The World

            “There once was a young boy named Nathan, and he was cursed by the Devil. At every twist and turn, the Devil followed him like a shadow, haunting him. He tried everything he could think of, but he could never get rid of his curse, and he soon began to feel like he would be cursed forever. In 4th grade, however, everything would change when he met a student named Kyle.

            “You see, Nathan and Kyle were assigned seats next to each other. And while the Devil tried to get in the way of Nathan making new friends by spreading nasty rumors about Nathan and his family, Kyle was undeterred and unjudging. ‘Hello! Good morning!’ Kyle said on their first day next to each other. Nathan had always been shy around other boys, but there was something so gentle, so kind about Kyle, he couldn’t help but reciprocate. Together, the two became fast friends.

            “One day, Nathan began to wonder about Kyle, and whether the Devil was setting him up. So he asks Kyle: ‘don’t you know the rumors they say about me?’, ‘don’t you know the things they say about my father?’”

            “Dad,” I laughed, “nobody talks like that in 4th grade.”

            “Oh true,” my dad laughed, “my bad, my bad. Okay, Nathan asks: ‘yo bro you hear the word on the streets about my papa?’”

            The way my dad said ‘papa’ made me scrunch my face up in distaste and my dad laughed again.

            “Isn’t that way they say?” he asked, “Anyway, it doesn’t matter the words he used, what matters is Kyle looks at him and smiles, he says: ‘so what?’ and Nathan, still unsure what is going on, asks Kyle directly: ‘so why do you still want to be my friend?’, ‘why do you still talk to me?’ and Kyle just laughs and says, ‘because I like you, is that not enough?’ And at that point, Nathan knows, that is that.

            “The Devil, however, he hated this. ‘Nathan is mine, all mine!’ the Devil thought, and so he planned to intervene. But how should he intervene? What was the best way to intervene? Well, the Devil first tried to talk to Nathan to drive a wedge between the friends. ‘Hey Nathan,’ he would say, ‘who’s your new friend?’, but you see, Nathan knew better. He knew by now that the Devil had nothing but bad intentions, and so Nathan didn’t engage with him, he just ignored the Devil and continued on his merry way

            “But that didn’t stop the Devil from meddling. Since he couldn’t get to Nathan directly, the Devil sought out Kyle instead, and Kyle, none the wiser, offered a friendly smile. Slowly but surely, the Devil befriended Kyle as well.

            “One day, Nathan discovered that the Devil had been talking to Kyle, and boy was he mad! ‘Get away from my friend!’ he yelled at the Devil, but the Devil pretending to be innocent, pretended he didn’t know what was going on, and Kyle, suspecting none the wiser, said that they could all be friends together. Nathan could see that he had lost once again to the Devil, so he let his shoulders drop in defeat and he walked away, allowing his one and only friend to be taken from him.”

            “This is a terrible story,” I said flatly.

            “I’m not done, honey. ‘Let me cook’, as the kids say.”

            “Daaad,” I groaned, but he only smiled.

            “Nathan left, defeated, but Kyle chased after him! He ran after him and grabbed him by his shirt. ‘What’s wrong?’ Kyle asked, but all Nathan could do was wipe the tears from his face. He was too scared to talk, too scared to let Kyle know the truth about the Devil.”

            “Wait,” I said, interrupting again, “why couldn’t Nathan just tell Kyle that the Devil was bad and always trying to ruin his life?”

            “Learned helplessness,” my dad replied.

            “What’s that?” I asked.

            He looked thoughtful. “It’s like when you get a bad grade and you don’t try to hide it from us because you know we’ll find out anyway.”

            I frowned.

            “When he had told people before, nobody had believed his word against the Devil’s, so he became too scared to speak out about the Devil.”

            “That sucks,” I said.

            “Mega sucks,” my dad replied.

            “Okay, so what happened next?” I asked.

            My dad’s face lit up. “Meets Kyle, they friends, ‘get away my friend!’, da-da-da,” my dad muttered to himself. “Ah right, so after thinking long and hard about it, Nathan eventually agrees to Kyle that they can all be friends, and Kyle is delighted. Nathan knows he can never be friends with the Devil, and will never forgive him, but he wants to be friends with Kyle so desperately he thinks to himself: ‘maybe things will get better.’”

