People Are Stupid

On Friday, Eden tried flagging Troy down but she never quite managed to. It put her in a bad mood even before the rush hit and that only made things worse. She always hated Fridays. At least next week would be her last one in this awful place.

Was she crazy or had he actually been avoiding her? The times she would be able to see him were limited. There were only four left now and she didn't want to miss a single one.

What was going to happen after next week? Would they see each other for real outside of the world of Freddie Funnington's Fun-a-palooza or was this the end? Would they stay in contact over the phone or would whatever relationship they had fizzle out over time from a lack of texting?

All of this bothered Eden more than she let on. She wanted to talk about all of this with him properly before she left but wasn't sure when the best time would be.

She needed to figure it out soon though. The clock was ticking.

===

"Dude, your girl is seriously persistent!" Troy complained the second he came through the door at the end of his shift. "I don't know how I'm going to make it through next week without giving myself away at this point."

"She isn't my girl," Jonah pointed out from his place on the couch where he was reading a book Eden had recommended on Wednesday.

"You should tell her that."

Troy immediately went to go shower after being in the suit for more than eight hours straight but he wasn't done with the topic yet. He came out in a pair of sweats and one of his dozens of band t-shirts rubbing his hair with a towel and picked up right where he left off.

"Look, Eden must really like you considering how hard she tried to flag me down today. I barely managed to avoid her by pretending that dumb dog head made me practically deaf. What are you going to do about her?"

Jonah sighed heavily and put a bookmark in his book before shutting it and looking up at his cousin. "What am I supposed to do, Troy? She thinks I'm you. If you don't want to get fired and get us both in legal trouble for fraud, I can't ever change that assumption.

"Even if we do stay in contact, I'm going to have to pretend to be you that entire time. And I can't let her see my face because I don't look like you at all if she manages to figure out who you are."

Troy raised an eyebrow. "How would she possibly figure that out? None of my coworkers there know what I look like except for Mike because we've run into each other out of costume while doing shift switches for Freddie before.

"You already said you're afraid of her seeing your face. Don't make excuses, man. Besides, I wouldn't say you don't look like me at all. We have similar eye and hair colors at the very least."

Jonah glared at him. It was true but he knew that wasn't what he meant. They were cousins and both of them favored the Kelly side of the family more.

Troy's hair was a shade or two darker and his eyes were more hazel than green but they looked very similar from a distance…on the left side. The main differences were that Troy's hair went a couple inches past his ears and wasn't curly and that he had well-maintained stubble while Jonah was clean shaven.

He couldn't grow hair on the burned side of his face so it looked super weird if he only had half of a beard. After a while, he grew sick of shaving it so he started laser hair removal treatments as soon as he graduated college and had the money for it.

"Does that really matter? Look at me, Troy! People are always whispering about me. I make little kids cry. Of course I don't want her to see my face and treat me the way everyone else does," Jonah groaned as he leaned his head back on the recliner and stared at the ceiling.

Troy crossed his arms over his chest. "People are stupid. There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. So what if the texture of half of your face is a little different? You aren't ugly! You aren't. And I'll punch anyone that says otherwise."

The indignation in his cousin's voice nearly made him smile. He had been like that ever since they were kids and Jonah first came to live with them. Picking fights with anyone that gave him grief about his face.

Even with plastic surgery, there is only so much that can be done about third-degree burns. The redness went away eventually but the texture of his skin never changed and it was darker than the rest of him.

Deep damage occurred and, since this happened when he was so young, his skin never fully managed to grow with him. He underwent countless skin grafting surgeries as a child and teenager as he continued to grow but it couldn't fix everything.

Jonah was hideous and he knew it. But that never stopped Troy from standing up from him and telling other kids he wouldn't be their friend if they wouldn't play with him too.

As a naturally charismatic person, tons of people wanted to play with Troy. So they reluctantly accepted the presence of the freakishly scarred boy that always tagged along with him.

Over time, some of those guys actually got used to him and treated him fairly normally. Those were the ones that Jonah played basketball or went hiking with to this day.

He would always be grateful to Troy for that. He would have been completely isolated otherwise. Goodness knows he was in college where everyone was afraid of him or straight out asked rude questions about his face.

Jonah didn't even bother trying to live in the dorms because he knew it wouldn't end well for him. He participated in group projects when he had to and otherwise avoided the other students as much as possible. If he wanted to do something with people, he would do it with Troy and those few safe friends.