Hey, I'm back!
So, I recently found out about Project Beautiful on tumblr, and decided to write a one-shot for it. It will vary in couples, but Kick friendship and Kim/Milton/Jack friendshrip will be the main ones, and I feel really weird when I put more than two characters on description thing, so that's why they're are only two.
I hope you guys like this, because this idea was just thought of randomly during my classes when I was supposed to be paying attention for a quiz!
I just want to say a quick thank you to AlphaBetaSoup, because it was their tumblr that I came across this on. Please check out Alpha's contribuation to Project Beautiful if you haven't already.
:)
Kim Crawford was a straight A student. She worked hard in all her classes, got along with her teachers and peers, and had a solid in for her dream college of Columbia with her extra curricular activities and boat loads of classes.
Clearly, an essay wasn't supposed to be her worst enemy.
Yet, she sat at her desk, her signature death glare trained on the two blank sheets of notebook paper, cursing Mondays.
Or, more specifically, what her AP English teacher had said that Monday morning.
"Class, I want to know: who is your hero?"
Then he promptly assigned them a five page essay that was supposed to answer this very question.
Sitting back she let out a melodramatic sigh. Back in middle school, this kind of question would have been easy. She would have scrambled to write down her parents name, or if she had been feeling particularly religious, Jesus or God.
But this wasn't some dinky sixth grade paper that her teacher would assign for an equally dinky five or ten points. Mr. Elkheart had mentioned that this essay had been decided by the school district to be filed away until a student turned in their college applications, and then would be given to said college with the application.
"Careful, Kimmy, or your face could freeze that way."
Kim looked up to see her father standing in the doorway, donning a very masculine floral apron and sky blue oven mitts.
She let out a laugh at his appearance. "Love the look, Dad. Is it new?"
He rolled her eyes, and motioned for her to follow him downstairs for dinner. She trailed behind him, a mental list of wise-cracks at his lovely new housewife-for-men look as they came into the dining room. Her mother and little sister were already seated, quietly discussing something in low tones as Kim and her father sat down.
Upon noticing their presence, Mrs. Crawford looked up from her youngest daughter to see her eldest already digging into the pot roast and mashed potatoes, scooping some onto her plate and eagerly beginning to dig in.
"So, Kimberly, how was school today?" she politely asked.
Kim couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Mom, it's Kim. Just Kim."
"So, Just Kim," her dad cut in. the tension between Kim and her mother was already too thick, and that dinner didin't need to make it any worse. "Anything exciting happen at school today?"
Kim shrugged offhandedly. "Nothing much - I got an assignment in English that has to be due by next Monday. That's about it."
After pulling off his oven mitts, Mr. Crawford snapped his fingers, as if suddenly remembering something. "Oh, that reminds me, Kimmy, your principle called. He wants to see you tomorrow morning in his office before first period."
Kim looked up from her plate, staring at her dad with a mouthful of warm potatoes and gravy. "Why?" She asked while swallowing, catching her mother's disapproving look. "Did he say anything?"
"Just that you shouldn't be worried and that the meeting will be short."
Throughout the rest of dinner, Kim idly listened as her parents and Chloe jumped in to conversation about some boy in Chloe's art class. Normally she would have been laughing along and inputting whatever thought she had on her sister's silly antics in school, but her father's informative comment about her principle bugged her. What could Principle Owens want to see her about?
Later that night, after Kim had changed for bed - leaving her blank essay papers on her desk to mock her throughout the night - her essay and meeting with the principle bounced around in her head.
The cheerleaders weren't planning anything, and Rudy had hardly given thought to getting around and talking to the school board about advertising the Wasabi Warriors around school like he had promised a week ago, so what else could it have been?
Kim exhaled loudly, rolling onto her side and glaring at her wall until she fell into a fitful sleep.
: : :
"Ah, Miss Crawford, do come in!"
Kim had only been in Principle Owens' office two other times before that Tuesdays, and both had to give something to him from one of her teachers.
Nervously she sat in one of the overly plush chairs across his desk, wiping her clammy palms on her jeans and blowing an askew lock of blonde hair from her face.
"What's this about, Principle Owens?" she asked nervously, sitting up straight and trying her hardest to avoid meeting his eye. There was something about talking with a teacher that gave her the creeps to the third degree.
