STR wasn’t for everyone.

  Our plan was simple: spend a couple of weeks listening to live bands, checking out a few attractions, and, if possible, get laid. It didn't take long for me to realize how unlikely those goals were to be achieved.

  My ears were too sensitive to go near most of the bands. The sheer force and power of live music was enough to seemingly obliterate my eardrums. The mosh pits of people were no better and only added to the suffering. Wesson’s favorite band performed the second week, and I felt terrible for making him miss out. I urged him to go on his own, but when he saw I couldn't handle the live music, he decided to keep away from it as well.

  STR was made up of music, attractions, and the potential for hookups. Thanks to me, we had to give up on a third of what we came for. Somehow, Wesson wasn’t bothered by it.

  “It’s cool, man, we should have known,” Wes said.

  “I still feel bad,” I told him.

  “No need. We can still do what you came to do,” he joked.

  “And what’s that?”

  As we walked the sand-covered venue, Wesson gestured to a group of girls walking by. His gesture was anything but covert, and maybe a touch humiliating, but I got the point.

  “I don’t know,” I said hesitantly.

  “You have to try. I mean, we’re here. No one is human, so they shouldn’t care about the extra fur and stuff,” he pushed and tried to persuade me.

  “I know, but Wes, I’ve never hit on a girl before, and these girls have wings, and fangs, and that one is juggling fire,” I said, pointing to a fire eater performance going on behind Wesson’s back.

  “I get it, but we’re here,” he said with a hand on my shoulder.

  “So I have to try?” I said, with lack luster confidence.

  “Unless you want to go the other way. There's plenty of dudes here,” he joked.

  “Haha,” I said sarcastically.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be your wingman,” he added as we continued to walk.

  “Have you ever been a wingman before?” I asked as we both stepped over drugged-out festival goers passed out on the ground.

  “No, but I’ll figure it out,” he said.

  We stopped walking, and for a moment, I waited for Wes to give me his plan.

  “So?” I asked.

  “I’m figuring it out, give me a minute,” he said before playfully pushing me over, causing me to trip over a bunch of people we then had to run from.

  We hadn’t seen Russell in days.

  At STR, people slept in RVs, tents, or whatever kind of shelter they could find because the venue was packed well beyond capacity. Sure, everything was out in the middle of the desert, but whoever was in charge should have had the foresight to order more tents.

  Somehow, Wes and I were lucky enough to snag a tent. Even away from home, my buddy could win anyone over. People threw things at him because he was a satyr. A good-looking, fun-loving, mostly nude satyr. Half the festival goers we met threw themselves at Wes like they were compelled by hypnotic suggestion. It would have been annoying had it not been funny and, more importantly, helpful.

  People wouldn’t stop bending over backward for him. Of course, I wasn’t about to complain since it got us two cots comfortable enough to call beds. After a couple of days, we even had a mini-fridge, though it held lukewarm water.

  The only downside might have been having to share a small bed with Russell every night, but he wasn’t around. Wes and I woke up on our 3rd day in New Mexico to find that Russell had disappeared. He was just gone.

  Wesson tried calling him and sent a hundred texts, to which Russell replied, “I’ll be back later,” but we went into our second week without hearing a word from him. He had completely left Wes and me to do what we wanted without hindrance. Though, I doubt Russell could have been age-appropriate long enough to play the adult figure in our trio anyway. Had he been around, it would have been a pain to regulate his actions, not ours.

  Anyway, people were in a bind trying to find places to sleep at night. Wes thought girls would be more interested in hanging out if we offered one of our beds for a night. The obvious catch was that they'd have to share the bed with me. It was a simple enough plan, wasn’t it?

  I wasn’t asking anyone to blow me for a bed. The way the festival had been going, a few interesting conversations would have been enough. If anyone happened to like me enough to actually stay the night, it would have been a welcome bonus, but there were no expectations.

  Wes was kind enough to scout and send girls to our tent. I wasn’t sure what I would have done without him.

  I didn’t have cool pick-up lines. I didn’t know how to tell a girl I was interested without coming off as creepy. With Wes sending them my way, I knew they’d at least want to flirt. If they were coming to the tent, they must have known what they were getting into, and hopefully, that meant I wouldn’t have to worry about mixed signals.

