Percontation Points

P: 6/8/26 M: 6/15/26

Chapter 3.8

“Well, guess that’s it. I’ll see you guys bright and early Monday.” I’m reaching for the doorknob, but no one has moved. James stuffs a handful of chips in his mouth. Greta grabs another soda, cracking it open and asking, “What’s with the rushing?” “Uh, no rush. I thought we were done.” James gets up on his knees and wraps both hands around the bag of chips in a prayer position. “Please don’t make me go home. It’s like an estrogen explosion over there.” He scoots toward me on his knees, shaking his hands in supplication. “Don’t send me to the front lines, general.” Greta laughs and tosses a cookie at him. It bounces off the tight curls on the back of his head. “God, you’re an idiot,” she giggles. “Seriously, Chuck. I’m not leaving either. By now the shrinks will be on bottle number who knows-what. They’d analyze me into a catatonic state.”

I am once again stating that both James and Greta are fucking shitty, miserable people. At the start of this, I commented that Greta needed to ignore every single aspect about Charlie’s personality in order to be his friend. I now understand that it’s not so much that she “ignores Charlie’s personality” as she’s cut from a similar cloth. She’s fucking miserable, can’t take a hint when it’s handed to her, and ignores other people’s boundaries to do whatever the fresh hell she wants, whenever she wants to do it. They kind of fucking deserve each other.

“Shit, ask her out if she’s a dude. We’ll love you no matter what.” They’re standing together, arms around each other looking down on me like underage adoptive parents again. This shit is getting old.

YOU KNOW IT’S BAD WHEN EVEN THE NARRATION IS POINTING OUT HOW FUCKING SHIT THAT THIS IS. At literally any point, the author could have actively chosen to not write this. Yet here we all are.

I look at Greta, whose face is scarlet, and cringe.

Chapter 3.8 summary: I guess James and Greta showed up at Charlie’s house later. Which is weird, because Charlie is always chaffering them around, but whatever. They show up, spend exactly one paragraph working on their project, then Charlie tries to shoo both of them out the door. Horace the dead horse here to say that they’re fucking shitty friends who refuse to respect any boundaries. Charlotte then starts listening to loud music from Becca’s room, which leads Charlie to complaining about her. However, James and Greta are of the opinion that Charlie should ask her out, which even Charlie is annoyed at. Greta then runs off to use the toilet, claiming to have drunk three cans of soda while they were “working”. Hearing the bathroom door close causes Charlotte to come out, and this forces Charlie to introduce her to James. When Greta comes out from the bathroom, she thinks that Charlotte “looks familiar”. But then Charlotte pushes past Greta to use what’s apparently literally the only toilet in what has got to be a three-bedroom, 2-storey house.

Chapter 3.9

“Your sister’s new friend isn’t Cyclops. She’s a Finch.”

LITERALLY NOBODY SAID THAT CHARLOTTE WAS FUCKING CYCLOPS FROM X-MEN!! YOU MADE THAT UP, AND NOW YOU’RE GETTING FUCKING ANGRY OVER SOMETHING THAT IMPACTS YOUR LIFE IN LITERALLY NO WAY!!

“I’ve got it,” he says. He knocks on Becca’s door. “Hell’re you doing?” I try to pull him away from the door, but it’s like a rowboat trying to move an ocean liner. “I’ve got a fantastic idea. It’s going to make you happy, which will make Greta happy. And if Greta’s happy, then she’ll make me happy.” “Ew.” “Get your mind out of the gut—” Becca pops her head out her door. “Ladies.”

EDITING THINGS PROPERLY IS FOR FUCKING SQUARES. But then again, I’d like to think that most editors that I’ve met would have tossed this into the rubbish bin where it fucking belongs. Not encourage and enable shit like this to actually go to market.

“Ask me when we’re sober.” She lays my head on the grass where I instantly pass out.

Chapter 3.9 summary: Greta is angry that Charlotte is Jo’s sister, gets mad at Charlie from “keeping this from her”, says to man up and ask Charlotte out (??? Pick a fucking lane here), then storms out from the house. James is mainly upset that his girlfriend abandoned him there, but Charlie says that he’ll take James home. James says he still doesn’t want to go home, and instead decides to invite the girls out to go stargazing with them. They leave, and when they get to this random spot, James somehow produces a bottle of alcohol. He tells Charlie to drink up, since it’ll “make your balls grow so that you can ask out Charlotte”. Why the fuck are they so intent on hooking the two of them up? It’s a little weird. Anyway, Charlie proceeds to get completely shit-faced. But it does give him that “liquid courage” needed to actually have a conversation with Charlotte without him feeling weird. He tells her that Greta thinks that they should double date, and Charlotte agrees, but that he should ask her when he’s sober again. He then passes out, which is… also not great.