Edited, p.1
Edited, page 1
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Praise for Barry Lyga
“Barry Lyga is a master storyteller capable of blending the unique with the universal . . . A mighty feat from a stellar writer.”
—Lamar Giles,
author of The Getaway
“An out-of-control hearse with one busted headlight, blood on the grille, a madman at the wheel, and laughter pouring out of the open windows . . . Climb in, buckle up, and go for a ride.”
—Joe Hill,
New York Times bestselling author of Horns and Heart-Shaped Box, on I Hunt Killers
“This is a novel about ideas, love, grief, and what hold the tricky narratives of history have on the violence of the present.”
—Walter Mosley
on The Hive
“Barry Lyga’s broken heroes blow me away.”
—Lisa McMann,
New York Times bestselling author of
the Unwanteds Series
Books by Barry Lyga
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl
Boy Toy
Hero-Type
Goth Girl Rising
Wolverine: Worst Day Ever
Mangaman (with Colleen Doran)
After the Red Rain (with Peter Facinelli and Robert DeFranco)
The Secret Sea
Bang
The Hive (with Morgan Baden)
Time Will Tell
Edited
Unedited
the archvillain series
Archvillain
The Mad Mask
Yesterday Again
the i hunt killers trilogy
I Hunt Killers
Game
Blood of My Blood
the flash series
Hocus Pocus
Johnny Quick
The Tornado Twins
Crossover Crisis: Green Arrow’s Perfect Shot
Crossover Crisis: Supergirl’s Sacrifice
Crossover Crisis: The Legends of Forever
Copyright © 2022 by Barry Lyga, LLC
Published in 2022 by Blackstone Publishing
Illustrations © 2011 by Colleen Doran from Mangaman,
a graphic novel, by Barry Lyga and Colleen Doran.
Used by permission of Colleen Doran.
Cover design by Sarah Riedlinger
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced
or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental
and not intended by the author.
Trade e-book ISBN 979-8-200-83242-2
Library e-book ISBN 979-8-200-83241-5
Young Adult Fiction / General
CIP data for this book is available
from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
31 Mistletoe Rd.
Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com
This is a story about Mike.
And it’s also a story about Mike and Phil.
Mike loves Phil. Always.
Phil loves Mike. Sometimes.
Have you ever been in love?
And then did you ever think . . . Am I really in love? Or is this just an infatuation and am I going to regret sticking around?
Have you ever thought someone’s love would last forever, only to discover that it’s less like a water faucet and more like a water balloon?
That’s what happened to Mike, as you’ll see.
**********
I’ve written a lot of stories. Google “Barry Lyga” and you’ll see them, and if it’s on Google, it must be true, right? But I’ve never really written what you might call, for lack of a better term, a love story.
I’ve always been interested in stories about young romance, mainly because they never—ever—bear any resemblance to anything I actually experienced when I was young myself. (A million years ago, when diamonds were still coal, children.) And my own high school romance had a not-so-great finale, if you want to know the truth. So I never could wrap my head around high school sweethearts and their happily-ever-afters. And when I started writing my own books, I inevitably disappointed readers who wanted a kiss at the end. I left that to the readers’ imaginations. I wasn’t cut out for love
stories.
And then one day a love story occurred to me. A big one. I mean, cataclysmically huge. The story of Mike and the story of Phil, and the story of Mike and Phil.
**********
After doing something stupid that drove away the love of his life, Mike Grayson began to notice that the world itself seemed to be suffering the aftereffects of his bad decision. Reality as he knew it . . . changed . . . and before he could fully understand the ramifications, he found himself on an odyssey unlike any other, trying to figure out how to repair the universe and return his lost Philomel to his side.
It wasn’t time travel. It wasn’t dimension hopping. It was something deeper and more fundamental, as simple and as complex as ink on paper.
And much to his surprise, this wasn’t even the whole story. In fact, there might not even be a whole story. It’s possible that the missing pieces of Mike’s life may end up being the most important part of his world, and the solution to fixing not only his love life, but the entire universe.
**********
That, I figured, was worthy of being my first love story.
The story you’re about to read is actually a partial version or an iteration, pieces of a larger whole, stitched together to cover the surgical trauma. You can read it on its own or as the companion to a grander, more epic work—and I’ve provided you the tools to do so, embedded in the text itself. You’ll see what I mean. Very soon.
Either way, you will come to live the life of Mike Grayson and understand his story. And my getting there as his creator.
Now turn the page. The world is about to change.
Barry Lyga
At my desk November 17, 2016
(at the beginning of the end
of the world)
Hello, Phil
In the beginning, there was light. And then God said, “Let there be darkness.” And I said to him, “But it’s been there all along, don’t you see?”
