharpie, in Skye's less-than-perfect handwriting. The blank case was adorned by an orange sticker above the label that read "19.99".

"Why is it $20? Isn't this the cube game?" The girl asked, scrunching her nose and turning the case around in her hands. "It isn't even in the original case."

"Well, no, it's used. This is a used game store, and the blank case versions are cheaper than the new versions. Besides, we don't even carry Minecraft for PS3 new," he said, crossing his arms and shrugging, resisting the urge to say so you gonna buy it or not? So he could hurry her along and get back to the more important things on his agenda for the day.

The girl let out a deep sigh, staring at the game in her hands with unbridled disgust on her face. "Okay, I guess this is fine."

Skye said nothing, but instead turned and headed towards the register. The girl lagged behind for a moment, but by the time he got behind the counter and was waking up the computer she had walked up and set the game on the counter, rifling around in her purse for money. What happened next was not something Skye was expecting. From her small wallet, the dark-haired girl pulled out a literal stack of 100 dollar bills. The first thing that came out of his mouth was, "I can't break a bill that big."

She looked at him with that same disgust she eyed the blank case with earlier. "I'm looking for a twenty," she said flatly. She pulled one out of the stack, put the rest neatly back into her wallet, then purse, and handed Skye the twenty dollar bill. She swiped the game off the counter and walked out the door without so much as a goodbye. Skye took the penny that was to be her change out of the register and put it in the tip jar, the lone coin hitting the bottom with a tinny clink.

"Have a nice day," he called after her as she opened the door and the bell rang. She didn't say anything back, or even turn around, and Skye rolled his eyes as he tore the receipt out of the machine and threw it in the trash can, watching her retreating form out the window. She headed directly to the coffee shop that Abbie worked at, and disappeared inside. Skye finally tore his gaze away from the window and turned on his phone. He had been feeling uninspired for the past few days and hadn't posted a video, but that did not stop the hundreds of notifications from pouring in. He skipped scrolling through them and just tapped on his most recent video, muting his phone and opening the comment section. This was one of his favorite things to do; scroll through and reply to comments on his videos. Some people were even funnier than he was.

His most recent video was simple - him doing the Renegade dance for the fifth time on his page in recent months. In the back of his head Skye knew it was cringey, but he loved it. Most of his fans did too.

You're so cute, commented slinkytree33. I know, Skye thought to himself.

Gay, proposed moisttoes. Yeah, okay.

Skye hit the reply button: no u. There we go.

He continued like this for about twenty minutes. The comments were about one third calling him gay, which he was used to. People have thought he was strange his whole life, starting in high school when he began wearing eyeliner and growing his hair out. The comments didn't bother him. Instead he focused on the other two-thirds, which were either random comments that had nothing to do with his video, or compliments. Those were his favorites, and every time Max saw him doing exactly what he was doing now, he would make sure to tell him that looking through them was only inflating his ego more than it already was. Oh well, he thought.

His scrolling was stopped short when the doorbell jingled, announcing his second customer of the day. He turned off his phone and set it on the counter, announcing "Hi, welcome," to the man and his kids that had walked in the store. The two boys ignored him and ran straight for the games on the far wall, their dad nodding curtly at Skye before trailing after them. He fiddled with a pen that was sitting on the counter, waiting for them to bring their purchases up. The voices of the two boys chattered through the air, though they were too far away for Skye to actually hear what they were saying. Eventually they came back up to the counter, the taller of the two boys slapping a case down. Skye smiled at him and picked it up to scan it. It was a Mario game, which was not surprising to him at all. "That'll be $34.99," Skye told their father, and he handed Skye a credit card wordlessly. "Would you like to sign up for our membership?" He asked, but the man just shook his head. He clicked the credit card icon and swiped it, handing it back while the receipt printed out. The man signed the receipt with the pen that Skye handed him while the two boys fought over who got to hold the game on the way home, each with one hand on it as they made their way toward the door. Their father slid the receipt and pen back, muttered a "thank you", and followed after his kids, telling them to behave and take turns holding it.

When they left the store was quiet once again, and Skye made his way towards the back wall to fix anything they had messed up. There were a few misplaced cases and one on the floor, so he straightened them carefully. He might not seem like it, but he did really care for the store and how it looked. During the occasional visit from the owner of the store, Martin, he was told that he was the only employee who "gave a shit about his livelihood," hence why Skye worked mornings by himself. There were a few other employees, most of them teenagers, who worked nights and weekends. Skye was nice to them, and they were nice back, but he didn't consider any of them his friends, really. Even when the shifts overlapped and he worked with one of his coworkers for a few hours, they didn't talk much. He suspected they thought he was annoying, but it didn't bother him too much.

Having already checked the schedule, Skye knew that he was working with his coworker James for a few hours. James was a senior in high school, but he got out of school earlier than the release time for the younger students. Skye was jealous about it, because there was no such thing as a "work program" at his high school. Alas, James got out of school an hour and a half early, and he came to work at 2. Skye didn't get off until 5, which meant they would both be sitting bored behind the counter.