"Oh, yes, I do believe I forgot to mention to your father what this little chat would be about," the man mused, his gray-white mustache twitching as he did so. "Me and my scattered brain."
Principle Owens shuffled through the thick piles of papers that covered the surface of his desk, muttering to himself as he did so. Kim distracted herself by focusing on the reflection of the light fixture above them as it dimly bounced off his name plate.
"Ah, yes, yes, here it is!" he chimed jubilantly, sticking a paper under her nose.
Kim, startled, jumped and took it from him, skimming it over as he rearranged everything back to its state of orderly chaos.
"Seaford High's Fall Fest Bullying Campaign?" she read aloud, looking up at him in wonder. "Principle Owens, not to be rude or anything, but you've been announcing this through morning announcements all month; I already know about it."
He nodded, now looking more serious - or as serious as a man with caterpillar eyebrows and a dancing mustache could be, Kim thought to herself. "Then, you are aware of how the school board wants us to find mentors for the more...socially challenged kids?"
Slowly, Kim nodded and set the flyer down in her lap.
"Well, Miss Crawford," he continued on a much more casual note, "after a long reviewing over several worthy students, the faculty and I have decided that you would be the perfect mentor for one of your peers!"
Kim looked at him with wide, frantic eyes.
It wasn't that she didn't want to help, but how was she supposed to play someone else's hero when she couldn't even write an essay on hers?
"Oh, don't worry," Principle Owens said before she could protest, "you will be paired up with another worthy student to help a kid in need. You won't be on your own in this."
Kim leaned back in the chair, feeling a dreadful feeling creep up in her stomach. "Great," she weakly managed to say, because what else could you say in a situation like this? "Have you figured out who I - we'll - be helping yet?"
Principle Owens gave her a cheerful smile. "I believe the lad's name is Milton Krupnick."
: : :
Luckily, Mr. Elkheart had given them the entire seventy-minute block of class time to work on their hero essay. Kim sat in the back of the classroom at her desk, nervously tapping her pencil to the beat of the ticking clock and worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
Milton Krupnick was one of those kids that everybody somehow knew of. Everyone knew him because he was top in all his classes, would probably go on to become president or one day find the cure for cancer. Sure, he was a bit nerdy, but also seemed to carry himself well enough. How had he won to honor of having her as a mentor?
Principle Owens hadn't said much about why he had been on the list, except for that, "his teachers are concerned about his lack of activity with his classmates," and left her with that as he shooed her from his office.
She hadn't even gotten the name of her supposed partner on this.
Kim sighed heavily then looked at her painfully blank paper with a grimace. How was she supposed to know who her hero was? Kim had always been the type to save herself, never purposely leaning on someone else even if it meant dragging herself through hell. But putting herself and writing about how "oh so amazing" she was would just come across as selfish and sloppy, killing any chance of a decent grade.
Despite planning never having been a thing she did with her works, Kim put the tip of her pencil against the paper and scratched in "Plan" at the top of her paper and began a five-numbered list of potential people she could right about; although these people really didn't hold any potential, she was desperate for something to have instead of an empty paper glaring up at her.
Mom
Dad
Rudy
Coach Mills
Gabby Douglas
Kim reread her work with another dissatisfied sigh. The only name she actually considered was Gabby Douglas, because she was an admirable person. She had won medals, accomplished a goal with what she loved - that was something that Kim wanted to do someday.
But this hero should be personal, someone they could connect with on a higher level than just the same passion, or goal, even though goals were a good topic to base an essay on -
Kim jumped at hearing the shrillness of the bell, scrambling to gather her things. She stuffed her books and folders into her bag and hurried to join the straggling students as they dashed out of the room.
She dragged her feet. After their five minute passing time, Kim would have study hall, which she would spend sulking between the stacks of the school library, hoping that some magical God above would strike her with a bolt of brilliance for her paper. No matter how stupid the idea sounded.
Kim was in such a rush as she climbed down the stairs, she almost missed the grunts coming from below her.
Fortunately, it was just almost.
Kim stopped in her tracks, scrunching her eyebrows in confusion. When it came again, she followed the noise over the railing on the stairs, catching a flash of ginger and freckles as a lanky body dressed in a blue sweater vest was roughly jerked between three guys in football jerseys, then thrown to the ground.