Prologue:
The moment I realized I could edit reality.
I was in the auditorium, at the dance, staring at Phil—at her dress, her teal dress, the dress teal and very definitely not red.
Phil stared back at me. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, as though against sunlight—even though it was twilight dark, the lights low in that prom-esque way. We were not, of course, attending a prom. This was a charity event. But the light was prom-esque in any event.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“Your dress . . .”
“I didn’t wear it for you. I know it’s your favorite, but that’s not why I—”
“No,” I said. “That’s not what . . .” Could no one tell? Did no one notice? I turned to George. “George. What was I just saying when she came in? About her dress?”
George blinked. “Uh, you said . . . uh . . . You said, ‘I’m glad she wore the teal. That’s the best one for her hair color—’”
“This is for charity,” Phil interrupted. She was avoiding my eyes now. Her voice was tense. “Maybe it’s best if we don’t talk or hang out while we’re both here.”
And then he came in. He had the good grace to pause at the door before approaching us. His face was a melting pot of anger, shock, and some distant relative of resignation.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
George stepped between us, a faithful wall of sanity.
“Dude, I don’t think there’s a problem,” George said.
Then George puffed out his chest, a truly hilarious sight to those who knew him only by sight. But of course, to those who knew the Legend of George (nearly everyone in the auditorium, including him) the chest puffery was anything but hilarious. I truly believe he would have punched George in the face, given the testosterone and rage in his eyes . . . if not for Phil.
“For charity,” she insisted, now interposing herself between George and him, so that we formed a strange sort of set of interlocking aggressions: George between him and me, also between Phil and me, Phil between George and him, me still staring at Phil’s teal dress (teal!). “This isn’t going to turn into some bullshit macho thing. Jesus, Mike. Do you think getting into a fight is going to win me back?”
A fight was, indeed, a possibility I’d considered. I’d never been in a fight. But I could evoke a universe in which I viciously battered him into submission. I would win back Phil like a prizefighter wins a belt, not caring—in the throes of that fancy—that by doing so I reduced her to an object. No, in the throes of that fancy I would care only about having her back.
“No one’s going to fight,” I said.
And in saying it I became convinced it was not only true, but would remain true.
He took Phil’s hand, escorting her past George, past me.
I watched them go. Phil did not lo ok over her shoulder, though he did, his expression now a grotesque mating of still-simmering anger and boiling-over self-satisfaction. I briefly savored the image of my fist in his face—repeatedly.
“Dude, I’m proud of you,” George said.
I blinked at him. Then I sniffed. “Do you smell chocolate syrup?” I asked. Because I smelled chocolate syrup. I also realized, in that moment, that I had actually been smelling it since Phil had entered the auditorium and changed dresses without ever being naked.
George was staring at me now. “Are you all right?”
“No. No. Something is . . .” I could not put “something” into words. It had begun with the strong reek of chocolate syrup upon Phil’s entrance—beautiful but somehow wrong in the red dress—followed by my wish that she’d instead worn the teal dress . . . followed by her not only wearing the teal dress, but also having always worn the teal dress.
But . . . no. It had not begun there.
It had begun moments after that, with my realization that I could, in fact, edit reality—when I decided that Phil had, in fact, worn the red dress . . . the one her mother had bought for her to wear not to a prom-esque charity event, but to the prom itself.
I hated that dress.
That warm afternoon, one May previous, I caught myself scowling in Phil’s full-length mirror. She’d just draped her mom’s gift over her body. She caught my scowl, too. After unzipping herself free, her cute little yellow-and-white-patterned sundress shushing to the floor, she smirked, then dipped herself in the flimsy red fabric.
“Zip me,” she said, and I stood.
I zipped the red dress, going slowly, one palm pressed to her lower back as though for support. In reality I took (and would take) any opportunity to touch her, any part of her, because every part of her was (and is) sexy. But Phil’s sexiness didn’t help the dress.
“I don’t like it,” I confessed.
She posed and twisted and turned and posed again in front of the full-length mirror.
“It’s not quite right,” she admitted.
With that memory bright and clear in my mind, I decided that, yes, Phil had in fact worn the hated red dress to the charity auction. Moreover, she had, in fact, always worn it, and had never worn the delightful teal dress.
Across the ballroom, he guided Phil onto the dance floor as the DJ obligingly spun up a slow dance number, and Phil molded her body to his, molded her red-bedressed body to his, and swayed—the way she’d molded and swayed against me at our prom, only a year ago. My mouth turned Sahara; the tips of my fingers vibrated. The stench of chocolate syrup became overwhelming, strong and overly sweet.