The morning hours passed quickly, and there was only one more customer, a lanky, greasy-haired teenage boy selling a bunch of old PlayStation 2 games. Skye calculated how much he should give the kid for them using Martin's chart, and he even bumped it up a few dollars, but the kid was adamant that some of the games were rare. A quick google search proved him wrong, and he had picked up his stack of games and stormed out the door. "Have a nice day!" Skye had called after him. Soon enough, two o'clock came around, and James walked through the door exactly on the dot.

"Hey, Skye," he said in a chipper voice, tapping on the POS screen to clock in. "How'zit going?"

"Good," Skye answered, lowering his phone to look at his coworker. "How's school?"

"Boring," James answered, pulling up the second chair and flopping down, putting his backpack on the floor and pulling out his phone immediately. This signaled the end of their conversation, which was about the same every time they saw each other, so Skye went back to looking through his comments.

"You use TikTok?" Skye asked without thinking. What the hell am I doing?

"Hm? Oh, I mean, I have the app, but I don't make videos myself," James replied, not looking up from his phone.

I wonder if he knows about me, Skye thought to himself. It was a weird feeling for him -- part embarrassment that he had such a "cringe-worthy" hobby, but the other half of him was kind of proud that he had amassed such a following, and he liked to think that he was pretty funny as well.

James did not give any indication that he knew what Skye was getting at, keeping his face buried in his phone. Skye did not like the atmosphere created by his disinterest, and instead of trying to continue it he stood up and wandered around the store, looking for something to do. All he had to do was find something to occupy the next three hours of his time that wouldn't get him fired or make James think he was weird. Simple.

He ended up reorganizing the used PS3 games, first alphabetically by company name and then by title of the games themselves. The display was a lot more coherent than it was before he started and it made him feel better that he actually did something productive. When he could not possibly make it look any better he headed back to the front and sat back down in his chair. James had pulled out his homework and laid it out on the counter in front of him, his head down and pencil moving across the page quickly. Skye sat down and plugged his phone into the charger he kept plugged in under the counter, leaning back and checking his notifications yet again. He had barely responded to two comments when his phone pinged.

Snapchat / Abbie Martin

Skye stared at the notification for a second, frozen. It went away before he clicked on it and it snapped him out of his reverie. He opened the snapchat app, a weird feeling in his gut.

When he opened her message it was just a picture of her in her car, a big grin on her face with the caption "finally off!" he smiled to himself and tapped once on his screen to dismiss the picture before hitting the reply button and taking a picture of just his eyes and forehead to send back. "Nice" he added as a caption before sending it.

He stared at her name on his screen until she opened it. When she did his heart rate picked up and he kept waiting, but no response came through. Why wasn't she responding? Maybe he wasn't being conversational enough. He huffed. How is she supposed to respond to "nice"? He thought to himself. Giving up, he turned off his phone and put his head in his hands, wondering why he was so upset about this in the first place. While his phone was charging on the counter he stared at the wall, thinking to himself that maybe he should have brought a book to read. He almost immediately thought to himself that he doesn't read, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

He just wished that he was spending this shift alone so he could watch TikToks in peace. He had no idea how his coworkers would react if they found out he used it, let alone was famous on the platform. Instead he started grabbing random blank pieces of paper and folding them into paper cranes of varying sizes, bored out of his mind and wishing Abbie was here.

His phone pinged as if on cue.
Snapchat / Abbie Martin is typing...

Snapchat / Abbie Martin

Holy shit.

Skye grabbed his phone and opened the message a lot faster than he should have. The message read, what time do u get off again?

5, Skye sent back simply. Her avatar popped up on the screen with a little thought bubble, and then a second message came through.

Sorry if this is weird but do u wanna like, hang out or something?

Oh wow, that was not what he was expecting at all. And it excited him a lot. He was used to female attention over the internet but nothing like this, and it made him feel weird. He took a deep breath and typed back, yea, where at?

Her avatar popped up thinking again, then it just stayed there looking at Skye for a moment before disappearing. No message. What?

"Hey man, you good?" James suddenly asked, making Skye jump a little.

"What?"

"You look either mad or constipated and I can't tell which," James said, smirking.

"It's nothing," Skye said shortly, not wanting to explain his business to this kid. "Do your homework."

James rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. He went back to his homework, his pencil making those scratching noises again.

When five o'clock came around, Abbie still had not texted Skye back and he was extremely confused. He left Game Place and got into the shitbox he and the other two boys called a car, tying his long red hair back into a ponytail and rolling the windows down to reduce the stuffiness inside. He cranked up the radio station, which was playing oldie's rock, and put the car in drive, cringing as it ground against itself to move. He kept checking his phone as he was driving, but Abbie still hadn't texted him back. Now in a sour mood, Skye shifted into first gear angrily as the light in front of him turned green, the car lurching forward in response. It wasn't until he made it home that his phone pinged at him again. It was another text from Abbie that read sorry, something came up but i def want to hang in the future! Sorry again :(. Skye stared at his phone screen for a second then turned if off, not even able to form a response that wouldn't sound rude. He turned off the car and swung the keys around on his finger as he made his way back up to the house.