Chapter Text
Andrew had gotten his car back.
After he got home from detention on Saturday, his mom had silently slipped him the keys to it. His dad had said that he would get the privilege of his car back after he’d done his eight hours in purgatory, but he still wasn’t talking to him. Andrew hoped that he’d just forgotten because he didn’t want to hear the argument between his parents if his mother--god forbid--was acting without his permission.
But they’d make up after that fight if it ever happened because of course they would. And then his father would come into his room at bedtime, when Andrew was exposed in his boxers and undershirt, under the guise of a friendly chat.
He wouldn’t damage his precious goods. He wouldn’t dare risk Andrew not being able to compete in next weeks meet. No one but them would know what happened behind that closed door.
But Andrew would know, if it ever happened. He would know what his dad whispered in that silky sweet voice of his that didn’t match his words. He’d know that he cried himself to sleep.
So yeah. He hoped that his dad had just forgotten.
Now, he was sitting in his still-running car, hands beating a rhythm against the wheel. Other Jocks walked by, waving and joking and slamming their hands against the hood.
“Hey, knock it off!” he yelled out the window, but they just laughed him off and went on their way. They didn’t take his yelling seriously unless it was on the mats.
His passenger side door opened suddenly, depositing Claire and her book bag into the seat.
She looked at him. He bit his lip.
“This is why Bender thought we were doing it,” he blurted out without thinking.
Claire rolled her eyes.
“Seriously?”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t bring him up.”
“I won’t.”
“I sit in your car before school all the time, and it has nothing to do with that man.”
“I know. Jesus, Claire, calm down.”
“I’m calm. I’m perfectly calm.”
A few moments of silence. Andrew adjusted his rearview mirror so he could see the flood of students walking into school out his back window. Claire flipped down the sun visor, opened the mirror, and began applying a fresh layer of lipstick. She used her hands, not her chest. Andrew felt an inexplicable twinge of sadness. Claire capped the lipstick, put it back in her purse, and closed the visor.
“So. Are you going in or not?” she asked.
To answer her, he turned the car off. Then he popped open his door, grabbed his bag, and stepped outside into the parking lot.
She snapped to his side as they walked towards the doors, somehow amassing more and more Royalty and Jocks the closer they got. It was like they magnetized to them or something. Surrounded by a crowd of loud boys from every sport a parent would want their son to be in, Andrew no longer felt at ease (had he ever?). He felt like an outsider.
He brushed the thought off as the door to the school was pulled open for him. These were his people ; he’d been friends with them for four-plus years. He would joke with them, laugh with them, and hang out with them outside of school.
They’d also cheered him on as he tortured someone.
He swallowed down bile.
In the hallways of Shermer High, Andrew became a King again. He and Claire the Queen walked together, crowds of people parting for the group that was the Jocks and the Royalty. They passed Principal Vernon by the entrance, glaring at all the kids coming in. Andrew gave him a passing glance, acknowledging him, but he didn’t seem to notice. His unforgiving gaze wasn’t meant for him.
Claire split off from the pack, taking the Royalty with her as she went to her locker. Andrew went a ways down the hallway and opened his own, doing his best to contribute to the conversations that he was thrust into with the other Jocks.
“Yeah, real piece of work,” he muttered when someone asked him what he thought of the new teacher.
“Okay, prove it on the mat today,” he commented when he overheard one of his posse members saying that he was a better wrestler than the freshies, which they all knew was wrong. They got a good laugh out of that.
“Sure, I’ll be there,” he agreed when someone told him to show up at a party he was planning that weekend. He was immediately berated by everyone around him and reminded in not-very-nice terms that he had shied out of the last party that past Saturday. He’d wanted to go, but his father had made him run wrestling drills in their backyard as soon as they got home to make up for the hours he’d missed in the morning. His calls to try harder, to push, to really put some goddamn effort into it was the most he’d talked to him all weekend. “Didn’t have time,” was all he told them.
He was shoving his textbooks into the bottom of his locker and rummaging around for a pencil in the heap when a commotion at the entrance caught his attention.
The words,
“Good fucking mornin’ sunshine!” would normally not be heard over the din of the hallway, but their speaker was so boisterous that they bounced around every wall and to everyone’s ears.
Andrew’s head snapped towards their origin. He knew exactly who that was.