“George.” My voice sounded unlike my own, resonated throaty and vaporous. “George, look over at Phil.”
“Dude. Please. Give it up. She’s moved on. She’s with him now, okay?” (He did not actually say him. He said instead his name—which I refuse to see or hear or record. My revenge, though small.)
Somehow he’d also managed to procure a half Diet Coke, half lemonade.
“Look at her dress, George.”
“Dude, what about it?”
In the space of minutes, in the time from her entrance until now, Phil’s dress had gone from relationship-souring red to fondly remembered and complementary teal and back again. And only I had noticed.
I could not speak. I stole George’s half Diet Coke, half lemonade and drained the glass by half its remainder, thinking of Zeno and Achilles and a tortoise for a moment.1
“George.” I gasped. “Do you remember when Phil came in? What I said?”
“Sure. You said, ‘The red one is all wrong. She should have worn the teal.’”
I decided that Phil had worn the teal dress after all.
On the dance floor, she remained fused to him . . . in her teal dress. Less than a moment earlier, the dress had been red.
George reached for his drink, but I ducked away and took another swig.
“Say it again,” I commanded. “Tell me what I said when she came in.”
He rolled his eyes. “Dude, the music isn’t that loud. You said, ‘I’m glad she wore the teal—that’s the best one for her hair color.’”
Phil had worn the red, and had worn the teal—and not only that, she had always worn the red, and had always worn the teal. Only I noticed the difference in the always. So I thought about how it all started. I thought about the beginning.
I imagined it as the first chapter in my story, though of course it wasn’t.
1. Zeno’s paradox illustrates the essential impossibility of touching anything, using the image of Achilles chasing a tortoise. Of course, Achilles is much faster than a tortoise and should be able to catch it easily. But Zeno asks us to imagine that with each step he takes, Achilles halves the distance between himself and the tortoise. So, if the tortoise is ten feet away, the first step cuts the distance to five; the second step to two and a half; the third to one and a quarter; etc. But no matter how many steps Achilles takes, he will always be half of the previous distance away from the tortoise. Similarly, Mike will never finish the drink if he keeps halving the contents of the cup. (PROOFREADER’S NOTE: Zeno posed several paradoxes, but only three of them are really famous. The argument here is far closer to his Dichotomy paradox than to his Achilles and the Tortoise paradox. Though, in the end, they both get you to the same place—nowhere, at least relative to the target.)
EMAIL EXCHANGE DOWNLOAD COMPLETE
FROM: THE AUTHOR
TO: THE EDITOR
SUBJECT: It’s not working
OK, look, I know what you’re trying to do here. I gave you an insanely huge book and you had the idea to whittle it down. And I appreciate your effort, but we’re only one chapter in and look at what we’ve lost already!
FROM: THE EDITOR
TO: THE AUTHOR
SUBJECT: Re: It’s not working
You are reading me wrong. I extracted the heart of the novel—Mike’s relationship with Phil, and their relationship with you—from the morass you wrote, which is largely about yourself.
PART I
Chapter 1
“Do you want to hear something scary?” Phil asks.
We’re entwined in her bed, one week before senior year begins.
“Tell me something scary.”
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” she says, shivering.
“I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”
The truth is, I’ve been falling in love with Phil for weeks now.
Our relationship began with nothing dramatic: a party at George’s house a month previous, a bored me in the garage–cum–game room as an equally bored Phil abandoned everyone else in the basement–cum–party room, on a quest for more wine coolers in the garage fridge. Meaningless small talk metamorphosed into a three-hour dialogue during which we—emotionally and physically—came closer and closer . . . until making out commenced on the rug, wine coolers long since consumed.
Phil had been a constant in my life, though a constant on the periphery.
The girl with the blue hair. It shimmered like sapphire when wet.
She’d transferred to our school in seventh grade, instantly captivating everyone with that air of insouciance, the mystique of that blue hair, the casual-yet-biting way she told teachers, “Phil,” when they called out for “Philomel” during roll call. During that terrible middle school era, she’d also acquired the appearance of her namesake instrument: more angular than curvy (not in a bad way) slim waist, and a graceful neck. But all outward appearances, inexplicable or not, paled in comparison to her will. Almost single-handedly she willed into existence a pre-high-school-level drama club. She became a darling of parents and faculty by rallying the students to attend—all the students, including those who had expressed no interest at all in the dramatic arts. All were captivated by her insistent energy and unironic naiveté, which she rode into the lead role in nearly every high school play, as well as summer performances at the local college.
I’d never thought I had a chance with her. So I never even tried until the night of the wine coolers. Even then, she made the first move, sidling close enough that our thighs touched, hers under a denim skirt.