  I was sweating with anticipation, waiting to see who Wes would pair me with first. My fur, the desert climate, and summer heat were no help. I didn’t give him any instructions about what type of girl to look for. I might have had I been decisive enough to know myself. Back in Daybreak, I was lucky to be acknowledged by people. It was a privilege to be taken seriously by girls back home at all.

  No one wanted to fuck a rabbit. No one wanted to hang out with a loser. No one cared to know the guy with ultra bad luck.

  I wouldn’t say I was desperate, but I wasn’t going to be picky or shallow. Besides, how could I have possibly been specific about who I wanted to date in a place where everyone was so different? At STR, there were Trolls, Satyr, Siren, Leprechaun, Imps, Fairies. A whole host of creatures I had never seen before were all around me. I didn't anticipate Wes would send me someone insane, but as time passed without anyone entering the tent, my worry grew.

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  Maybe I should have done the legwork myself. Wingman or not, it felt lazy having Wes make the initial approaches. It was a little emasculating, to be honest. I started to leave the tent to tell Wes I’d find my own love interest, but before I could walk outside, someone stepped in.

  She was a Nymph named Echo. Her appearance was mostly human, but with pointed ears, emerald green hair, and wings made of wood and vines. I couldn't understand how her dress, made of wildflowers, stayed intact on her body. She was taller than me, a lot taller, probably taller than Wes. Russell might have been in her height category, but next to me, there was no way. I couldn’t take us seriously sitting next to each other. I didn’t want to be a dick. She was beautiful, so I tried to talk for a while. We even hit it off enough to grow physically, but the moment she tried to move me into her lap, she had to go.

  After Echo left, I stepped outside the tent to look for Wes. I wanted to cancel his plan, but being without a phone and not knowing where he was made it challenging to relay the message. He could have been anywhere.

  Before I could walk off, I was greeted by guest number 2. She was closer to my height than the last. Her name was Alana, and she was a mermaid. When mermaids left water, their tails turned into legs so they could get around on land, but seeing one out in the desert was odd. Alana was a cool girl. She thought I was funny. I liked how she tried to cover the smell of weed in her hair with the scent of stereotypical seaweed. Both our families lived in towns that people never heard of. To be fair, her hometown was at the bottom of an ocean, but still. We had some things in common. There was just one problem. Alana was so uncomfortable in the heat that she had to stop the conversation every 2 minutes to splash water on herself. Oh, and she couldn’t speak verbally, so she had to communicate through writing everything in a notebook she carried around. I dealt with the waterworks and the slow conversation because we seemed to have legitimate chemistry, but I had a limit. It got old when her water made it harder to read what she wrote on paper. Her notebook became too soggy to distinguish a single written word, and that’s when I knew our time was up.

  I was beginning to think Wes was screwing with me. Had he been anyone else, I might have been certain. There was a slew of women that came by that day, and all of them were oddballs. It could have been me. Sure, I might have had high expectations. I could have been more shallow than I realized. I could have been, but after being forced to spend 10 minutes in a tent with a girl whose body was made out of bugs, I knew it wasn’t me.

  The wave of love interests finally came to an end as the sunset. I was worn out and freaked out. On the brink of putting myself to sleep, I groaned at the sound of yet another person entering the tent until I opened my eyes to find that it was Wes.

  I had a sarcastic scowl on my face as he walked in and laid in his bed across from mine. It took him a moment to notice, but when he did, he broke the silence.

  “So,” he asked, knowing something was wrong, or maybe he couldn’t tell.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

  “Come on, Pitch.”

  Did I want to tell him about the lion-headed girl who wouldn’t stop licking my face? Did I want to tell him about the fairy I thought was a mosquito?

  “Wes,” I said, searching for the right words to convey how horrible it all was while also admitting it was hilarious how bad of a wingman he was.

  “That bad?” he asked.

  “It’s fine. Next time I’ll pick up girls on my own, probably safer that way,” I joked.

  “We could always try again tomorrow,” he said.

  “Right now, all I want to do is sleep.”

  “It’s not even midnight yet,” he protested.

  “I know.”

  “I was going to grab something to eat,” he said as he sprung from his cheap cot with enough energy to nearly send it flying.