John Bender stood in the middle of the entrance, smiling grandly, seemingly uncaring about the crowd of students that had to part around him to get inside. He had a blunt between his teeth and had his arms held out wide as if to give Principal Vernon a hug. He reminded Andrew of some twisted, homeless messiah. The only thing was, he was flipping him off with both hands.
“Two months and another Saturday!” Vernon practically screamed, but Bender just laughed him off and started walking down the hallway towards them.
The oddest thing was, Claire had turned towards the entrance as well, and now Andrew could see her eyes magnetize back to her locker. Through the crowds of passing people, he watched as Bender walked up to her and played quickly with her hair. As fast as she’d turned away, she snapped around and glared at Bender. But it wasn’t really a glare; there was a sadness there.
Bender raised his hands in a placating gesture and spun away. As he continued down the hallway, Andrew locked eyes with him. There was nothing behind Bender’s eyes.
Andrew was torn from the look they shared by his friend smacking his shoulder.
“Dude, how the fuck are you gonna let him get away with that? That was fucking Claire he just sized up! Go after him!”
He threw their hand off his shoulder and turned to give him the best glare he could muster.
“Since when do I take orders from juniors?” he spat and turned back to look at Claire. Immediately, his posse pounced, eager to tease anyone Andrew turned his scorn onto. He ignored them. Claire’s lips were pursed, and she was rummaging around in her purse as her friends talked animatedly at her.
It was Monday. He was full of regret.
Andrew sighed.
Claire twirled her hair with one hand as she put in the combination for her locker with the other.
She’d hoped things would go back to normal. When she was joined in the parking lot by at least eight giggling girls, she’d thought they had. But she couldn’t stop thinking about what Andrew had said that morning. Who he’d referenced.
It didn’t help when she heard his voice from the entrance.
“Good fucking mornin’, sunshine!”
She turned instinctually. Vernon was screaming in his face, but he was just laughing.
John Bender.
As she watched, he turned towards their hallway, despite Vernon practically steaming behind him.
She pretended to be very interested in what was in her locker. There actually wasn’t that much interesting stuff in there: just a few spare coats that she’d bought earlier on in the winter after her parents had an argument about snow tires, her bag of gym clothes, a makeup bag that just had the basics (concealer, lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow, blush, eyeliner), and a few extra pairs of shoes to change into if she wasn’t feeling the pair she came to school with. Nothing like a glass elephant or a flare gun.
God , why couldn’t she just--
It certainly didn’t help when she felt someone fluff her hair from the back. No one from her circle dared touch her hair.
She spun around to confront who she already knew had done it. He had the smirk on his face, the same one he’d worn when he was making fun of Vernon Saturday morning. She didn’t think that that smirk would be turned on her so soon.
Her friends were all staring at her, staring at them both, so she glared at him. She tried to use the same glare she’d reserved for him at the beginning of their detention, or at any time before then, but she wasn’t sure how well she pulled it off.
Then she saw the diamond stud earring in his ear.
Before she could even comprehend what that might mean, he threw his hands up and walked away.
“Oh my god, he is such a perv! Can you believe him?!” one of her friends squealed indignantly.
“I can’t believe he actually dared to touch you!”
“That prick. He should just smoke himself to death already.”
“Yeah totally! It would make every girl’s life here easier, not having to worry about him looking up our skirts!”
“I need to fix my hair,” she muttered distractedly. She began looking in her purse for a hairbrush she knew wasn’t there. Her friends would gladly supply her with one of theirs though, as soon as they thought their precious Claire was in trouble. They’d always lent her stuff when she asked for it: eyeliner when she was bored of her current selection and wanted to try something new, a certain shade of eyeshadow when she realized she’d left her palette at home, new curlers that she hadn’t had the chance to go out and buy yet. Between them and her father, she was never left wanting.
‘ God, you’re so conceited, Claire! You’re so conceited and you don’t even realize it!’
She shook off the memory.
“Looks like I left my brush at home--”
“I’ve got one you can use!” chorused her girls.
She went about ‘fixing’ her hair in the small mirror attached to the back of her locker, another present from her dad.
It was Monday. She was just another girl to Bender.
Claire sighed.
Bender walked to his first-period class. Then, he walked right past it and kicked the door to the men’s room open.
Instantly he was greeted by the dry aroma of weed fumes. Smoke hung in the air, twirling where it was disturbed by the door swinging open. He could barely see the fact that the window was shut, keeping it all in.