She felt her mouth open, felt the bubbling shriek of outrage rising from her chest to spill from her lips, but another voice beat her to it.
"Hey! What the hell do you guys think you're doing?"
Kim closed her mouth in shock, her grip on her books becoming tighter as she held them to her chest and watched Jerry Martinez, the school's biggest class comedian, yank the back of an especially beefy football player and stare him down with a glare.
"Aye, stay out of this Martinez," he said gruffly, shaking out of the slightly smaller guy's grip.
Jerry's look hardened, sending tiny waves of shock through Kim as she silently watched the scene unfold before her. Never in her all her life had she'd seen Jerry Martinez wear such a grave expression. It was kind of scary, looking at it in her shoes.
"Just back off, Riley," Jerry said, pushing his way through the trio of jocks to give the boy on the ground a hand up. "Hey, you all right man?"
The ginger nodded, ducking his head and muttering a barely audible thank you as the jocks muttered and sulked away, furious that there little beat up session had been ruined.
Kim swallowed, keeping Jerry and the boy in her sights as they slipped around the corner in the direction of the nurse's office.
Kim Crawford didn't know much about Jerry Martinez, even though they have been attending the Bobby Wasabi dojo together since middle school. She knew that he was dancer; she knew that he was more focused when things involved food or girls; and everyone knew that school wasn't something that he took seriously.
But Kim didn't know that Jerry Martinez would help someone like Milton Krupnick when they were in trouble.
Especially when it was supposed to be her job, not his.
: : : :
Through the rest of her day, Kim spent her classes and lunch hour in a distracted haze, nodding and saying all the right things in all the right places, but never really paying attention.
But as Kim disposed of her things in her locker and slung her bag over her shoulder, nerves began to eat away at her stomach. She closed her locker and headed for the library, where Principle Owens had said her partner in crime would be, waiting to take strategy and go about this.
Kim found his choice of the word strategy mildly insulting - they were dealing a person and their emotions, not the opposing team in a football game.
When she arrived, the library was mostly vacant, except for a few studying students and the ladies behind the desk.
She parked herself at a table near the entrance and began gnawing her lip. One of these days she was going to chew right through her lip until her teeth met, and she would be left with nothing to occupy herself in nerve-wracking times like this.
"You're Kim Crawford, right?"
For the second time that day, Kim jumped in surprise, a strangled noise flying from her throat as she turned and gave the boy behind her a narrow eyed stare.
"Who wants to know?" she whispered in a brisk tone.
The guy looked a little taken aback by her tone, but seemed to brush it off easily enough. "I'm Jack Brewer; Principle Owens said I would meet my mentor partner here?"
Reluctantly, Kim took his offered hand and gave it a firm shake, before letting go and allowing him to slide into the chair across from her.
"Brewer," she mused quietly, running that name through her mental list with scrunched eyebrows. "I don't think I've heard that name around school before - are you new?"
Jack shrugged, shaking his shaggy hair as if to make it fall out of his line of vision. It stayed, stubborn. "Not really, I transferred last week. I'm one to keep under the radar."
Kim nodded, leaving a pause of silence between them so she could absorb this information before they fell onto the topic at hand.
"So, Milton Krupnick," Kim began in a no-nonsense tone, straightening her posture, "what do you know about him?"
Jack squinted, staring over her shoulder in thought. "I think he's in my AP History class. He sits in the front, seems to know everything, but doesn't really raise his hand or anything. We might have the same study hall. Tall ginger with freckles, right?"
Kim nodded, mildly impressed. This guy seemed observant, which saved her the time of launching into full detail on Milton.
"You wanna know something sad?" Kim said, in a tone that implied it was humorous and sad at the same time. "We've been going to the same school since elementary and I can only say something similar to what you just told me."
"Well, why don't we start before high school?" Jack asked, leaning back and quietly beginning to tap his fingers. "There's gotta be a back story somewhere in there; and it's not like we can walk right up to him and ask if some tragedy happened in his life. For one, it's rude, and secondly, it won't get us any farther than where we stand at the moment."