            “Is this going to be a sad story?” I complained.

            My dad looked at me and frowned.

            “Would you bloody let me tell the story or no?”

             I pursed my lips.

            “Not in the mood for a tear-jerked?” my dad asked.

            I shook my head.

            “Tough crowd,” he said, shaking his head as well. “Okay, so they’re 4th grade, 5th grade, then once middle school comes around, Nathan, Kyle, and the Devil start spending all their time together, even though Kyle and Nathan ended up going to different schools. The three were inseparable: they would hang out every day after school, and all the time, Nathan was watching the Devil, and all the time, the Devil was watching Nathan. It was peaceful in a way, kind of like a cold war where two countries have nukes aimed at each other and country number three has no idea her allies are at the brink of annihilation.”

            I eyed him suspiciously, but he ignored me.

            “As they got older, something else began to happen: Nathan noticed that his feelings toward Kyle were changing. Every day, Kyle’s smile seemed to grow a little bit brighter. Nathan spent more and more time looking at his friend differently, thinking about his friendly differently, and it wasn’t long before Nathan realized he was in love. And it wasn’t much longer than that, that the Devil took notice too.”

            “Dad,” I warned, “you can’t have the Devil seduce a middle school boy.”

            My dad shot me a weird look. “Elise, you say the strangest things, sometimes. Do you even know what that word means?” He shook his head. “Nevermind, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

            My dad hummed thoughtfully.

            “Okay, fine, no romance between the Devil and Kyle…” he muttered to himself. “The truth was, Kyle had feelings for Nathan too, but both were too shy to admit it, too shy to tell the other. And so, while the two bided their time, the Devil told Kyle that they should spend some time together, just the two of them, and Kyle, once again none the wiser, agreed. Kyle and the Devil started spending more and more time alone, and Nathan was left again on the sidelines, again by himself. ‘Fine’, he thought, at least the Devil would leave him alone. ‘Fine’, he thought, at least Kyle seemed happy.

            “Still, it wasn’t all so bad. Now that Nathan spent more time at home, he got to know his sisters better. One of his sisters was a twin, the other adopted, but it didn’t stand in the way of the bond they had as family.”

            “Who cares about the sisters?” I asked, “What about Kyle?”

            “You kids these days have no patience,” my dad said, wagging his finger at me, “all I want to do is tell my daughter a nice love story and one moment it’s ‘that’s not how kids should talk’, and then it’s ‘oh, I don’t want it to be sad’, and then it’s ‘dad, the Devil can’t date a middle school kid’. And now it’s ‘I don’t want to hear about the very important sisters.’ Next thing you’ll start asking me what did these kids had for breakfast, ‘oh is that gluten-free’?”

            I laughed and my dad rubbed my head, causing my hair to become a tangled flop. I brushed it back as he continued.

            “One day, Nathan gets a phone call from Kyle. He doesn’t pick it up. ‘Kyle is pitying me’, Nathan thinks, ‘I don’t want to be a bother.’ He forgets about the call and thinks little of it as he continues spending his days with his sisters, gossiping about cute boys or something, I don’t know. A week later, Kyle calls again. And again, Nathan ignores the call, thinking ‘Kyle and the Devil are better off without me’. But the third time, the third week, Kyle calls again and Nathan becomes worried. He thinks, ‘maybe the Devil is hurting Kyle’ and finally picks up the phone. But it’s worse than he suspects. Nathan finds out that Kyle is very sick, and he rushes to the hospital to see his friend.”

            “Daaaad!” I yelled, hitting my dad’s arm.

            “So he goes the hospital,” my dad continued, talking faster, grabbing my wrist. “Nathan goes to the hospital to see Kyle, and he finds out that Kyle has a heart issue. His heart is failing, and without a donor, there’s not much time left for him. Kyle apologizes to Nathan, says ‘I’m not sure what I did that made you sad, that made you not want to see me anymore, but I wish we could have had more time together.’”