His friends greeted him with variations of ‘Hey Bender’, such as the lovely, ‘How’s it going fuckface’, and ‘Welcome to the circus, you clown’. At least no one called him worthless, unlike some other times he walked through doors that he could remember. Recently, too.
He took a seat in a urinal. No one used this bathroom anyway, ever since it became known that he and his friends hung out in there. Every once and so often, an unsuspecting freshman or a forgetful nerd would walk in there and they’d have some fun. That hadn’t happened in weeks though.
“Hey, anyone got some extra grass?” He asked as he finished off the blunt he’d come in with.
“Why, where’d the last pack I sold you go?” One of his friends questioned even as he fished around in his bag for some.
“Brian Johnson’s pants,” he murmured.
“Huh? Speak up fucker,”
“Nothing,” he said, louder this time. “Just wasted it on some hopeless sons of bitches, that’s all.”
“Shame,” his friend remarked as he handed Bender another pack in exchange for some of Bender’s crumpled bills.
“Real shame,” the other said.
They rolled through the first period like that, chilling in their bathroom. Andrew f-ing Clark may have been King of the school, a star athlete, revered by all twerps, but Bender and his friends ruled this room. They had a deal with Carl not to clean their graffiti from the walls, and none of the teachers ever used dinky student bathrooms. That was what the teachers' lounge was for.
That gave Bender an idea.
“Hey fellas, watch the place for a minute. I’ve gotta go take a leak,” he declared and stood up.
“What are you talking about? There’s other urinals in the back if you need to piss,” one said.
Bender gave them a wink.
“The den of the beasts calls my name,” he said, and without explaining, he backed out of the bathroom.
It was the middle of the second period, so he had the hallway to himself. He whistled idly, hands in his pockets. It echoed down the hallway. So did his footsteps. But no one really cared anyway. It was just typical Bender.
He jumped up and smacked the exit sign at the end of the hallway, landing with a triumphant cheer.
To get to the teacher’s lounge, he had to sneak past the gym, the nurse's office, and finally, the library. He could hear absolutely nothing happening inside when he passed it. No smoking, no singing, no dancing. Basically, no fun. The library had been transformed back to its normal bland self.
So why did he want to look inside?
He shook off the stupid thought. He had a goal: piss in the teachers' private bathroom. Maybe he’d get caught, maybe he wouldn’t. But that was the fun of it.
Staking out the location of the lounge, he saw no one come or go for about three minutes, and he advanced to the door.
Pressing his ear up against it, he couldn’t hear any conversations. Teachers loved to talk, so if there wasn’t any noise, it meant there weren’t any teachers in the lounge. Still, when he opened the door, he opened it cautiously.
He was right. There wasn’t a single teacher in sight. He slipped inside and made a beeline for the door that was marked for the bathroom in the corner.
He did exactly what he came to do. And when he was done, just to create a bit of inconvenience and disgust, he refrained from flushing.
Walking back into the empty lounge, part of him wanted to flop down on the plush couches and just fall asleep. God knows he hadn’t gotten much sleep the past weekend. They were so comfortable looking too…but he didn’t really want to spend two and a half months of Saturdays with Principal Vermin in detention. Especially without the rest of his friends.
…
Not friends. Fuckers. All of them, for going right back to the way it was before. Even Claire. Especially Claire. Queen Bitch.
He stormed out of the lounges, pursued by his thoughts, not really caring whether or not someone saw him. No one did. He was incredibly lucky he didn’t get caught.
Fuck.
Everything was going perfectly for him so far this week, and yet it was all so perfectly awful.
It figured that when he got back to his bathroom, there was an intruder. His friends were already taking care of the poor nerdy shmuck who’d stumbled through the door and eagerly invited Bender to join.
It was Monday. He hated the world.
Bender sighed.
Brian settled down in his seat for the first period. He set his book bag down at his feet and rummaged around to take out a notebook and a pencil. He set those on his desk. First period was Physics, and he had to make sure he was ready for the lesson, so he took to perusing his notes from the last class. As he studied, he began absentmindedly bouncing his leg up and down, up and down. His mother said it was a bad habit and it was distracting, so he only did it at school. No one truly minded at school.
The first-period bell rang, and his teacher began the class. Sounds of the chalk scratching against the board could be heard as he wrote out their warm-up equation for them.
“You know the drill, five minutes and then we see who got it right,” he said and sat down behind his desk.