Kim nodded in agreement, slowly releasing her bottom lip from her teeth as it had begun to grow numb from her incessantly nibbling.
"We were in second and fourth grade together," she recalled after a moment of shifting through her memories. "He seemed...sadder, somehow in fourth grade then he did in second."
"Did his mom or dad split or die in third grade?" Jack suggested quietly as one of the lady volunteers passed by with a menacing look aimed at them. "Did you here anything like that?"
Kim shrugged, shaking her head. "Nah." Seaford was pretty public with that kind of information; if a mom or dad or some family member or close friend died, it only took days for the news to spread and the town to pity who ever was affected.
"A close friend moved away?" Jack tried again.
Kim blinked, a realization dawning on her. "Actually, he really didn't have many friends," she said, sounding a bit stunned as she did so. "He mostly hung out with this girl Julie when she moved here in the sixth grade; I think they even dated once during freshman year, but it didn't last long."
"Wait, wait, wait," Jack interject a little more loudly than he need to, electing a very rude look from a passing librarian. "You mean to tell he didn't have a single friend before the sixth grade?"
Reluctantly, Kim nodded. "Yup, sounds about right."
Jack slumped back against his chair, looking at the blonde sullenly across the desk. "This may be harder than we thought."
: : : :
The next day Kim nervously sat an empty table near the cafeteria doors, mentally recalling a list of all the things that were currently making her out of her mind.
There was the fact that she had been signed up to be friends with a guy who had spent most of his life friendless. Who were they to force him into a social circle? If Kim had it her way, she would be in less of one.
And let's not forget the very, very important English paper that hadn't been written yet but was due in five days. That had to be three papers long, minimum.
Just as she was about to sneak away (not that many students had filtered into the room yet), she caught a spot of ginger hair and pale hands trying to discreetly make his way to lunch line without being seen.
"Milton!" Kim called, standing. "Over here!"
His head snapped up. "What are you doing?" he hissed, quickly making his way to her table.
Her greeting had already gathered the attention of a few nearby students, who were beginning to murmur as Kim looked up at the lanky boy with raised eyebrows. "Well, aren't you a charmer?" she bit back, trying her best to maintain the sarcasm.
"What do you want?" Milton asked, looking annoyed as she motioned for him to sit down with her. "I'm already too busy with the basketball team's homework to do a cheerleader's."
Kim puckered her lips, her features pinching up like she just swallowed something sour. "Well, believe it or not, bub, we're friends now, so you're gonna have to cut it back on the 'tude."
Milton recoiled at this, looking at her with an appalled look. "Friends?" he repeated doubtfully. "And what's with the sudden interest in nerds?"
Kim shrugged, picking at a crouton in her salad without meeting his eyes. "I'm just trying to venture beyond my circle; a miniskirt and pom poms won't get me around forever."
They left it at that. Kim watched from the corner of her eye as he picked at a hang thread on his sleeve. She fidgeted in her seat, setting down her fork because she wasn't hungry, and picking it up again because it gave her something to do.
Kim began letting her eyes bounce around the room as time rolled on dreadfully slow. The lunch line gradually grew slower and the gathered noise of clanking red trays and several voices grew louder.
She caught sight of the walls and gave a sigh.
Oh, right. The dance.
"Are you going to the April formal?" Kim asked, once again trying to launch him into conversation.
Milton looked up from the table top to one of the many posters plastered on the walls. "Uhm, dates and dances aren't really my thing," he muttered. Not once did his eyes meet hers.
Kim leaned forward and crossed her arms on her table. She wasn't into dances anymore herself, but apparently she would be discriminating her people if she didn't go, as Grace had put it when she expressed her feelings toward dances that morning.
"Dances are a right of passage for people like us, Kim."
People like us.
Kim mulled over this. She wasn't sure what she was anymore.
When lunch ended, the relief was evident on both of their faces, giving brief glances towards one another before splitting off in separate directions.
Kim couldn't arrive to her locker fast enough, opening it with a bang and fumbling with her hands as she hurried to collect her books and get to her class on time.
Once her locker banged closed, and she was poised on her heel, ready to turn and spin towards the stairs for her next lesson, when her pocket vibrated. She frowned at this; usually, none of her friends text her during passing time, too busy sucking face to see their phone screen.
