Jessica asked you to be honest with her, and you feel that opening up with your experience will do just that. But what will she think of you if you said you intentionally went to search for some girls to wear? She’ll probably think you’re a good-for-nothing like Jimmy and drop you like yesterday’s news.
You’re already cool with her, so you feel it’s better to leave it that way. You’re more worried that Jimmy must be wearing another girl’s skin, strutting as them, going into their deepest spaces and sharing like one of them while satisfying his perverse desires. You make a couple more calls, but you get no response. You leave a text out of desperation. [Where r u? Gmme a call.]
As you wait for a response – any response – you try to distract yourself with homework, but your mind’s not into it. You try to focus, and you get a surprising result – an admiring look from your older sister, Tina. “Strange to see you holed up on here.”
“Doing homework,” you say as you lift your notebook.
“You usually don’t do it this early. I thought you’d be with Jimmy or with your girlfriend.”
“I called her just now. Say, did Claire tell you where she was going?”
“No.” She crosses her arms, smirking. “Jealous?”
“I’m just worried. She told me she’d be with Katie, but neither of them are at her house. Jess claims Katie’s at school, but--”
“Then probably she’s at school.” She leans at the doorframe, staring straight at your soul. “Davey, you have to understand Claire’s not a kid anymore.”
“You don’t treat me like an adult,” you riposte as you rest your head on the pillow.
“That’s where you’re wrong. There’s a difference between keeping an eye on you guys and treating you as kids. If I were, I’d be asking where you are and what you’re doing.”
“You did that yesterday.”
“Be-fore you left,” she clarifies. “I know you have your friends and your lives, so why would I want to control what you’re doing?”
“You question why I’m friends with Jimmy.”
“I question why he hasn’t matured.” You gaze her down and she gives. “I question why you haven’t helped him because I know he’s your friend, and I question what you see in him that makes you so loyal, but I haven’t told you to break your friendship.”
“You’ve suggested it before.”
“I’ve suggested that if he doesn’t mature, you should reconsider your friendship.” She draws closer, sitting at the same corner Claire did – a gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed with you. “I’ve had friends that are just like Jimmy. One of them decided to mature and grow up, the other didn’t. The first one’s still my friend. I don’t know about the other. You understand what I mean?”
“That’s basically saying I should break my friendship with him.”
“What I’m saying is that you know him better than I do. If he doesn’t want to grow up, don’t let him drag you into wherever he ends up. But if you feel you can help him, then do it. Drag him away from his immaturity. That’s why I said I don’t treat you as a kid. I know you can be mature. I just want you to prove me you are.”
It feels odd to be confronted by Tina in this way. She’s being the same smarmy sister, but she’s evoking her nicer side. You know she does it because she’s worried – and surprisingly enough, you echo her thoughts. “I don’t get why I should. I’m not gonna get dragged out by Jimmy – in fact, I’m usually the reason he’s tamer.”
“I understand why, Davey. You feel responsible for it. Trust me when I tell you that assuming that responsibility will just drag you down. I’m not saying you should abandon him completely, but if he refuses to mature, reconsider whether you should shoulder that burden.” She stands, but before she steps out of your room, she turns around. “I’m always here if you need to talk, alright?”
As she leaves, you close your eyes and ponder upon Tina’s words. She’s not the only one who has warned you about it. Kelly started, and Jessica echoed her. Just like you, Jimmy isn’t one to have a lot of friends, and of those in his circle, you feel only Eric Nguyen and you are the most mature. However, you’ve been very close, and dropping him out of “immaturity” would feel like a betrayal.
Perhaps giving him the pens is, unconsciously, the test you’ve given him. You know what they can do. You know how tempting they can be. Will he learn the lesson too and drop them? Or will he become consumed by them?
--
“Alright, next order of business is the jobs.”
You’re on your weekly meeting with the school newspaper. Tuesday’s the day where everyone gets their assignments – usually assigning the big news, but also doing duties such as materials purchasing and layouts. Ashley – the school editor – grabs a clipboard and starts checking boxes on a paper. “David, you’re on layout duties this week.”
