The Anti-Heroes

by Jen Lancaster

I want to face-palm or scream into the void. During the pandemic, I read that a Japanese amusement park posted a notice about the dangers of expressing your fears aloud, due to the possibility of spraying droplets. The sign read Please scream inside your heart. I scream inside my heart a lot.

I’ve got to have chicken in the freezer, right? Maybe not air chilled or antibiotic-free, and maybe it had low self-esteem in comparison to the birds here, but still.

I picked up an extra shift because the dentist says Tommy’s gonna need braces. I mean, look at his front teeth. He could eat an ear of corn through a picket fence.” She’s not wrong.

eye Hailee, who is chewing gum with an open mouth and nary a thought in her head.

Honey, I’m afraid to get dirty. I mean, look at this suit. It’s Brunello Cucinelli.” “Yo, that sounds delicious,” B-Money says. He’s not wrong.

He’s my . . . associate dean,” I say. Technically, this is true. Liv raises her eyebrows. “And boyfriend.” B-Money looks like he just bit into a lemon. “Bruh. Bruh. He’s spending too much time getting pretty with that cat. You can do better. He’s giving ‘I keep my dead mother in a rocking chair’ energy.”

is your name pronounced Jesus, like the Lord, or Hay-soose, like the Spanish pronunciation?” He says, “It’s Hay-soose. But you can call me Zeus.”

I’ll just scream inside my heart then. Woo!!