Brian scribbled down the equation and began to puzzle through it, biting gently on his pencil eraser as he did. He was typically very good at these. Then again, he was typically very good at everything. Except shop class and glass elephants.
He shook his head. He needed to focus, or else he wouldn’t get this problem solved in time. It didn’t count for anything other than participation, but his reputation in the class was that he always got it right. If he couldn’t live up to that, what was the point?
Just focus, Brian , he told himself, like that would help. He stared at the equation, took a chunk out of his eraser with his teeth, and accidentally swallowed it, feeling sweat collect in his armpits. He could do this. He could do this .
He did. He finished the equation with what he knew to be the correct answer just before his teacher called time, his voice booming throughout the classroom. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. That was another thing his mother told him to do whenever he held his silverware a little to tight at the dinner table. She seemed to have a lot of good advice on how to stop his little quirks, but never any explanation as to why they happened in the first place. None of Brian’s friends had ever expressed feeling the way he did whenever they had a test or when they were called upon in class. He always had the correct answers and he knew that, but some part of him still wanted to run and hide whenever too much attention was put on him.
Like now. He raised his hand when their teacher asked if anyone had the correct answer, praying that his deodorant would hold at least past lunch.
He got it right. He knew it .
The rest of the class was a blur of problem-solving and applications, all of which Brian recorded religiously in his trusty notebook. He’d go home today and open it to the first page of the day’s notes and he’d review them all again, to make sure he was prepared for the next day. He’d been doing this as long as he could remember. Just him and his lamp, studying the day away.
…
When was the last time he’d had genuine fun?
That was the thought that plagued his mind as he left that class with the bell, but he already knew the answer. It was on Saturday when he’d been running through the halls with the thrill of possibility running through his veins. Looking down the hallway now, he had the weird urge to start sprinting down it again, shoving other students out of his way as he ran just to get somewhere, anywhere.
His friends were waiting for him at the end of the hallway though, all of them in the same “uniform” as him with sweaters and perfectly pressed pants. They smiled at him, waving him over, so he went to them.
They walked to biology together, sharing ideas for robotics projects and new physics theories they’d read in their monthly magazines over the weekend. Brian had tried to read that same magazine on Sunday, but his head had still been spinning with adventure. He couldn’t focus on the theoretical.
The end of the hallway looked more and more appealing. He could cover it in five seconds max, he knew from experience.
He really had all the answers, but nothing to do with them. No one from Saturday had even looked his way all day. He’d seen Claire and Andrew sitting together in the parking lot. He’d heard whispers of what Bender had done in the main entrance that morning. The only one he hadn’t seen was--
“Allison!” he called, and she pulled her head out of her notebook. He could barely see her face through her bangs, but he could see her smile and wave at him.
“Hi!” she squeaked, which Brian barely caught but smiled anyway because at least there was someone who would acknowledge his presence. Allison didn’t dare to join their gaggle of nerds, but Brian knew that was a lot to ask of anyone outside of their group, especially Allison, who wasn’t used to it. They continued walking, but Brian was left feeling lighter than he had seconds ago.
“Did…did you just say hello to Allison Reynolds?” one of his friends asked.
“How the heck do you know Allison Reynolds?!” another cried.
Brian shrugged.
“We had detention together on Saturday. She’s actually pretty cool once you get to know her.”
“No way.”
“I totally forgot you got detention man. How did that happen?”
“A flare gun went off in my locker,” he said nonchalantly, but he was beginning to sweat.
“Why’d you have a flare gun in your locker?”
‘Why did you have a flare gun in your locker, Brian?’ Andrew echoed in his mind. A picture of him, looking not condemning like Brian had expected him to look at the news, but worried and understanding, rose to the surface as well.
They’d all subverted his expectations by the end of that day but had all snapped right back into their routine as soon as their alarm clocks went off.
He looked at his friends. They’d never understand. Not the same way Andrew did, with a knowing look that Brian knew meant he’d considered his father’s pistol on a few occasions himself. Not the same way Bender did, with a look that Brian knew meant he’d had his finger on the trigger before.
“I wanted to show one of my teachers,” he lied. “You know, when we were talking about combustion the other week. It made me think of the reaction that flare guns have. So I brought it in.”
He didn’t tell them how he’d also brought it with him into a bathroom one day, shaking and crying after the next shop class where he had to face he’d got an F. He didn’t tell them how he’d sat with his feet up on the rim of a toilet, gun clutched between his trembling hands, and had squeezed the damn trigger.
