Chapter #8Friends and Enemies by: Seuzz   The weekend intervenes, and you give up on the idea of looking for Justin to get that book back. Maybe because it would be too much trouble. Maybe because it would mean probably running into Tsosie again.
Probably it's because you'd just as soon not remind Geoff and Kelsey and them about how stupid you were acting at Besandwiched.
Still, you fold yourself up defensively in your desk Monday morning in Walberg's. Kelsey comes in first, but she ignores you, which is a welcome, if normal, action on her part. Then comes Gardinhire, looking very cool in his shades and white polo shirt with the casually snapped up collar. Lisa and Geoff are the last of that bunch to come in. Mansfield is all eyes on Lisa; she doesn't acknowledge you either. You try telling yourself that she'll want to apologize to you for last night, and that she's just waiting for a more opportune moment, when she doesn't have to do it in front of Kelsey and Geoff and Martin. So you're not too disappointed when she goes the whole period without even looking in your direction.
Or when she doesn't catch you at your locker before second period.
Or at your locker before third.
Or during fourth, when you have a study hall in the library.
But when she doesn't come looking for you at lunch ...
* * * * *
"Who do you keep looking for?" Jenny Ashton asks. "You look like a prairie dog." She mimes your attitude by popping up onto her knees and sniffing the air with her hands drawn up to dangle limply under her chin.
"I was looking for Lisa. I thought maybe she might--" You close your mouth, for Jenny and Yumi Saito and Paul Davis have all just exchanged a meaningful glance. "Cut me some slack, okay? So I'm still not over her dumping--"
"And who do you keep looking for?" Jenny asks Carson Ioeger, who like you has been craning his neck and staring over at the cafeteria. The seven of you--Jenny, Carson, Paul, Yumi, Caleb, Keith Tilley, and you--are all eating picnic style in a corner of the main quad in front of the school.
"I'm looking for James. Hey, Johansson," Carson adds without looking over as Caleb snickers. "You see this finger? And this one? Picture the finger between them. It's your finger, and after I show it to you I'm gonna shove it up your ass."
"And you wonder why I never want to eat with these guys," Caleb mutters to you.
"Where is James anyway," Jenny asks, and cranes her neck too.
"Like you care."
"I do care."
"Then why don't you go out with him?"
"I said I care," she says. "I didn't say--"
"Ye-es?"
"Well, why do you suddenly care?" Jenny turns red in a very hot-and-bothered kind of way.
"I don't give a shit. And it'd be easier to not give a shit if you two were actually--"
Jenny leaps to her feet and hurries away. "You asshole, Carson," Yumi says, and scampers after her.
"Well, now that we're finally stag," Carson says serenely. "Oh, except for you, Davis."
"Fuck you." Paul hurries after Yumi.
"It's like a fucking caravan," Carson says as he watches the 3-person conga line snake away. "Poor Davis. No one to chase him. Anyway, now that we're finally stag--" He puffs himself up as though to make a major announcement. And then he scratches long and deeply at his crotch. "Finally. I've been needing to do that for about ten minutes." He takes another bite from his sandwich.
"I met up with Lisa and a bunch of her friends last night," you say quietly, taking advantage of the lull in the conversation. You relate in a fragmentary way the events at Besandwitched. "I was kind of hoping she'd come over and say 'sorry' for what happened."
Out of the corner of your eye you catch Keith putting his face in his hands. Carson is more direct. "I'm gonna ask you one question, Prescott, and then I'm gonna say one thing. After that, I'm not sayin' anything about you and Lisa ever again. Okay? So, are you planning on being into her for the rest of your life?"
"Well, I'd like to," you retort. "I'd like it if we got together and were, like, together for--"
"Then you're gonna die a miserable old man. That or you're gonna off yourself. Because she's not into you, and she's not going to be."
You redden. "So you're saying I should just suddenly stop being into her," you say as though it's the most absurd thing anyone could say. Which, at the moment, it seems likely it is.
"Exactly. And the sooner the better. Stop being into her, and start being into some other girl."
"Heh, Ioeger told you to get 'into a girl'," Keith snickers.
"Tilley? That finger I promised to shove up Johansson's ass? After I take it back out, I'm gonna make you suck it."
