Read The Youth & Young Loves of Oliver Wade: Stories for Free Online

phone number from the list of local options (much more of this and
I’d start trying long distance). Again the dial tone, the chirpy grind—but
the pause that followed the grind this time seemed longer, long enough to give
me time to reposition the laptop perfectly along the edge of the coffee table,
for a little extra luck. Then I got smacked with another “Goodbye!”
    I punched the couch cushion and screamed.
    “Ollie, language,” my father shouted.
    My mother added, “You could try calling your friends if you’re so anxious to chit-chat with them.”
    “They’re already online! ”
I screamed. I was losing it. “That means you can’t call them. And it’s not chit-chat ,
it’s chat . Why won’t this fucking
thing connect?! ”
    “Ollie, Jesus, language ,”
my father yelled amid bursts of popping corn.
    The screen in front of me blurred as tears pooled in my
eyes. Quickly I slapped them away with my sweatshirt sleeve. I took a breath. I
needed to remember: I couldn’t let my parents see how this was killing me.
There was no acceptable reason why I should be this desperate to chit-chat, as
my mother called it.
    Again I clicked Sign
On . I’d been doing this for forty-five minutes now. Dial tone. Modem
grinding.
    “ Oll- ieee ,”
my father groaned.
    The pause was long. I held my breath. This time the yellow
cartoon man lit up, started jogging, told me “Welcome!,” ushered me through the
sign-on screen to the home screen.
    “Thank god,” I heard my mother whisper from the dwindling
edge of my consciousness.
    Onscreen my buddy list drew itself alive and overwrote all
other things. The only name on it—the only name ever on it—was the only name I cared to see: BoydyBoy . Leaning forward, I clicked him. And connected.
     
    OwOw0: Yo yo yo yo yo
    BoydyBoy : hey
    OwOw0: It took me 88 tries. Almost 45 mins .
I was going fcukin insane in the membrane
    BoydyBoy : AOL blows donkey dick. but here you are.
    OwOw0: Here I am....
    BoydyBoy : I hope its worth it, haha
    OwOw0: Hahaha . you better make it worth
it.
    Boydyboy: so much pressuuure .

 
    My cheeks were flushing; they always did. It was worth it—the waiting, the
agony—just knowing Boyd Wren was there on the other side of that screen,
at the end of a short trip through some wires. Even if he had no idea why. It
was enough just to see his name: Boydyboy. The letters were blue and seemed to
bounce.

 
    OwOw0: I kinda thought you wouldve logged
off by now though.

 
    I’d been terrified of it. Sometimes the busy signals only
delayed me getting to him; other times they made me miss him completely.

 
    Boydyboy: Nah i’ve been poking around
    OwOw0: Cool cool

 
    I dared to wonder, like always, if he’d been waiting for me.
Every night, in my deepest, secret, closeted hopes I imagined him watching his
buddy list the way I watched mine whenever his name was missing from it. It was
intoxicating to imagine. And scary.

 
    Boydyboy: how goes your science fair project *cough cough * bullshit?
    OwOw0: It’s driving me to Nervous-breakdown City, Boydyboy.
    Boydyboy: mine is not too shabby if I do say so...
    OwOw0: fuck you and your liquid nitrogen demo. haha .
has anyone ever used liquid nitro in thier project
and not won their science fair?
    Boydyboy: it’s comin out good. after i’m done using it to freeze everything in site i’ll use some to heat up your cold cold heart.

 
    Without thinking I flopped over on the couch and looked
dreamily at the laptop screen from the cushion where my cheek rested. I pulled
the laptop onto my chest.

 
    OwOw0: you know nothing could warm my lump of pulminary coal.
    Boydyboy: Hahahaaah
    OwOw0: Meanwhile i’ll be there with my friggin zoetrope project!!
    Boydyboy: Hahaha . yes. so what did you build
exactly?
    OwOw0: Well I built the zoetrope, which is a ring of posterboard (like imagine a lampshade) with a little window
cut in it. inside the ring is another ring with a series of pics drawn around it.....