It hadn’t gone off then. He was damn lucky it hadn’t, too, because then he wouldn’t have met the people who made him reconsider.
This was what he thought about throughout all of second period. Andrew, Claire, Allison, Bender--the four who’d looked at him and seen not the nerdy kid who went of Physics Club, but Brian Johnson, in all of his weird glory. He’d seen them all too, or at least he thought he had. They’d shown him a part of themselves that wasn’t ever on display, and he guessed he had to be grateful for that. Even if they’d fallen back to their old ways once the new week started. And on that too--he wasn’t exactly baring an olive branch to the three outliers himself. He was a hypocrite. So he guessed too that he could forgive them for going back. As much as it hurt.
When the bell rang for third period, Brian was unexpectedly yanked into a bathroom in the science wing by one of his friends during the passing time.
As soon as he was inside, they started asking,
“Do you have a spare shirt with you? In your locker?”
“Why?” he asked.
“They got Ted,” his friend said as he led them both towards the stalls.
“Who got Ted? What?” Brian asked again, and that was when one of the stall doors opened to reveal Ted himself.
His sweater was soaked right through, hanging from his frame like a wet rag. It looked as though--before it had been doused in whatever liquid it was doused in--it had been burned in tiny dots all over. It looked like a twisted art piece.
“Bender and his crew,” Ted spat, tears streaming down his face. “I accidentally walked into their hideout and now look at me! What am I supposed to do Brian? I can’t just leave , I have a Trigonometry test this block!”
Brian’s stomach lurched. What happened to his friend was terrible, but the fact that he wasn’t surprised it was Bender who did it was even worse. What was worst of all, however, was that Brian saw himself in Ted’s eyes. His terrified eyes.
He started to yank his sweater off.
“Here, take mine,” he said as he struggled to pull it over his head.
“...W-what?” Ted stuttered. Their other friend looked just as surprised.
“Take the damn sweater and go to Trig. I just have Computer Engineering next, and Mr. Fezzwold is too old to notice if I’m late because I run to my locker to grab my gym shirt.”
“But…what if you get dress-coded?” Ted asked tears stopping seemingly due to sheer surprise.
The cool draft from the bathrooms ran across Brian’s bare skin. He hadn’t worn an undershirt that day because it was a warmer one.
“It’s fine, I can handle it,” he said. He dumped his sweater in Ted’s lap. “Take it! Go!”
Without knowing what else to do, Ted hastily switched his wet one for Brian’s. When he was done, he looked to Brian as if waiting for him to say something more. But the bell was set to ring any minute, so he, and then their other friend, quickly left for their next class.
The bell rang, and Brian was still in the empty bathroom. He waited until he knew the stragglers would be gone, and then waited for the teachers who waited for the stragglers to go back into their classrooms. There wouldn’t be any hall monitors where he was quite yet, so he left the bathroom shirtless and started making his way to his locker.
He was faced with an empty, long hallway.
Brian smiled and started to run.
His sneakers slapped against the linoleum beneath him, singular and lonely compared to the cacophony that he’d heard on Saturday during detention, but still far better than being confined to standing still. The stale air of school seemed to change for a moment, becoming fresh air that caressed his face and rejuvenated his spirits.
Eventually, however, he made it to the end of the hallway and had to slow. His locker was just around the corner, but he looked back at the hallway he’d just traversed and felt a small smile come naturally to his face.
He changed and raced to class, pulling the door shut behind him with adrenaline still pumping through his veins. Everyone except Mr. Fezzwold stared at him, some with looks of surprise.
Without saying a word, he took his seat and took out his notebook and pen.
It was Monday. He was changed, even if the rest of the Breakfast Club wasn’t. But he still had to sit through Engineering.
Brian sighed.
Allison was at school half an hour early. It was because she had walked to school and didn’t want to be late, and she’d walked to school because walking was better than being ignored by her parents over breakfast.
Her book bag swung at her side, full of her black makeup, notebooks, various mismatching pens, and random bits of paper with scribbled writings on them. Sometimes she fancied herself a poet. Sometimes she didn’t. Today was one of those days, and she resented the crumbled pieces of paper in her bag.
So it goes , she thought to herself, and kicked a rock.
She waited on campus, leaning against a brick wall and making random sketches in her notebook until the janitor Carl came and unlocked the doors. Then she waltzed through the halls until she found a spot mostly out of the way where she could sit and watch people go by.