            “DAAAD!” I yelled.

            “Nathan doesn’t say anything back at first, he only cries and holds his friend in his arms. After a long time, Nathan finally speaks. ‘I loved you,’ he said, ‘I still love you. You have nothing to apologize for, I do. I should have told you how much you mean to me. I would have given the world for you. I would have done anything for you.’ But Kyle just smiles, in a way to say ‘it’s okay’.

            “Nathan goes home that day and he talks to his sisters. He confides in them how much he loves Kyle, how he would do anything for him. He also knows that somehow this is all the Devil’s fault. He doesn’t know how, but he knows that the Devil has hurt Kyle. They talk and talk and talk and late at night, an epiphany comes to him, and he hatches a plan, and he writes Kyle a note.

            “The next day, he goes to visit Kyle and talks to him about school. He talks about his classmates and the funny things they do. He talks about how one teacher swore in class and got in trouble. He tells Kyle about his sisters, and how much he loves them. But he never speaks about the Devil, and he never talks about how sad he is. He only talks about the good things, the happy things. Every day he goes to visit his friend, no matter how hot or cold it is, rain or snow, it doesn’t matter. Every day he’s there, and he talks to Kyle until his throat is sore. He tries to make up the lost time from when they were apart. He brings flowers and chocolates and notes and makes origami flowers for Kyle. He tells Kyle: ‘I’m sorry, I wish I could’ve given you everything,’ and Kyle shakes his head and tells him, ‘these visits are enough; your love is the greatest gift of all.’”

            My dad reached over and wiped some tears away from my eyes.

            “Kyle… Kyle loves these visits from Nathan,” he says, “They’re the highlight of every day, and whenever Nathan speaks, Kyle listens so attentively, like every word is the most important word ever spoken. And every time, as Nathan leaves, they both cry, knowing that their time together is coming to an end.

            “One day, however, Nathan doesn’t show up. And then another. And another and another day pass by, and Kyle starts to get worried. He asks the Devil where Nathan is, but the Devil won’t say, so he finally decides to call Nathan, but for some reason, Nathan’s sister picks up. She never says a word to him, but Kyle hears her cry on the other side of the line, and it makes him cry, too. He cries, and cries, and cries, and a doctor comes into the room. ‘Good news!’ the doctor says, but Kyle doesn’t want to hear it. It only makes him cry harder and harder until eventually he has no energy and falls into a deep, deep slumber.

            “When he finally wakes up, days later, he finds the Devil in his room, to deliver the note that Nathan wrote all those weeks ago. It reads simply: ‘I wish I could’ve given you the world, but you’ll have to settle for my heart.’”

            “You’re the worst!” I screamed, kicking my dad until he fell off my bed. “Your stories suck!”

            “Elise,” he said, trying to calm me, but I wasn’t having it. I kept punching and kicking as he tried to grab my limbs one by one like he was wrestling a squid. “Elise!”

            “Aadi!” a voice boomed, deep and violent.

            We both froze in place.

            My dad’s eyes grew wide, as if he knew what was about to happen. As if he had expected it. I could almost see the hairs on his neck stand up straight.

            “Aadi, what the fuck is this!” the man yelled, “Where are you!?”

            I heard clanging in the kitchen. My mom let out a bone chilling scream as chairs crashed against the floor.

            “Aadi, I’m going to fucking kill you!”

            “Elise,” my dad said, offering me a smile. “I’ll be right back. Stay right here, don’t move, and don’t open your door for anyone.”

            “Aadi!” my mom screamed, her voice shrill with terror. “Aadi, run!”

            A loud thump sent a chill rippling down my spine as my mom fell silent.

            My dad looked at me and kissed my forehead. “Elise, I love you,” he said. Holding my hand in his. I felt his fingers reach toward the back of my head, toward where my scar was. He closed his eyes before kissing my forehead again before leaving.

            I looked down at my hands and saw a little slip of paper.

            It read: “I wish I could’ve given you my heart, but you’ll have to settle for the world.”