Meet me on the steps after school.
-J
: : : :
Jack and Jerry were huddled together in front of the school by the time Kim sped outside, clearly in deep conversation.
"...Yeah, we've lived next door to each other our whole lives," Jerry was saying when Kim, slightly breathless, came to a stop at Jack's side.
"What's going on?" Kim asked wearily.
Jack turned to casually sling an arm over Kim and begin leading her away. "Thanks, man!"
"No problem!" Jerry called before dashing away to God-knows-where.
"What did you do?" Kim asked after roughly shrugging off his arm with a stony look.
Jack smirked, hiking his backpack further up his shoulder.
"I just did a little research on our friend Milton," he nonchalantly stated as they walked toward the parking lot. "Did you know that Jerry's parents have been friends with Milton's since they were our age?"
Kim drew her eyebrows together and looked up at him, puzzled. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Jerry's mom thinks of his parents like her own siblings," Jack continued, completely ignoring her. "But he says that she doesn't like the way Milton's treated at home."
Again, Kim's face scrunched up in confusion.
"Milton's gay," Jack finally revealed.
Kim froze dead in her tracks, looking at him appalled. "He's...what?"
"Yup, the dude like dudes."
Kim continued to stand on the sidewalk, trying to process this information through her head. Milton and gay. For some reason, they didn't calculate together, but did make sense about the sudden emotion change between third and fourth must have told his parents and not gotten the result he had been hoping for.
"Well," she said finally, hoisting her bag more onto her shoulder. "I guess it explains why he was so freaked when I mentioned the dance. He must not be willing to seal his cover-up with a girl date."
Jack began walking again, shrugging this off casually. "I wouldn't spend the night worrying about it, if I were you - besides, I already have it covered?"
"Oh, really?" Kim scoffed and disbelief. "And how, may I ask, did you manage to pull that off without giving him away?"
Jack merely shrugged again, an action that was getting on Kim's nerves quite quickly. "I had a volunteer."
: : : :
The rest of the week consisted of very little change for Kim. She still lacked of inspiration for her essay; each lunch spent with Milton Krupnick was more awkward than the last; and she still didn't know who Jack's so-called "volunteer" was.
She just hoped that for Milton's sake it was someone genuinely looking out for his best interest, and not some sicko that would only use his closet status to humiliate him later on.
Then again, Jack wouldn't be mentor if he was that vicious. But even with that in mind, Kim still found it very hard to read him with his casual manner of approaching everything and unruly shaggy hair.
The night of the April formal Kim nervously stood near the gymnasium doors, pulling at the hem of her peach dress and tapping her shiny nude colored ballet flats as she watched her friends and peers dance their hearts away around the dance floor. It was only thirteen minutes in and someone had already thrown up in a fake fern by a fire exit; obviously the punch was already too spiked to touch.
Kim bit at her glossy lips and cast a glance at her watch.
Fourteen minutes in and still no sign of Milton and his date.
"You really need to chill," a voice said from beside her.
Kim turned to glare at Jack as he calmly bobbed his head along to the fast beats of a Ke$ha song. "Where are they? I swear to God Brewer, if you set that boy up-"
"Cool it Crawfish," Jack cut her off, pointing to another set of doors that led out to the parking lot. "Here they're coming in right now."
Kim turned, and like he said, Milton and his date were coming through the opened doors, both dressed in jeans, plain shirts and jackets.
The blonde girl gave a surprised gasp. "His date is Jerry?"
"Yup," Jack nodded. "Apparently he doesn't like how Milton's dad goes on about how everything his son does is because he's gay. I swear, Milton's dad is a dick."
Kim watched as Jerry took a hesitant Milton's hand and lead him to the dance floor, the song switching from fast and upbeat to the slow melody of Rihanna's Stay.
It took a minute of watching Milton nervously wrap his arms around Jerry's waist and Jerry to take a hand and direct his eyes on his instead of his shoes, but Kim made an adoring noise as she clasped her hands.
"Aw, they are kinda cute," she said watching as Jerry led Milton around. She could swear she saw the ginger-headed boy smiling.
A hand appeared in front of her, a voice soon following. "You wanna dance?"
She looked up at Jack with raised eyebrows, but took his offered hand nonetheless. "Really?