Again? You don’t groan, but you don’t enjoy the work. Layout is probably one of the hardest duties, since you need to organize each article to look as “aesthetically pleasant” as possible. (Ashley’s words, not yours.) Usually, that means sifting through everyone’s articles – which must be sent through the group’s e-mail or a storage device – then copying, pasting and organizing them.
Fortunately for you, most of the work is easy. Ashley checks every article and assigns it a page – the first one being for the big news, page 2 for continuation and important news, then others, with Entertainment and Sports having the back pages. Whoever’s on layout basically gets the checked articles and only needs to make them fit.
To you, it’s not really that hard. However, because you’re in charge of layout, and because the order of articles matters, you’ll soon get everyone’s attention. “Hey, can you move this article to page 5 so I can get more space?” “Joanna’s once again on the fountains thing; can you move it further back?”
And of course, with the requests come the bribes. “If you do this for me, I’ll help you when I do my layout.” (Which, as you very well know, is not always true.) Or “I know a guy who knows a guy, so I could connect you with them as necessary." Navigating the bribes and the requests while pleasing everyone is the challenging part – the layout itself is easy, even though everyone hates it.
“And remember you got a free choice article because of it.” That’s also another of the perks. Because you control the layout, you can write whatever you want. Joanna Kuntz, for example, uses it for her rants, and Ben Wister – the guy that got you this gig – usually covers the entertainment stuff. (He couldn’t cover the EME recital, which is why you went there.) “Make it a good one.”
“Knowing him,” Rick Iannone says, “it’ll be a boring building piece.” (When you have nothing to write about, might as well do a “feel-good” piece about historical buildings.)
“Hey,” Ben chides him. “His article about the EME was good.”
“If by ‘good’ you mean ‘at least it has the content’...” Joanna turns toward you, sneering. “David, try to think about what the people wanna hear.”
While Ben backs you up, you think about what to write. Students love gossip, and they’d love to know about Samantha’s cousin Aurora, or how she can get into that club you sneaked in. You know that the Blonde Squad (the informal name for the cheer squad) just has to be at every major party, and suggesting there’s a place even they can’t get into would make them jealous.
But of course, it involves talking to Samantha about it, and she doesn’t remember what you did. Or rather, what Jimmy did – you were inside Lauren at that time. You’d still need her – them – to confirm it, and you set up everything so that they wouldn’t question your actions. You don’t want them connecting the dots.
However, you could improvise. Since you can write about anything, you could turn your free article into an entry for the Literature pages. (Technically a single page but can be two if there are long submissions.) What if you wrote a short story about two Edgefield kids that use magical pens to slip into the hottest venue in Tyneside? It may sound crazy, but at least it’d be interesting filler.
If you were any good at writing, that is. There’s a reason why Joanna said your articles aren’t good – they're very technical, devoid of excitement. You’d need to find someone who could help you translate your story into words, since Ashley usually leaves Literature submissions “as-is”. It'd be a way to write an article about your adventures without having the victims know.
“What’s so funny?” Joanna asks – perhaps your idea was so good, it became obvious.
“I think I have an idea of what I wanna write. Just to be clear, it can be on any section, right?”
“Yes,” Ashley confirms. “Any section.”
“It’s why it’s a ‘free choice’,” Joanna mockingly reminds you.
“Cool. Um, can I talk to you in private after the meeting’s finished, Ashley?”
That shocks the bespectacled girl. “Uh... Sure. Anyways – any things we should cover up above anything else?”
--
The reunion finishes after a couple of minutes, and Ashley calls you to her booth. “What was that thing you wanted to talk to me about?”
“When you mean ‘anywhere’, does that include the Literature section?”
She gives you a puzzled look. “Uh, yeah. Why?”
You’re about to pitch your idea when you feel your phone buzz. It’s Jimmy, sending you a text.
[hey. U gonna get vdeo call in abt an hour. Find a good hidng spot.]
If his warning about finding him was cryptic, this is doubly so. Who’s going to video call you? And why is he asking you to hide?
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