* * * * *
Jenny and Yumi and Paul never come back. Lisa, of course, doesn't show up. Neither does James. The latter absence is the least of your concerns, but it's the one that seemingly gets an explanation.
The hallway whirls as you're yanked back by a strong arm, and then it explodes in a white flash as--WHANG--your head hits something loud and hard. Something grips your collar and then WHANG--the back of your head hits the same thing. It's not an unfamiliar sensation--someone is slamming you back against a locker--but you've never gotten it this hard before, and your lunch heaves in your stomach.
"You gonna tell Lamont what I said?" a voice roars in your face. "Are you?"
You open your eyes, then try to blink away the horror. It's Jason Lynch, and his electric blue eyes seem to spark over his grin. "What?" you gasp.
"Wrong answer, asshole." WHANG "Are you gonna tell Lamont what I said?"
"Tell him what?" you desperately gasp.
"You're a fuckin' idiot, you know that?" Lynch chortles. His shoulders twitch just a little, and then--
OH MY GOD YOU HAVEN'T FELT PAIN LIKE THAT IN YOUR CROTCH SINCE THAT TIME YOU WERE TEN YEARS OLD AND YOUR BROTHER MISSED THE T-BALL AND HIT YOUR BALLS INSTEAD. You go blind with agony and fall over, and then your scalp explodes with fiery pain as Lynch yanks your head up by the short hairs and grins at you through your tears.
"Are. You. Going. To tell. Lamont. What. I. Said?"
"Yes." Your voice is just a cracked whisper. "Just tell me what I'm s'pposed to say."
"That's the right answer," he says. "You say 'yes' before I tell you what to do. If you don't learn anything else in this shithole, you'll learn that." He giggles. "Tell Lamont to stay out of the locker room at lunch. Fuck, tell him to stay out of the locker room, period. Pussy like him shouldn't never be in there to start with."
"I'll tell him."
"Better. 'Cos I'm gonna ask 'im if he got the message." He releases your hair, and you slump to the floor. "Run along now, li'l darlin', and make sure he gets what I told you."
You can't even stand up straight, and the other students buffet you mercilessly as you stagger to your feet and totter toward last period. You text James to meet you when school is out.
It only takes one look at him when you catch up to him, and you can tell he also had a little conference with Lynch. He accepts your message with the grim stoicism of one who has met up all too often with Jason Lynch.
* * * * *
A little later. You flinch hard as an arm wraps around your shoulder, but it's only Justin Roth. "Heard you ran into Lynch a little while ago," he says. "That sucks."
You grumble half-formed words and let him walk with you. And then you find that you're walking with him as he guides you out a set of side doors. "Where are we going?" you ask.
"Make a little stop, talk about things."
"Tsosie?" you fearfully ask. "He wanted to talk to me--"
"Nah. Somethin' else."
Mystified, you lapse into silence as he guides you over to the portables. He raps sharply at the door, then steps behind you. You look up as the door opens. You only have time to see Perry Small, and to see him shove something at your face. ...
* * * * *
You open your eyes with a groan. The words Fuckin' Tsosie form in your head. What was he--?
Wait. Not Tsosie. Small and Roth. They're the last ones you--
You blink at the dark ceiling and sit up. You're in one of the portables. Which one doesn't matter, because they're all the same. You stretch and slap at a thick pectoral. At least you're in one piece.
Wait, what's this meaty thing doing under your hand? And where's your fucking clothes? If this is Tsosie's idea of a--
No, not Tsosie. Roth and Small.
Why do you keep thinking of Roth and Small? Because they're the last ones you saw before--
No, Tsosie was the last one you saw, before he slammed you in the face with--
No, before Small slammed you in the face with--
The fuck is going on?!
You get to your feet unsteadily, and bounce a little on your thick calves to get the circulation going in your head. You were talking to Roth about Lynch because you'd run into that twiggy pussy and beat a message in him to take to Lamont.
Wait. What?
The scene at the locker plays again in your head. You see it from both sides.
Simultaneously.
Your head whirls, and you clutch at a desk. Two people are screaming inside your head. Or: you're screaming at yourself inside your head, because you're two different people.
You're Will Prescott.
You're Jason Lynch.
All sense of reality teeters delicately. And then it tips over. But somehow, you know that you're the one who has pushed it in a new direction.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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