Jack shrugged, leading her to the edge of swaying dancers. "Eh, why not? We're here aren't we."
Kim rolled her eyes at this, but tangled her arms around his neck and began to melt into following his lead, let her guided hips sway along to the music.
It took until the end of the song, after the topic was over and done with, but it finally caught up to her.
"What the hell do you mean by Crawfish, Brewer?"
: : : :
Two nights after the dance, it was late Sunday night when Kim Crawford did the impossible: sat at her desk and began to form words with her ballpoint pen for her essay.
It was after four bathroom breaks and a quick run for pretzels and a cup of coffee did she finally finish the damned paper, just as her digital clock clicked to two in the morning.
Satisfied with her hard work, and the last of her black coffee leaving her veins, Kim crawled into bed, eager to use the four hours before she had to get up for sleep.
: : : :
"Kim, may I speak with you for a minute?"
"What's up, Mr. Elkheart?" Kim asked her English teacher once she reached his desk. "Sorry if I was looking a woozy; I was working late last night."
He nodded, features arranged seriously as he picked her papers from his desk. "Yes, I can see this, Ms. Crawford."
Mr. Elkheart gestured to the desk facing him, which Kim gratefully leaned against, because even two cups of black coffee before school weren't fueling her for very long.
Her teacher arranged himself against his desk, his wire-rimmed glass slightly askrew on his nose as he looked down at her paper, rereading it again.
"Ms. Crawford," he began finally, holding Kim's attention as she looked at him with bated breath, "never in all of my career of teaching have I read a piece as phenomenal and idealistic as when I read yours this morning."
Kim released her breath in surprise. "You liked it?" she asked in a daze. "I'm sorry I didn't put names, but I'd hoped that the message had gone through -"
"Oh, no, Kim, I didn't mind that at all," her teacher insisted. "I'm quite aware that any names mentioned in this essay would have gone against all the sense of privacy you stand for, and I find that to be a truly admired quality. But this is not just a paper you've given me, Ms. Crawford. What you've turned in to me was a lesson you learned through the eyes of your judged peers, and for what you saw them deal with, and how they put up with it, that you chose them for your hero. And, really, that's all I can ever ask of my students."
Kim blinked, flabbergasted. Of all the things she expected her teacher to say, it hadn't been that. "You really think so?"
Mr. Elkheart nodded. "Believe me, Ms. Crawford, you don't know much of a relief your paper was after reading about how tiny celebrities in bikinis and tattoos were some people's heroes."
: : : :
What is a hero?
That's what I was asked, and after a long time, spent grinding this question to shreds and mentally tearing myself apart over it, I still hadn't come up with an answer.
That is, until I accidentally came upon in the oddest way.
Most of my high school life has been spent with cheerleaders and jocks, flying by on good grades and the superficial statuses that half the time came to the result it did because of the skin I wear - never once the mind inside my head.
For the first time in my life, I began to peel this away down to cruelty it really was.
Who are we as a high school society to judge someone by their skin or friends or life they seem to lead from a distance? Those things don't define the person; the only thing they define is the shallowness of the people who think with that plagued state of mind.
For a long time, I poisoned this way as well, wired to point and laugh at a girl's colored hair, or boy's glasses, or someone's sack lunch that had the crust cut off.
But last week, I had a wake up call.
It didn't take long for me just to sit back, think about a hero, and realize how belittled heroes are.
How belittled my hero was.
He was quite and alone, pushed people away and snapped whenever someone came close to touching his walls, but they had already cracked from the inside, by the people he depended on.
I sat and felt sorry for him, wishing I was on the inside too, to cure whatever thoughts those people threw at him, spitting at him for failure because the people he loved, who he would want to spend the rest of his life with.
One guy saw that the way I did, and spent his night proving that his alliance stood with with reality that a person can't be judged by who they love or what they wear, but who they are in the mind and soul.
For that, in its simplest reason, is why they are my heroes. They had the courage to do what I've never done - rised above the sickly advances of the high school status and cliques.
When will the rest of the world see that's what a hero is? A person that goes above and beyond, breaking through the barriers?
Yes, and finally, it's done.
This took forever, and the day is almost over, but boombam, it's done.
Reviews are cool.