  Then again, our beds weren’t made of durable materials, so moving in them at all was enough to worry they'd break. I doubt they were made to be slept in twice.

  “You should,” I said as I turned over and shut my eyes again.

  “Come with me,” he said, and I could tell he was standing over my body.

  “Wes,” I said without opening my eyes.

  “Come on. You can try to get laid at a hotdog cart or something.”

  “Aren’t you a vegetarian?” I joked until I felt him grip my arm.

  My eyes shot open.

  “Dude, you’re a rabbit, and you eat more meat than I do,” he said as he pulled me out of bed like my dad used to do on Monday mornings.

  It was annoying how easy it was for him to pick me up, almost like a toddler. I straightened up so he’d let me go.

  “Do we even have the money for food anymore? Your cousin took half our stuff, remember?” I argued.

  “There are other ways of getting food,” he said.

  “You mean stealing it?” I asked jokingly as we left the tent, but he didn’t correct me.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Wes, I’m not stealing food.”

  “Is it honestly stealing? I mean, people toss a bunch of food every day. We’re saving it from a dumpster.”

  “Wes, I’m not stealing food,” I reiterated sternly.

  “Pitch, I’m kidding. I still have plenty of money. Besides, people hand out free samples and stuff,” he said to reassure me.

  “Ok,” I said, but he didn’t seem convincing.

  The festival was full of exotic people from exotic places, and of course, they brought their exotic food. Wes and I searched for something new to try but didn’t want anything over the top. There was a stand selling Firebird Nachos, made with real firebird. Firebirds were made of living flames, so eating one would have been the equivalent of swallowing a firework mid explosion. There was a bar selling Snake Charmer’s Pizza, essentially pizza with snakeheads instead of pepperoni. A few places were tamer like the chocolate bistro, but we didn’t have that kind of money.

  Eventually, I found myself sitting at a table while Wes canvassed the scene for something we could both eat and afford. He was doing the most to make sure I had a good time. At times, it felt like he was waiting on me, serving me, or doing more than I deserved. I attributed the behavior to his natural optimism and good outlook.

  Wes returned with plates of what looked to be Mabel’s Marble Slab ice-cream and fries.

  “I guess Mabel’s is popular everywhere,” I said as Wes passed me a tray of food and took a seat across from me.

  “It was some kind of knockoff, Marlin’s Mint Stop,” Wes corrected.

  “Of course.”

  I was sure we had to be out of money, so seeing how much food Wes managed to get surprised me.

  “How much money do you still have?” I asked.

  “Enough for our stay,” he said, but again, it wasn’t convincing.

  “So did Russell only take half of my stuff,” I pressed.

  “No, he still has my phone charger and the rest of my jackets,” he said with significant weight, seeing how he only wore jackets and hoodies.

  But it felt like he was dodging my question.

  “How did you pay for all this stuff?” I finally asked.

  “Pitch,” he said without looking directly at me.

  He wanted me to drop it, but I couldn’t.

  “You couldn’t afford breakfast yesterday, but tonight you had enough for one of everything at a knockoff Mabel’s?”

  I didn’t mean to push, but he was acting suspiciously. Even if he stole it, the lie felt more important than the act. Wes never lied, at least not to me.

  “Ok, so maybe I didn’t buy ‘all’ of it. But I didn’t steal it either. I had a bird steal it for us” he said.

  “Wes!”

  “It’s not that big a deal. I took it from this troll’s table; the guy didn’t need all of it,” he said, perhaps trying to convince himself just as much as me.

  “Wes, you know about my mom, don't you,” I said.

  “I know, dude, but it’s one time. I wanted us to eat together. That’s all,” he said, disappointed.

  "I don't get it. Even if we can't afford this stuff, couldn’t you have just asked someone to buy it?

  "What?"

  "People give you stuff all the time."

  "They want to fuck me. How's that any better than stealing?"

  "That's not what I meant."

  "I don't want people to look at me like that anyway. Some things should be special shouldn’t they?"

  I didn’t mean to embarrass him or make him feel like I was angry, but Wes never lied. It’s just something he didn’t do. And I was sure he didn't mean to guilt me. The long glance we shared at one another said as much.

  “As long as it’s ‘just’ this once,” I said.

  “It is,” he swore.