People started filtering in slowly, then quicker as it got closer to first bell. She sketched people at their lockers, scrappy side profiles and etched expressions. She drew the lockers too, with all the shadows cast by the overhead lights and by students. Then she stopped. She was tired of drawing.
She was still not interested in drawing when she got to first-period art class and sat in the back biting her nails. Her teacher was laid back when it came to her relationship with creation. She understood that sometimes she couldn’t create at the same level she normally did, and she understood that sometimes all Allison wanted to do was make stuff. So she let her huddle in the back and simply exist.
Allison’s day, if she was perfectly honest, was fairly boring. She zoned out and daydreamed for most of her classes. She mostly dreamed of fantasy characters or what she would do with her life if she wasn’t stuck with her parents and wasn’t stuck in school. She thought of all the places she’d go, and new people she’d meet.
There was one person that she wanted to keep out of her daydreams, but couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried.
Andrew.
She had known of him for years but had never known him until Saturday, so in that sense, he was a whole new person to her. She hadn’t even had to leave her town.
She was equal parts thankful and hateful for having the idea to go to that Saturday detention. Because now she knew what it was like to be understood and to be examined as though she were a precious jewel and not a piece of lint. She knew how it felt to be the object of genuine concern. She knew the feel of a boy’s lips…
The likelihood of that happening again was slim to none.
She hadn’t seen Andrew yet that day, but she knew what she’d be met with: nothing.
The bell rang, and she sped out into the hallway clutching her notebook to her chest. She determined that if she saw Andrew, she would just pretend like she didn’t know him. It would be easy. She would save herself from some embarrassment.
That was when someone called her name.
“Allison!”
For a split second, she thought it was Andrew. Her heart leaped, and her head snapped up. But no--it was Brian.
Still, it was better than what she’d told herself to expect for the day.
“Hi!” she squeaked. Her mouth quirked up into a genuine smile, a foreign thing on her face.
He smiled at her too, and she knew that if nothing else, she had gained a friend in Brian. They passed each other without further comment, but Allison continued smiling all the way down the hall.
That was until she saw Andrew for real.
All her determination to act indifferent and unbothered went out the window at the sight of his face. It was like time slowed down in that one hallway.
He hadn’t seen her yet. He was smiling. She thought he had a sweet smile. It was one of the parts of him that hadn’t been warped by his father. He was wearing jeans and a white vest over a blue shirt. He looked…well, the more Allison looked, the more his smile seemed strained. It didn’t reach his eyes.
Then, he saw her. He met her gaze, and his smile slipped.
She tore herself away and practically ran the rest of the way down the hallway.
Not good, not good, not good , she thought. She slid into her next classroom, rushed to the back, and flopped into her seat, immediately resting her head on her desk. Why did I do that? Why did I look for so long?
Gently, she thumped her head on her desk. Stupid, stupid, stupid . Staring at him wasn’t going to make him magically join her in her outcastery. In fact, it would only serve to widen the gap between them. No doubt his friends were harping on her now, the weirdo who’d dared to glance at their precious Jock.
Eventually, after class had started and she had sufficiently wasted in self-pity, she picked her head up and started taking note of what was happening. Kids looked at her because they always did, but she ignored them like she always did.
…
Andrew .
He crept into her mind again. She shook her head. Fuck him for making her actually focus on school because he wouldn’t get out of her daydreams.
The board got boring after a few minutes though, so her eyes wandered to the door, and the small glass pane set within it. Through it, she could see the majority of the hallway and the hallway that joined it. Somehow, that was more interesting than class, so she continued to stare at it. She started listening less to her teacher and more to the narrative inside her head and slipped into daydreams, free of Andrew for once.
Then she saw the weirdest thing:
Brian . Creeping down the hallway, eyes darting this way and that.
And, he didn’t have a shirt on.
That alone was weird enough, but his shiftiness and the way he sped down the hall half-crouched after a few moments of peeking around the corner was even weirder. That wasn’t the Brian that everyone saw with his hand raised first in class, or flinching away from footballs. That was the Brian she knew , who ran through the halls and laughed in Bender’s sunglasses and got high on weed.
She laughed, clear and loud. Everyone turned to her. The teacher stopped talking and glared at her. But she didn’t care.
Brian, you loveable nerd , she thought. She giggled some more.
It was Monday. She would be okay, no matter how much her thoughts of Andrew said otherwise.
Allison sighed.